Live on £4000 for a year - part 4 (Oct - Dec 2008)

bails

Hi all, I was thinking of getting tickets to a London show for a Christmas pressie - they are £27.50 each but through the site they cost £80 for two! Does anyone know the cheapest way to get tickets like this please? (I don't have a cashback card as I cant get one at mo). Thanks a lot.
Whitewing, I still have my eye on that spiral staircase, despite no longer needing it. I have visions of building a house to fit its dimensions :rotfl:
Vets was free - don't say that very often, do you? - so that's made my day. Ah, the simple things...
Oh, and the lovely boy from Bristol who I've mentioned before just phoned and took much delight in telling me he'd found some old letters from me He kept them though didn't he?

redglass_2

Hello, Bails, who is this lovely boy from Bristol? I think I missed it when you mentioned him before.

Nyk, thanks for the info. I had a look at the plastic storage box but it's very like one I bought last year from B&Q that turned out to be too feeble to hold the logs - once bitten, twice shy. Wood and metal from now on....I am still aching from stacking up the logs two days ago.

I'm getting lots of spam from Oilyhand, offering me incredible amounts of 'easy' cashback, but when I click through the offers are never as good as they seem at first sight. :mad: Has anyone else found this?

bails

Hi Redglass, he's a certain young man I used to work with about 8 years ago and was smitten with Hmm, perhaps I mentioned him on another thread (BB? ). Anyhoo, it was a long time ago - 'we had a shall we, shant we?' time which lasted ooh, about til I met OH 3 years ago :rotfl:
Off to the charity shops again today in search of more presents (for other people, Bails) and then meet OH in his lunch break.
Have a great afternoon everyone, hope the sun's shining where you are x
ps do you think if I waited I'd be able to get tickets for the theatre on the day? It'd be a Monday in January. Is it worth it or should I book?

Marru

Hello everybody,

I am here doing everything else than my college work. Slap wrists.

Bails, you might want to try this. I used them once for musical tickets and it worked really well.

I am aiming for a NSD today except I will take DD for Halloween party this evening so might need to spend some money there. And now, no more excuses and head down in books and word documents....

From sunny (but cold) south,

Marru

Frugaldom

Bails, Can't help with the tickets, sorry, but can suggest what I think I would do if I needed some. I'd call the theatre for actual prices then compare that with what I could get them for through the ticket sites like ticketmaster Then I would g00gle 'win tickets to.... whatever' and attempt all the competitions I could before parting with cash.

Redglass, I get the oilyhand emails as well, plus I hate the !points ones that never let you progress with the surveys (I'm nearly always ineligible) and I have also noticed just how many of the points sites have reduced their points values. I thought points were like pennies, they are nowhere near worth a penny when you start researchng and comparing prices, so I think it's a case of make the most of whatever we can while it's still available.

Marru

Oooh, postman has just been and brought couple of parcels for DD from her dad and one from her godmother. And L1ttlew00ds bingo sent me a toy duck :rotfl:. Perfect, one more pressie to wrap for DD. :T I don't know which one of us is more excited, me or DD... Yes I know, I know...I should be working...

whitewing

I am really, really, really angry. I have got a 'Notice Warning of Legal Proceedings' thro today from Tax Credits. This relates to some stuff from a number of years ago. They have not contacted me regarding this matter for over 15 months. Or for over a year before that. I tried to deal with it but couldn't understand it. I asked for copies of all correspondence on the matter got sent one or two bits and pieces but not everything that they said they'd sent me. I got very confused and passed it over to my accountant, who wrote back to me last summer, but it coincided with deaths in my family and the house move so I lost track of it all. Can't at the moment find my accountants' letter.

Biggest problem is that I don't know how they came to the amount they did (approx £1100). Every time I ring them, they give me different figures.

I hate tax credits so much. This makes me want to cancel my existing claim because there is absolutely no point in claiming it if you can't be confident that it's right. I am so angry, and tearful now.

And I do not know what to do.

Marru

Whitewing,

Task 1: Breeth deeply in and out for few times
Task 2: Go and make a cup of tea
Task 3: Drink the tea made in task 2
Task 4: Call/email your accountat, she/he should still have copies of all the documents
Task 5: Call tax credits and ask to speak to superviser/manager and explain them the whole story
Task 6: Report back here.

andromache_2

oohh, whitewing, what a pain I've always thought that the way tax credits are calculated is monumentally stupid and then maladministration puts people like you into an even worse position. Just imagine the amount of money which is wasted in mess-ups like this! *hugs* while you sort it out, which I know you will. Keep us posted.

I just spent £1 on a Hoxton hotel room or to be precise 50p since OH will be paying his share, lol. I had given up but there was an IT glitch meaning that rooms were still available even though I was just idly trying dates without really expecting them to work. So woohoo!! OH and I went there for our anniversary in April (also £1!) and have some really nice memories of it so it will be a fab Christmas treat I'm feeling very lucky to have managed to get a room both times I've tried.

I get cheap theatre tickets by queueing up at random times to get £5 student tickets or by getting them on the day at a discount but neither of those is appropriate if you want to get them as a gift... good luck with finding a way to get them at a good price, bails, I'd think that was a great present

Off to work, essay deadline 5pm :eek:

Happy Friday everyone xxx

Frugaldom

OUCH! Sending my sympathy and support to whitewing! I have heard so many horrible stories about the tax credits office, both my DD and my sister found themselves in situations that they had been wrongly paid and then had to pay back the money. I made a claim but am scared to spend it, just in case the same thing happens! (But I did claim my free lightbulbs!) I'd do everything Marru suggests and try not to worry about it. If they decide it has to go back, then fair enough, it has to go back. But if it took them several years to fathom it all out, then it could take you the same length of time again to pay it back by small installments. It's a disgrace that this happens. They wouldn't even deduct my DD's overpayment from her re-assessed claim, she had to wait for the tax credit to arrive in her bank and then send repayments. Different offices or departments or something like that! Crazy! You will get this sorted out, whitewing, it's just one of those things that always seems to get dropped from a great height whenever winter arrives!