Jo_R's debt-free diary, slow and steady progress!

Jo_R_2

Well no baking got done this afternoon but used up eggs with tea so that's one little thing to mentally cross off the list!

Need to phone up ex and ask about the maintenance money. Not good on the phone anyway but feel awkward asking for the money, but have to because we need it. DD1 got letter for school trip - £12:eek: which need to pay in the next week. Balancing scarily on the edge of the overdraft which not happy about, I really don't want to get into that again!

Reminds me - just going to go and ask OH in a min about if he can transfer any of the previous two weeks' shopping money - not holding my breath as I mentioned earlier, as I know he's short but is part of the reason I am too!

Bought a rug for baby's room over the weekend on the spur of the moment - £29.98 which would otherwise be okay but given the current lack of fundage I might just take back and get a refund, it's unopened so unused so shouldn't be a problem.

Oh and checked with nursery about earlier mornings for DD2 - would be £3.30 per morning which was way more than I thought! The secretary suggested maybe one or two mornings might be a good halfway so thinking about it and playing about with totals per week. Might even suggest going halves with ex if it comes to that though don't relish asking him.

beanielou

I know you dont want to ask ex but you should.
Will you go to the CSA if you dont get the main payments sorted out then?

Jo_R_2

Spoke to ex.

I won't go into all the gory details but suffice to say that's a months' worth of maintenance I won't be seeing.

It's a bit convoluted but to do with some things he bought for DDs because I hadn't and is taking it 'out' of the money he would have paid me.

I won't say I necessarily agree; I can see his point but I wouldn't have done it the same way, plus a big gripe about it is that he didn't let me know at the time when he bought the things that that was his thinking (about 3/4 weeks ago ish) and didn't bother to tell me until I had to chase him about it today - ie nearly halfway into the month.

I now have the choice of either nagging OH for the money from shopping (as mentioned in previous posts) or cutting my losses and assessing the situation, then transferring some money from savings to cover any shortfall. Luckily, all of my DDs have now gone out, so the shortfall covers cash payments (ie money for DD1's school milk and trip and DD2's nursery snack and lunch money, plus my personal bits and bobs, then mobile phone top up which pay via debit card.)

Looks like maternity clothes will have to wait until next month - that ought to be fun!

Jo_R_2

beanielou wrote: »

I know you dont want to ask ex but you should.
Will you go to the CSA if you dont get the main payments sorted out then?

It's a private arrangement we've had for a couple of years. I was just so pleased to get some contribution from him that I agreed the figure he suggested, which is based on what he said he earned then. I highly suspect the reality is that he earns a couple of grand more - ie if I went through the CSA I certainly wouldn't lose out.

I don't think I would do this though because I am aware it could be seen as an 'aggressive' move on my part when things are generally fairly settled if that makes sense?

beanielou

Jo_R wrote: »

It's a private arrangement we've had for a couple of years. I was just so pleased to get some contribution from him that I agreed the figure he suggested, which is based on what he said he earned then. I highly suspect the reality is that he earns a couple of grand more - ie if I went through the CSA I certainly wouldn't lose out.

I don't think I would do this though because I am aware it could be seen as an 'aggressive' move on my part when things are generally fairly settled if that makes sense?

I know onlt too well what you mean.Gah.
Will pop that in the post but wont be til next week.

SAHMto2boys

Grrr, sounds a right pain with your Ex. It must be hard not wanting to upset everything when its normally working for you but what a nightmare just holding back the payment.

I know its not the best option but at least you 'borrow' from the savings and muddle through till next payday. Have you tried Ebay for your maternity stuff - I got most of mine from there and am re-selling a lot of it too. Sorry I think I've overlooked it but when are you due? xx

Jo_R_2

Thanks Lou, much appreciated! x

SAHMto2boys wrote: »

Grrr, sounds a right pain with your Ex. It must be hard not wanting to upset everything when its normally working for you but what a nightmare just holding back the payment.

