LittleMissKitty's DFW adventure

LittleMissKitty

So here I am :hello: I recently came across this site and it's totally changed my attitude to money. According to the SOA I did when I first joined I should have had approximately £800 SPARE a month and yet we were lucky if we were finishing as well as we'd started! We haven't seen the black for about 2 years and were reasonably comfortable there until last month when DH got told he was being made redundant - and today's his last day - I've got to stop playing around with money now and start some serious work if we're gonna keep the house and still feed ourselves. :eek:

So being the beginning of the month I thought it was a good time to jump in with both feet. Started the month with a NSD and sold £250's worth of stuff on ebay, 25 more listings ending this week. Bill day today so 90% of the DD's have gone out, wrapped and posted the ebay items, I got DH to fill up the car on his way home and I'm taking out £300 to do this months food and petrol. £50 budgetted for pressies too (Mum, daughter, best-friend and Goddaughter all in one month!) We sent off the paperwork for DH's study-costs grant which means £250 should arrive in the bank account soon. The redundancy pay is currently earmarked to pay off the OD then all my effort is going to have to go towards NOT slipping back into the red

Tomorrow is signing on. I'm waiting for a statement from tax-credits to see what we're entitled to on my meagre part-time wage and once that's arrived and we have the JSA figures I'll apply for Council-tax benefit and healthy start vouchers and be able to do my new SOA. Frankly I'm terrified :rotfl:

Also, I know I'll never be able to keep up a spending diary so I'm using this blog instead to record my daily successes and failures. That way there's a couple of thousand people to kick me up the @rse if I screw up! :T

....here's hoping!

Kitty

beanielou

Hi & welcome to MSE!
Happy shiney new diary.
You seem very foccussed.
Keep posting!

brummiebabe

Welcome Kitty - sounds like you're getting your head round things!! Keep posting x

LittleMissKitty

Thanks for the replies guys, nice to know I'm not just talking to myself :beer: . So, today......

DH signed on via the internet and is now playing the waiting game for someone to get back to him, I hold out little hope so will be chasing them on Friday if we haven't heard by then. Chased up after a job interview from a fortnight ago, but the agent hasn't heard from the company yet - that'll be a 'no' then and should be hearing about some casual manual work after a meeting tomorrow, fingers crossed because there's a tonne of overtime and although it's something of a slide down the career ladder it's a job and that's better than no job!

I chased up tax credits but apparently they can't calculate it until today (1st day officially unemployed) and the new award notice will take a week or so to arrive. On the plus side I can phone tomorrow and they'll give me my figures so at least I can punch them into the new SOA without having to wait for the paperwork.
Walked the pre-school run today - no petrol day :T and a NSD too so a few little victories for the bank balance. Some of the ebay listings are selling well too, only small change but every penny counts and all that :j

Kitty

LittleMissKitty

Well yesterday we managed a NSD and that was about it. DH applied for about 9 jobs but no word yet from the casual manual job. Oooo yes, nearly forgot, the lady that runs pre-school had a spare space when we went to drop DD off and took DS1 in for a free session!:j So we only had the baby, t'was very strange and very quiet, no worries about his settling in session come July, he loved every minute of it. Only one accident as well and only because he was over excited - looks like we can well and truely wipe big nappies off the shopping bill. :T

Sold another handful of things on ebay which I shall send off on Friday (next spend day) and got some more stuff down from the attic to get listed a.s.a.p. Also, got the statement through from tax credits and it was wrong :rolleyes: how I could possibly have expected different is beyond me but I'm now awaiting a new award notice which apparently has the correct details and means they owe us less money, now DH has been made redundant, than they would have had he still been working :rotfl: charming!

Today was meant to be a no petrol day but we were called in for jabs for DS2 and DD, only to arrive and be told they couldn't have them as they've recently had chickenpox (I did mention this on the phone.....) not impressed, 3 miles of petrol wasted for nothing plus DS2 is now 7 months and hasn't even had his second lot of jabs yet :mad: Oh well, DH's decided to go to boxing tonight so he'd have been using the car anyway. On the positive side of things the day started with a phonecall from the jobcentre to arrange DH's first signing on meeting. That's on Monday and I think I've cobbled together all the relevant information for him to take along. Got details through for my Alliance & Leicester premium account (£100 yeah, baby ) and closed two of my pointless building society accounts. Due a new mortgage payment schedule too as the BoE base rate's gone down again - 1.24% now

Kitty

LittleMissKitty

So much for a NSD yesterday, DH went and spent a couple of quid on a drink and a bite to eat at 9pm! I'll forgive him though - he only did it because he was really thirsty and hadn't bargained on being out so late, but he ended up in casualty after boxing because he'd broken his best friend's nose! The two of them really shouldn't be allowed to play together, they're a danger to themselves :rotfl:

Anyway, today the premium bond money came through but then I went to transfer it (and my maternity allowance) to DH's account and managed to mis-type the account number :eek: so now some complete stranger has £435 of our money sitting in their account and it's gonna take WEEKS to get it back. I have to go into branch tomorrow (6 mile drive) with 2 forms of ID and kindly request that they write to the person who's account it is and ask if they can re-claim the money from them. Of course I'm now terrified that the account holder will refuse and then I'm stuffed as it was my mistake in the first place!!! _pale_ Any advise?!

