I know I have been naive - big shock when opening the post today

But that would only work for the first year surely?

Otherwise if you can't draw the money out, you're still effectively paying £1100 a year to get a £120 bill paid for you?

You'd have to stop at some point, to use up the credit?

H is taking my car as much as possible when I'm away from home, I have a company fuel card and I pay tax on it so I can use it for personal use, so we're making the most of it because we couldn't afford for H to be filling his car two or three times a week. I can't believe the price of fuel at the moment. Our food bills seem to be through the roof, even though I'm barely home. I haven't checked out gas and leccy account for ages, I don't thin k I want to. The only reason we're not really finding it more difficult at the moment is we managed to remortgage before they pulled all the good rates, my brother and his fiancee unfortunately weren't so lucky and I know how much they are struggling at the moment.

We have really noticed this as well recently. It's more food that we were shocked by, we are buying the same things as we always did and it just seems to be going up and up every week. We are having to cut back more and more on what we buy in our weekly shop and we're hardly filling up with luxury items.

We're dreading our utility bills as well. We both earn good salaries and we are struggling a bit with our mortgage shooting up as we're out of our fixed rate, plus petrol etc. We can't even cut down on petrol as H has to have a car for work and is travelling all over the place - I don't think the mileage even covers the cost of petrol anymore, so we are losing money every month over that.

I can see why people are really struggling.

Me and OH have already resigned ourselves to spending another winter wrapped in a blanket because we can't afford heating. I think we're still in a relatively good position compared to some people on here though, reading your stories. Very grateful that our mortgage is fixed til 2011 but this financial climate is really putting a dampner on us starting a family.

A couple of months ago OH took a big flid and said he was taking over the shopping seeing as I was spending too much. Daft arse soon realised it was because of food prices going up not because I was getting carried away buying interesting things (I wish) and retreated back to looking for excuses not to help with the shopping.

We caught our energy supplier putting our DD up even though our energy usage was falling and the overall cost of our bills was falling as a result. They were looking for an extra £30 pcm which frankly is not possible with our current budget

We're having to look at everything differently, having chosen completely the wrong time (last autumn ) to stretch ourselves to a bigger house - a decision I think we're both too scared to admit to each other that we regret now. We've reviewed most of our bills and insurances to see what we really need and what we can manage without - some of it has been satisfying as we claw back needless expense and others have been frightening as we feel so vulnerable. Food and even toiletries seem so much more.

After an accident in November, I didn't drive and had no car for 6 months - I confess to holding my breath when I saw the dials on the petrol pump spin around when I filled up for the first time - a third more to fill up than before the accident.

Trying to keep the same choices for the kids is a daily challenge too.

I have been meaning to change our supplier for ages but never get round to it for one reason or another... anyway bill before last our gas was £4 in credit and our electric was £251 in credit so they reduced our dd to £18 a month, great I thought! Last bill was £357 in debit so they increased our DD again to £100 a month!! I dont undertsnad how we could possibly have used so much I really cant figure it out and neither can H but you spend on hour on hold to NPower and cant get through to question it!!

Our mortgage fixed rate ends in Octoer, and currently fixed at 4.6 and the best deal we have seen so far is 6.05 so a massive increase there as well.

Yup it's tighter than a gnat's chuff here. Not helped by me getting sacked just before I found out I was pregnant. I've not worked since 23rd may (bloody morning sickness scuppered that one) and don't start my new job until July 1st. My new job is £2k less pa than my last one but is 25miles nearer home so I'm hoping that will balance out.

No SMP for me, just MA and now we can't afford for me to be off the full year. <sigh>

We shop at Lidl/Aldi/Netto, cook from scratch as much as possible, are growing veggies (not ready to eat yet tho <impatient face> and sit wrapped in blankets rather than put the heating on.

We're redoing the bathroom atm but can't afford a professional. All the sanitaryware, taps etc were bought on sale and H has been doing the plumbing himself.

Unfortunately this led to me crashing through the bathroom floor into the kitchen at the weekend (don't ask!) so we've learnt a hard lesson that we're both crap at DIY ?

I suppose we're trying to live within our means but it's a bit bloody hard when inflation is spirally upwards and wages haven't risen to match it.

its so hard at the moment, every time i think i may be ok financially, i get a bill, i am up the pole with one debtor and that causes me a bit of grief, i just think i have solved it, and it all goes wrong again. I was planing on clearing the huge amount of debt by selling the house, but thatlooks unlikely for the forseeable.

And i know everyione has let it drop, but the few posts on here have made me cross. I hate guilt trippers.

We are totally skint at the moment as well. MrB is a self employed kitchen fitter and he has never been without work for more than two weeks in the 15 years he has been working in that trade until recently. He lately is struggling to get work and has only worked 2 week in the last 7 weeks, people just havent got the money for such 'luxuries' like new kitchens at the moment.

I drive like an OAP in the car trying to make the fuel last longer. I have to payt to get through a tunnel every day and have been raiding the copper jar daily to pay for it ?.