I know its not the best option but at least you 'borrow' from the savings and muddle through till next payday. Have you tried Ebay for your maternity stuff - I got most of mine from there and am re-selling a lot of it too. Sorry I think I've overlooked it but when are you due? xx

Yes have been browsing Ebay but not bought anything yet apart from a couple of pairs of maternity jeans which have come in handy, along with a maternity t-shirt from when I had DS. Tbh jeans and t-shirt isn't really my style so I feel a bit casual, I much prefer dresses teamed up with cardis, however even my 'normal' dresses are starting to show the strain!

I do have a maternity dress but OH says I look years older wearing it, and tbh I can see what he means, I've kinda gone off it!

I'm due end of September/start of October, so am 24 weeks-ish now with a belly that's definitely not hiding itself!

Also remembered I budgeted for diesel for car so am out of pocket for that. The rug I bought for DS's room which I was going to return, I found rolled out on DS's bedroom floor earlier just before bedtime, realised I hadn't mentioned it to OH so can't really return it now.

Going to get SOA out and see what I'm looking at a la what I need as a minimum for the rest of the month. I have the Health in Pregnancy Grant coming up which I can claim for at the end of the month after I next see my midwife but want to get through on as little as poss.

Also forgot to mention got 5.91 paid through Quidco at the start of the week which has been transferred onto my cc, bringing the total down from 1040.02 last month to 1010.11 along with my minimum monthly DD. Should break the 1k barrier next month - alas I don't think it will be this month which I had hoped for. Nevermind - a temporary setback.

Jo_R_2

Okay, so according to my SOA (and my memory - not to be 100% relied on!), here is what I need for the rest of the month:

Mobile phone: 10
Petrol/diesel: 80
Other child related expenses: 20 (milk money/snack money/etc)
Personal: 15 (tights, moisturiser, hair dye)
PLUS
DD1 school trip: 12
DD2 nursery fullday from before half-term: 20

TOTAL = 157

:eek:

Now, I can probably negotiate on diesel (though wouldn't be fair for OH to have to pay the whole whack when some of it is for DDs going to my parents), and I know the milk money etc is probably a bit less if I work it out exactly (I worked it out for a full month but realised after that DD2 has a couple of inset days which reduce how much I need to pay nursery.) I could also probably get away with not topping up.

What I don't want to do is not transfer enough so will go with the full amount then can whittle it down if I need to. On the other hand, I don't want to give myself too much room to play (oh I'll just put in an extra 10/20/30 pounds 'just in case':eek:) So I'm going to put in £10 on top for pin money to cover bits and pieces.

I also am aware that I *should* have an extra child benefit payment sometime soon - need to dig out my diary.

Jo_R_2

Quickly has just become apparent the 'extra' child benefit payment has been swallowed up by the extra shopping I paid for, plus a couple of extra payments I made in the last week.

Feel completely disorganised - I wish I'd kept track more precisely of what I/we were spending as this could have been avoided and we could be looking at near enough £200 surplus to play with.

Also feel very cross that I have to dig out that extra from the previous post from the savings.

However, looking on the positive side, it's gone towards constructive things (ie food), I know exactly where it's gone, we have the money aside to be able to deal with it, and by the end of the month, financially things will be down to zero then up again with my monthly payments to exactly what I am dealing with re: income on my SOA, so I will know exactly where we are.

And hopefully that will be a lesson to me to not be complacent:o

Jo_R_2

Also forgot to add yesterday...

Ex has offered to pay half towards putting DD2 into nursery an hour earlier every morning.

There was some concern because I am having to take her there after taking DD1 to school, and because both school and nursery start at 9am, after walking up to nursery (which is a separate nursery about 20/25 mins walk away), she is missing out on group time and they are finding that the friendship groups that start together, continue to play together for the rest of the morning and she is finding it difficult to break into these groups.

I have just worked out half of the cost and it appears to come to 39.60 so I will add that to the aforementioned £157 plus £10 pin money which makes 206.60 to transfer which I will do now...

Done.