LttF's Dairy... 2009 here I come, ready or not!!

TurnaroundSue

Hi LTTF - £25 per day:eek: . Would it not be cheaper to take the car to work, even for this week only. Or could you work from home/phone in and explain about your MIL and see if they will give you some compassionate time off so then at least you wouldn't have to worry about the cost of getting to work and it will give you some time to de-stress.

Hoping that your MIL will return to good health very shortly. Keep us posted and let us know how you manage with travel this week.

Well done on reading those letters and sorting it out - that is a step in the right direction and showing that it is better to tackle things head on rather than putting your head back in the sand :j

looktothefuture

Hi Sue

Unfortunatly, no I couldn't drive into work - I live in Essex and work in London and my car is not the most economical on petrol! :mad: Plus I just don't have the money for the extra petrol!

Thanks for the well wishes for my MIL. She went into hospital 2 weeks ago tomorrow with suspected fluid around her heart and her lungs, by Tuesday her kidneys had failed and was put immediatly onto dialysis and put into a medically induced coma to help her body cope. Unfortunatly, she's now relying more and more on the ventilator to breath and doing less on her own! She's also contracted MRSA while she's been in hospital! Things aren't looking good for her at the moment!

I honestly just couldn't sleep knowing that those letters were down stairs and they needed attention! I'm doing a whole lot better when it comes to facing up to the debt I'm in!:T Clever me!

TurnaroundSue

It sounds to me as if you need a few days off work, so maybe you could phone in sick with stress or ask for compassionate - your MIL seems to be really poorly and it must be a worry on top of everything else.

Take care:grouphug:

halight

Hi,
Keep up the good work and stay strong in your fight with debt

looktothefuture

Right so there was the dilemma yesterday of having very little money until thursday and having to get to work for the rest of the week ... soooooo I did a bit of research on the internet last night and came up with an ingenious plan!

Why pay £25.50 a day for a national rail ticket from my home station (Plus parking of £4.50) and having to change at Liverpool street to get a tube to embankment which makes my travel time approx 1 1/2 when I can drive 15 minutes down the road (ok so I'll use more petrol but it'll work out cheaper anyway), park for £6.00 a day and use my oyster card for max £6.60 a day and stay on 1 train for 1 hour!???? Stoooopid me or what? :rolleyes: Not only will I be saving money, I also save 15 - 20 minutes off my travel time!

So my MSD IS today... I saved £17.40 so far! :T

I also topped up my breakfast box for work with Porridge, it makes you fuller for longer and it's healthier than that cheese and ham croissant I've been so tempted to buy (but resisting since I did the Demotivator!) on my walk to work! Lunch is sorted. I buy 5 rolls for £1.00 twice a week and a colleague buys the bits to go in the rolls (he actually got the short end of the stick) - so voila, lunch! I'd make it at home but I have a tiny problem - I'm a bit funny about making sandwiches the night before incase they go soggy - I will be sick!

I'm using the boards on MoneySaving Old Style to come up some lurvly dishes which are not only cheap but using up the almost out of date/will never eat because I bought on a whim food from my store cupboard :T.

I've been working hard on coming up with a workable and friendly budget, and I've been watching those pennies in my purse to make sure I don't over spend un-necessarily.

looktothefuture

I've been thinking about ways to get my hands on about £2000.00 fast and I've come up with an idea. I worked for a company from August '07 to February '08 and it was a considerable amount of money £1740.00 a month. One day, just before pay day, he walked in and announced that he couldn't pay us at the end of the month and to go home immediatly. This I did, knowing only too well that a cheque from a customer would be in to him in a few days.

I was out of pocket on my salary so therefore this is where my trouble started! I couldn't pay the rent, electric, gas, water or council tax and I struggled to scrape together any money I could as we'd rececently moved (January!) and used all our saving on our deposit for our rented house!