Up until a few months ago we always used to manage get away for the weekend at least once a month but we went away this weekend for the first time in 6 months. Realistically we didn't really have the spare cash but were so desperate for a night away we went for it anyway.

We have started to shop in Aldi and seem to be saving cash with that.

Our mortgage is due for renewal in August. I've had a financial advisor look for a deal but because we need to go self cert he cant get us anything. That means the mortgage is going to to go up by £100 per month.

Pfft, I wonder when things will start to improve ? Probably when we have all had our homes taken from us !

We have noticed it with food in particular - I've had to take meal planning seriously (I always used to start with good intentions but give up half way through the week and go shopping again).

I do a big monthly shop and then get fresh things weekly as needed. My monthly shop with Tesco had gone up from approx £80 to £125 and that's with H only being home for the weekends.

Last month I went to Aldi and got the majority of what I normally buy for £75. I'll be stickeing with Aldo for the foreseeable future.

I had the same with Atlantic Energy. When I did get through they worked out my yearly usage, divided it by 12 and we came to a reasonable figure we were both happy with. I'm sure that's what'll happen with you, when you get through.

I have just been reading through all the posts and I'm sorry and embarassed to admit that I found it a bit reassuring to know that everyone appears to be in the same boat as I am. I have never been fantastic with money but had just managed to get rid of store cards and my o/ds at the end of the year when I was plunged into an even worse state as my OH lost his job in January. Despite applying for everything under the sun he had tremendous difficulty getting something else, even part time or temporary and although he passed an interview for a new job in March his start date only came through last week for next Monday.

We have been unable to live off my pay for the last six months and I had to swallow alot of pride and ask my parents for help. Luckily for me they were able to help out here and there but many's a night I have been wallowing in self pity and feeling almost resentful to those who have seemed to not be bothered by financial worries.

We cut back on absolutely everything (have internet at home for work purposes mainly) and I have become very resourceful with Tesco value mince....... I don't think I will ever touch it once everything sorts itself out.

What on earth can possibly happen to sort this all out though?

Defintely can understand where you are coming from. Changed electric suppliers in December, and has defintely helped a bit, but prices are still going up. Spent £150 on a spring quarter bill (march-june) which is a lot for us.

Did food shopping today, and this time 2 years ago an average weekly shop for the 2 of us and our pets was £35, now its £50 ?

We are very lucky we have 9 years to go on our fixed rate mortgage, and we don't have anything on credit cards now, but I am being made redundant at the end of August so on desperate hunt for new job.

I am another who worries constantly about the rising cost of living. Our gas/electricity is astronomical and when the mortgage fixed deal ends next Jan that will go up even more. I have started food shopping in Iceland and Aldi to try and reduce bills, this time last year I would wander round Tesco and throw anything into the trolley I fancied - definitely don't do that anymore....

I hate the phrase 'tighten your belts' which a lot of media are using atm in response to some peoples really quite desperate situations in some cases. It's such a fippant and rather patronising remark - like 'oh, just eat less and it'll be ok' Grrrr.

Where i live THEY have just introduced a 3% Goods and Services Tax. It's a total nightmare. Its on every single item, not on the till, so everything is just rounded up to the nearest ten in many cases - sometimes more. It's just NOT 3% ever. All the shops and services are profiteerig wildly at a time when people are really least able to afford it. It pisses me right off. Even our school canteen hiked its prices 10% instead of 3. Bastards.

Do you think a lot of retailers/petrol stations etc are taking advantage of the whole price hike thing and puttng up prices higher than necessary and using the poor economy as an excuse ?

Oh and whilst were on, I think the press are doing a damn good job of talking the country into a 'summer of discontent'. They would bloosdy love it.

It is really scary - we were lucky that we started the process of taking out a new mortgage in January (although we only completed yesterday!!) Thankfully because we were paying Northern Rock standard rate already our new mortgage is actually going down by quite a lot but I feel so much for the people that have to remortgage now. We took out a tracker which seemed an excellent idea at the time but we may live to regret soon!

Have just had a letter from eon saying that they are putting our monthly DD to £61 which seems a lot for two people - was thinking about price fixing but still not sure if it is the right way to go (am always suspicious when companies off things like this taht they might be screwing us over)

I had planned to sit down today and look at all our outgoings - more to see whether we need to add more money to the joint account rather than for savings but am concerned now that it is going to be a lot scarier than I thought!!

We have noticed the price increases as well, particularly on utilities, diesel and food, all items that it is quite hard to cut back on.

Typically as well it has happened just as I am on maternity leave so our income decreased at the same time. We had already budgeted to 'tighten our belts' (I also hate that phrase!) for the maternity leave so there is a limited amount we can now cut out and we don't really go out at the moment due to the sprog as well.

We do have some savings to cover the shortfall but we are going through them quicker than we would want to. At the moment we are actually able to spend less on our mortgage as the main amount is on a tracker so it has gone down £60 since we got it out in October, however that £60 goes very quickly when you account for the other rises so we are no better off.