Food shop today so not a NSD, DH is out at the supermarket now with DD while I look after the boys, poor little things are really suffering with chicken pox. Won't be a cheap shop unfortunately as we need to get some drugs in (calpol's run dry) and also a present for my Goddaughters birthday on Sunday, it'll only be small but it all stacks up. Got some friends coming over tomorrow but they're bringing drinks :beer: and apparently won't need feeding which is a nice change! We've got a 5 gallon barrel of wine just about ready to bottle and a good 24 pints of the last batch of lager too so that should last a while :T, especially as I'm off alcohol for lent (aswell as chocolate, take-aways and anything remotely tastey :rotfl: ). Fingers crossed nothing else goes wrong before tomorrow...........

Kitty

Primula

Just popping in to say hello, and good luck. Have you thought about posting a SoA so all the experts can cast an eye over it and possibly, no probably make you some savings? I'm still a newbie here myself, but loving this site - gosh it keeps you motivated so keep posting.
P

LittleMissKitty

Ok, so I totally failed to update yesterday, had faaaar to much to do. DH had a medical first thing for the life insurance so after that we went to the bank which was bursting so they asked me to write down what'd happened and said they'd sort out the letter after closing, not 100% comfortable with that so I plan to call and chase up tomorrow to make sure it's been done.

Another spend day yesterday as DH forgot to pay for the boxing kit he'd ordered on Friday :doh: had to get the Goddaughters b'day pressie anyway so I can't blame him entirely (well, I can, he was the one that forgot her birthday present on Friday when he went shopping....) and just to add insult to injury he didn't eat before he went out this morning so he's pocketed £10 incase he gets hungry. Edit: Just came back and managed not to spend anything :T so we may well have another NSD today - handy because I spent the morning looking at cute baby clothes (my biggest weakness) and if he'd already failed a NSD then I was likely to join him in the splurge mood much improved now.

No plans for the rest of the day, got a bunch of ebay items ending tonight, beans on toast for dinner and will probably just sit and watch a DVD before bed. See you all tomorrow. :beer:

Kitty

LittleMissKitty

So today started with a phonecall from Nationwide to say that a customer had come in to branch and queried a deposit and told them to remove it so I got my money back minus all the letter writing hassle Transferred that into DH's account so the balance is looking mildly healthier.

DH went to his signing on meeting and ended up having to pay for parking as he didn't have time to park out of town and walk in :sad: so bang went the NSD. Consequently I ....um..... well, I kinda bought a babygro for DS2 but it's absolutely gorgeous and I don't regret it a bit . Figured I may aswell carry on in the same vein so I paid off the ebay account, bought a bunch of p&p gear for future sales, packaged up all the ebay stuff to send off and printed off the postage. Also organised for Parcelforce to come and collect my birth pool for a friend so that was quite expensive too! Total spend yesterday:

Parking: £2.90
Babygro: £16.49
Ebay: £18.70
Parcelforce: £21.99

TOTAL: £60.08 :eek:

Looks like today will also be a spend day as an e-cheque has cleared and I like to post out asap. Might start having posting 'days' detailled on my listings to save on spend days........ It seemed prudent to get everything we need in on the same day so I've bought Mums birthday and Mothers day presents and my best friends 25th present and I'm off to order some cards too. Tomorrow DH has to pay for his fencing and boxing lessons so that'll be a spend day too. This is definitely an eyeopener! Will try to get the food shopping done today or tomorrow which frees up Friday to be a NSD.

I was hoping to do my new SOA sometime soon but unfortunately we still haven't been told what JSA DH will be getting (I think it'll be £60.50) or whether we get council-tax benefit or had our new tax credits statement through so I have no clear idea of where we stand. It's not a nice place to be

Kitty

epsilondraconis

Nice to read your diary and see that things are coming along.

I too have previously made the mistake of typing in the incorrect account number when transferring money. Fortunately the account number I entered wasn't used and so it got bounced back within a couple of days. Since then I've always set up the instruction to transfer the money and initially just tranfer £1. The account details remain on our HSBC account and so can be used again. Once the £1 has been entered into the correct account, I transfer the remainder of the money.

Keep posting anyway.

Hope your husband find's work soon.

skysky69

When you fall off the wagon you do it so well! From a NSD to £60 less :rotfl: £16.49 on a babygro :eek: Was it gold plated? Tescos or Primark are definitely more value for money :money: :rotfl:

Can the other half do some temping warehouse work or anything just to keep you ticking over for a while. Or even working in a pub or a restaurant of an evening.

Its amazing when you write it all down, how much you actually do spend isn't it. Its an eyeopener!