Live on £4000 for a Year, 2009 Challenge, part 2

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!!
Hope you are all having a lovely weekend, esp Nyk and SM (think it might be SM's birthday too-what a lovely way for her to spend it).
Well Mr SFT is busy working this weekend. He should be home shortly. Took a while for me to get going this morning but got some good jobs done. My mum and dad came over this afternoon. Bless them, they pulled up hundred of weeds from our garden..another job done towards the move. Then mum and I popped down to Mr. T and I picked up some bargains...prawns, courgettes, garlic bread, ice-cream and a pepperoni pizza for Mr SFT. There was a little stall of plants for sale down the road so I picked up a frugal birthday pressie for my friend..for 60p! So not a NSD but a very frugal day.
Hope to pack the books from the study tonight. Maybe put some aside to ebay. Speaking of ebay..my selling is doing well..up to £29 already.

CW-Hope you manage to sort everything out. Can't stand it when people are penalised for others' mistakes.
PV-Speaking as a teacher, you have to take on these situations and deal with them, not turn away because its a hassle-what has happened is important to little people. If you love children, its in your interest to understand their psychology and gain their respect. Then you are able to deal with difficult situations.
My advice would be not to go in shouting the odds at the school-so they get defensive..just make them feel guilty as hell for letting your children down then say you trust them to sort it out by a certain date and time. When you leave arrange another follow up meeting to discuss how the situation has improved. Hope that helps.

Have a great evening all!
SFT

Pips_Mum

Nyk - Glad you are taking care of Sophies Mum especially on her Birthday x x

SM - Happy Birthday, enjoy exploring your new surroundings x x x

Purplevamp - Very upsetting and very wrong of the school x x

Skint Lynne - Ouch, Hugs x x

Right I have now drawn a line under my blip and have started my spending diary again. I have guestimated my totals for March and April, based on Jan and Feb, and updated my signature accordingly. [STRIKE]Hoping to[/STRIKE] MUST stay on track now as I am only receiving SMP now so its all going to be very tight.

Brighton_belle

nyk - like the cartoon. I hope you are having fun with your new frugal neighbour:D
sm; as above:D
purplevamp we didn't get a power cut...if you will live out in the sticks:D. Really sorry to hear of worries re your children: i can remember being very miserable at school at times when little and it does matter & adults should step in I think.
cw - tax credits:mad:; can't believe how many appalling stories I've heard. it's a wonder anyone who gets them isn't afraid to spend the money.
sft - great news on getting the survey - can't understand the other firm in the current climate. Sounds great advice for purplevamp.

I've spent this afternoon in the kitchen. Got 7 kilos of tomatoes for £1 yesterday so have cut 3/4 of them up for my first attempt at 'sunblushing' them in a hot oven switched off overnight a la nigella instructions. Then I can freeze in portions hopefully. Also got about 25 large red peppers for £2 which I have been chargrilling to freeze in lunch portions. Bulk made sweet potato soup and prepared celeriac/carrot and swede mash for bulk cottage pie fest. Phew. Going to sit down now.

Paid today for the next 8 weekly pilates sessions. Impressed myself that I'm still going after 8 weeks at 9a.m. Sat. It's definitely beginning to make more sense the whole process of breathing ,& core body work. Still waiting for the figure & grace of a ballerina though:D

savingfortravel

BB-Wow you are achieving so much!! Love reading all your news X

Lilaclady-Totally agree with what you said about people's lives. I actually was telling a friend about how SM has achieved her dream and referred to SM as my friend..feel a bit silly admitting that but that's what it feels like on here...that we are all friends and there for each other. x

sft

Skint_Lynne

Hi everyone,

I'm still hanging on in there, got the arm dressed yesterday, but it has been leaking badly through the bandages and has been a bit sore today. I might go and get some stuff for it myself tomorrow as I've not to go back to the doctors until monday.

DH is in trouble.:mad: Never came home from a bevvyfest until 3am this morning, (was with his dad, so no funny business involved, just booze). He phoned me at the shop today in a bad way, then I got in with my gammy arm, carrying bags of shopping and he's not here. I phoned him and he is in the pub with my uncle. Not pleased, but what can you do?