Do you think I could take him to court? It's almost a year ago now but would it still be possible?? He owes me that money!

looktothefuture

:rolleyes: hmmmm so today I'm planning on spending max £16.00 - I need to buy milk to make macaroni cheese for dinner - yes from scratch! And I need to get a few bits for the cat like nibbles and litter and put in a tenner for petrol when I get to my home station where my car is parked (I will not be getting home otherwise!) - if I'm clever I should just be able to manage it! :T

I'm going to try a new strategy this week when I get paid... I'm going to withdraw all the money in my account, excluding what is expected to come out in DD's and then split the money up into jars for home expences including groceries, travel for the week including parking, rent, debt management, petrol, blah blah blah and see how I get on with managing what I have. I reckon if I SEE the money in the jars adding up each week and going to whatever they are for then I'll appreciate what I've got and what I don't! It might be a shocker but hey, I'm trying something new and if it works, all's good... if not I'll try another route! This is a learning curve and I've got to get the curve going!:rolleyes:

looktothefuture

Right so today I wanted to spend max £16.00 and I've done it with change to spare!:j I spent £5.50 on cigarettes and £6.00 on parking! So that's a saving of £5.50!:T

Tomorrow though, I have to put in at least £5.00 petrol or I certainly won't get to the station, I will need £6.00 for parking and £1.50 for lunch, and I need to top up my Oyster Card with £5.00 as I'll run out of credit on my way home . So my budget for tomorrow is £17.50!

Heard from my Great-Aunt this evening - it's been a while that I last spoke to her and it was great talking to her. I miss her but talking to her reminds me of my Gramma (her sister) who passed away in Jan this year. They are sound so alike on the telephone I just can't bear to say goodbye! I always land up in tears after I've spoken to her! There is definately signs that my Gramma is watching over us at the moment - especially since my MIL has been so ill! Maybe she's protecting my MIL? :rolleyes: Anyhoo, as I was saying, Great Aunt will be sending me a little birthday pressie for next week.... (I turn 30 but ssshhhh :lipsrseal dont tell anyone!) and I know that I can at the very least can expect some vouchers for New Look or Next and can possibly put that toward the cost of new winter coat (Mine is really looking tatty!!). or new scarf as I lost mine at the hospital last week!:j

Now MIL is in hospital and is very very ill. She's still critical but making good slow progress in the right direction. She was semi-awake and a bit more lucid this evening when we went to see her - they've dropped her sedation alot but will keep it up because they did a tracheotomy today so they could remove her breathing tube as it was distressing her! We even got a few beautiful smiles from her when we were talking to her about our day! It is so good to see her smile and know that we come every night to visit! It's been a very long fortnight and juggling work around the evening visits has been hard! She'll be in hospital for a long time still, so we just need to be patient!

Night night Diary!

TurnaroundSue

looktothefuture wrote: »

I've been thinking about ways to get my hands on about £2000.00 fast and I've come up with an idea. I worked for a company from August '07 to February '08 and it was a considerable amount of money £1740.00 a month. One day, just before pay day, he walked in and announced that he couldn't pay us at the end of the month and to go home immediatly. This I did, knowing only too well that a cheque from a customer would be in to him in a few days.

I was out of pocket on my salary so therefore this is where my trouble started! I couldn't pay the rent, electric, gas, water or council tax and I struggled to scrape together any money I could as we'd rececently moved (January!) and used all our saving on our deposit for our rented house!

Do you think I could take him to court? It's almost a year ago now but would it still be possible?? He owes me that money!

Hi LTTF, there's no harm in finding out whether you can get the money from him. Not sure of the time limit, but maybe if you went to citizen's advice they would be able to point you in the right direction and see what you are entitled to.

With regards to the envelopes, when I first started my budgeting a few years ago, I would do that. It really worked and made me think twice before I spent any money. Seeing it in real terms and spending real cash did make it harder for me to spend and made it easier to budget. I say go for it and if it doesn't work, like you say, try another route.

Good luck - you are doing really well and well done on saving all that money on a daily basis - fab:j

looktothefuture

Whao what a day! It's been non stop go go go! Work has been extremely busy but I got through it! Thank goodness!

My spending diary has not been too bad today! Petrol - MondeoPetrol£5.31ParkingParking£6.00CigarettesCigarettes£2.50Oyster Top-upTravel£5.00BreadBread -BP£0.99 total today:£19.80

Not too shabby hey?

Went to see my MIL tonight at the hospital and it was sooo good to see her awake properly. She's got the tracteotomy in so she can't talk so understanding her was vv difficult! It was just so good to see her looking a little more like herself!:T