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Ministrone soup. The best frugal soup ever! I mean, who ever uses up all the celery, cabbage and peppers. Add a potato, slightly bendy carrot and one of those soggy tomatoes that is past its roll around date...handfull of whatever pasta and tada...with a few extra flourishes from the spice cupboard you have a pan of comforting lovliness. I like it with a bit cheese in the bowl that sticks to the back of the spoon and has to be scraped of with the teeth!

agree, you need to be eagle eyed but it really is worthwhile taking the time to browse the aisles. This week I stocked up on litre fruit juice boxes...by comparing prices in the 2 biggies near me where they both had ' buy one get one free offers' on opposing brands...I now have my favorite juices providing me with 50% of my daily vitamin intake for the next 2 months at half price. Granted I had to visit the shop 4 times in order to be able to carry it all back, but hey, I am unemployed and didnt mind the exercise! On the subject of price comparing, I dont know about where you live, but here we get a load of adverts in the mail from supermarkets about what they will have on special offer over the coming weeks. Read meticulously...cross reference if necessary... before sending those annoying circulars to the papiermache box. build your meal plans for the coming few weeks around whats on offer if the deal is good ( beware, dont be sucked in by all the rubbish you dont use or need ), and try to make the meal plans work together so that you aren't left wondering if that half a bag of peppers will taste good blended with those bulkbuy cherry yoghurts!

mm, also wondered that. thanks.

update...they just wouldnt pay it...account was 7quid short...guess its good in a way as it means I dont go overdrawn....well more than i already am! FB_Addon_TelNo{ height:15px !important; white-space: nowrap !important; background-color: #0ff0ff;}

Do you mean the sig block in my Profile? if so just checked, there is nothing in it. Still stumped.

YAY GADS! this company is driving me absolutely up it! Phoned back today as agreed, the plan that I was offered last week is , according to the supervisor, no longer in operation...when asked he said that they no longer offer this kind of repayment plan as of yesterday! how very convenient. He insisted on offering me something else. All I want is to be able to actually pay this bill..pay off the money. They can help me by reducing the amount of interest and not adding any more charges ...but that is just my opinion, he apparently has no authority to do this ...but what he can do is offer me a probationary period of 2 months at 27GBPpayment with normal interest and normal charges ( 12GBP carried from last month for late payment) and then the following months at a reduced interest rate but no extra charges.. which means I accrue close to 200 in charges and interest on my account in those 2 months , so in this case...after the 6 month period ( that I was offered last week ) I will owe them 200 more than I do today. I, in my lack of understanding, fail to see how this helps me pay them the money that I owe. Can anyone offer enlightenment?

Am guessing this is some tech problem as I cant get rid of it. Check out the bottom of my post, this addon is appearing in my last 3 posts and is proving to be un-deletable. What is it and how do I tell it to " Bog-off!" ?

you mean Barclaycard from Barclays? According to my Barclaycard account nothing has changed...gonna call when I get the sleep out my eyes and the fifth cuppa down my neck! Re the parrachute account ...have no wages, no benefits etc being paid , but could do with another account simply for the sake of still having one, need one that i can apply for and run online as am currently 'of no fixed abode'...hmm, the options are narrowing by the letter! FB_Addon_TelNo{ height:15px !important; white-space: nowrap !important; background-color: #0ff0ff;}

so I have a barclaycard and, as explained in another thread, approached them last week over several reasons one of which was being unable to meet the current minimum payments, they said I needed to make the minimum this month then could arrange for a reduced payment for 6 months, they said I could let them know my decision by tomorrow. So, in the meantime I have tried to make the minimum payment for this month but my payment was declined by my bank. This is the first time the bank have refused to make a payment to my card. Co-incidentaly my debit -card account is with barclays. Is this a coincidence or do they contact each other when someone indicates a case of need. Do they do this? ( Although unable to check the bank account I was sure I had money in there to make this payment.) FB_Addon_TelNo{ height:15px !important; white-space: nowrap !important; background-color: #0ff0ff;}

yep, only payments to be added to this account in the last 18months is from ppi ( which they were supposed to remove last year and didnt) and interest, then more recently charges for exceeding the limit. they said can start by refunding this for the last 12 months...will wait for the proof before I count the chickens though....they still want the full whack for this month and for last months (missed payment)which they are still calculating on the basis that I was exceeding my limit and paying for the ppi. What I was wondering about though is, although I realise my credit history is already marred, I have more or less been attempting to keep up with minimum payments...so does accepting a plan do me damage in the long run re future banking options/lending/mortgage etc or is the odd missed payment actually more damaging. is an agreed plan a win win situ for me and the bank and I should jump at the chance? Frankly, getting credit was always an issue even though till last year I had always worked, payed my dues and had a healthily active account with the bank, so actually I think that thoughts on credit scores and rating are really sometimes a waste of grey matter anyway! But I would at somepoint maybe like to have my own home...and I dont mean when Im 90 and believe me the clock is ticking!

okay need something with internet banking primarily, and really only for bill paying purposes

lol, thats hilarious, laughing my socks off! You think anyone will notice that Im a novice??????? hahahahaha, nowt like a good laugh!

So the lady on the phone ( yes I phoned) said I should speak to their department that deals with helping people make payments, by reducing the interest rate for a stated period or accepting a much lower monthly repayment that normal. The lady in said department wasnt quite so open I felt. She wanted to know what I wanted them to accept, but seemed a little confused as to what she could offer me...she threw about terms like full settlement, partial reduction of interest , probationary periods but wasnt really very clear about anything, and when I asked about the implications for me if I went this route she was well and truly garbled. So I said I needed time to consider..but basicly I meant to find someone who could inform me a little better. I have a few days before payment is due to get a more clear understanding. Who can tell me anything about these arrangements ...or even what my options are for such arrangements? The debt is not enormous...under 3000, but big enough to be kicking my po, and I want this stress out of my life. I currently have no personal source of income and really nothing in the way of assets ( dont think holey socks count).

I know, the position is completely compromised by the time lapse...life is sometimes rubbish and you have to prioritise and to be honest, strange as it seems other things had to take priority over money at the time. Really what I want is something from the bank is acknowledgement that they failed to act to help me , that they denied me access to what was going on with my account ( they outrightly refused to tell me where the money had gone) and a thorough investigation and satisfactory explanation into how a mistake could occur. I am not expecting much more than that to be honest...although a little compensation for the sheer inconvenience of the immediate aftermath wouldnt go amiss and, in my much humbled opinion, is not really too much to expect for something which it seems to me was likely a banking error. The rest, as they say, is life! Thanks for the other info, all helps towards making this jumbled mess of finance into something way more tolerable.