He had better be fit tomorrow as we are going on a frugal day out. I heard about the screening of a new TV series to be shown in town tomorrow on the radio last week and they were giving out free tickets. I got picked and they arrived in the post today.:T:T

If he is like a burst beach ball, I will take my dad or my brother with me, he will not spoil my nice day out!!!:cool:

Happy birthday to sophiesmum:bdaycake:hope everything is going well with the house. I would like to say that you must have a very nice neighbour, not a lot of people would get up at that time to have the tea ready.;)

Thanks everyone again for all your good wishes and concern, I am a lucky girl to have such a nice bunch of friends.:A

Skint_Lynne

savingfortravel wrote: »

BB-Wow you are achieving so much!! Love reading all your news X

Lilaclady-Totally agree with what you said about people's lives. I actually was telling a friend about how SM has achieved her dream and referred to SM as my friend..feel a bit silly admitting that but that's what it feels like on here...that we are all friends and there for each other. x

sft

I don't think that you are silly sft, see my post above this one, I think that we are all friends as well. xx

slowlyfading

skint lynne, ouch your arm does sound sore (((HUGS))) to you, take care of yourself. I hope tomorrow goes to plan! xx
sophiesmum/nyk, how exciting! hope you're both getting on okay
bb, you have been busy! hopefully the tomatoes will work - will you post pics if they do?
SFT, you certainly did have a good day! and well done on the ebay sales - i should really sort through lots of my stuff to list, but i can't be bothered :rolleyes:

Well, I'm plodding on. I've been feeling really down lately, but I think that's due to working mega hours, and not sleeping very etc. its just all caught up with me i think. today I've done 7:30am til 4:30pm and I'm shattered already. Plus I've got it all again tomorrow :rolleyes: I'm going to the bf's tomorrow evening though, just for the night, so that's something to look foward to I guess.

I was going to try and not add any more to my student loan when I go back to university in September, but it looks like I'll have to - I can't get the funds to pay the tuition fees (£3,325 :eek::eek::eek:) in the one lump sum they want in September, so I'll have to add loads more to my student loan. -sigh- I dont even know if this is all worth it. I guess we'll see.

Sending big (((HUGS))) to those who want/need one.

sf xx

patchwork_cat

CW - I hope that you don't think I am being cheeky and I don't really know much about your situation, but am I right in thinking that you told tax credits over the phone about some changes that they said wouldn't affect your award or didn't action it. Due to your stresses that you have suffered in the last 12 months I would recommend that you contact your MP.

I hope you don't think that this is impertinent, but I would be surprised if there was not the facility to mark it as officer error ( an official term in housing benefits) in your case I think your MP could bring some pressure to bear and I would encourage you to do that.

They should not be aiming to recover this money, IMOH. Alternatively what about the paper or watchdog - if you are like me I would shirk publicity, but this a lot of money.

cw18

patchwork_cat wrote: »

CW - I hope that you don't think I am being cheeky and I don't really know much about your situation, but am I right in thinking that you told tax credits over the phone about some changes that they said wouldn't affect your award or didn't action it. Due to your stresses that you have suffered in the last 12 months I would recommend that you contact your MP.

Having had the letter today, the problem seems to have arisen from when my company sick pay ended and I dropped to Incapacity Benefit only. I phoned to tell them about the drop in income for the year at that point, and was asked the standard 'how many hours do you work'. I went to great pains to explain I was off sick, and that my income was made up of part of the year on a salary and part on taxable benefits (DH's was all taxable benefits), but (s)he still wanted to know how many hours a week my employment contract was for.

The award notice then arrived with a WTC element - which I phoned and queried. I was assured this was correct, as my job was being held open for me (the same as someone on Maternity Leave).

They're now saying I failed to tell them until 28th March 2008 that I'd 'stopped working' on 13th October 2007 (which was my first day on IB only), and as such they want the WTC for that period back as it's money that I was "not entitled to after your job ended"

I actually accept there may be some element of overpayment as I went back to work on 18th (I think) Feb, so income went back up at that point, but there's also an issue in that we had an income support top-up (due to qualifying for disability elements for DH) from 24th Dec until I went back to work, but the higher element of CTC I thought that should have given us never came through.... so that's something else I need to take up with them to offset any overpayment they say they want back......

The number on this letter is for a special dept only open 8:30am - 5pm Monday thru Friday. As it's not a call I especially want to make with a little one around (I have my younger GD all day on Monday from 7:20am to 5pm) it'll have to wait until Tuesday. If I can't get some sort of answer from them then, I was already planning to (track down and) contact my local MP - and said as much to DD earlier this afternoon


I'm certainly not planning on handing the money over without a fight

patchwork_cat

Phone them, but follow up the content of the conversation in writing. It does sound like Officer error to me the only problem is it was over the phone. You may well need someone to fight this with you.

One of the questions I would ask them is do they have a note of my phone call of X date quering the WTC?(or even if their notes don't mention WTC a phone call made about the time you think you rang?)

I get fed up of telling people things over the phone and them telling me something only for me to ring the next week and another person to say oh no that isn't right! It is a personal hobbyhorse, I have decided that I am going to write to people. (Incidentally I have worked in benefits advice, but not for years!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4119028.stm and http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/cop26.pdf