Burlesque Babe's Re-building life but back in debt diary

Burlesque_Babe

MOT day..........keep everything crossed between 3.30 and 4pm please??

It's £50 I don't have as it is without there being any surprises.

Burlesque_Babe

Car failed...................bollox........sob.......

It failed on both 'constant velocity joint gaiters' being split and these are £45 each plus VAT _pale_

Number plate light doesn't work (never knew it had one!! :rotfl:) so fingers crossed that is a bulb.

Centre stop lamp not working - one of those in the rear windscreen - again, hopefully a bulb.

So, £50 for the test and at least £90 plus VAT - about £155 if it is just 2 bulbs. If it is just 2 bulbs, they will throw them in at the time of doing the other bits. If it isn't, anything more than half an hour will start to incur labour costs :rolleyes:

Both front tyres are wearing and are on the advisory, but that can wait a bit as they are boy racer tyres put on by the previous owner.

bollox...........sigh.........I didn't have the £50 for the test in the budget, let alone another £100 plus for the work but realistically, I've had the car 2.5 years, it's P reg and I had to spend £100 on some brake part a couple of years ago, so it's not been a drain on my money over the time i've had it.

I guess that £100 refund is going to come in very handy as soon as I can get my grubby mitts on it.

Also good job I've just had a call asking if I could come back to work tonight to invigilate although it's only 1.75 hours at £8.60 an hour but along with the same for last night and Tuesday night at least it is a little something.

pepe2008

Bollox with the MOT BB.

Start looking around now for your tyres. If they are boy-racer type, ie less than 65 ratio......this figure eg 195/65 15 then they tend to be expensive and wear a lot quicker as they also are usually softer rubber.

If the car ( its a Civic?) has not been lowered then you should still be able to get normal ( 65 or higher ratio ) tyres. Look for a place that does 'part worn' tyres, ex accident or scrap car ones, they'll be loads cheaper maybe only £10 a tyre.

edit....and dont forget that if you are having it retested at the same MOT station within 10 days its free

Burlesque_Babe

It's not been lowered....hang on, I can check the tyres ........

Burlesque_Babe

195/45R16 80V Toyo tyres..........off to google them! The garage had some part worn sets of Toyo's available.

Edit: £55 each from tyresite.com so £110 for the pair.............they can definitely wait!!! It doesn't surprise me they are wearing - even when at the full psi (28) they often look a bit flat and in the winter they do seem to 'drag' a bit in a tight 3 point turn not so bad in the summer though.

pepe2008

Burlesque_Babe wrote: »

195/45R16 80V Toyo tyres..........off to google them! The garage had some part worn sets of Toyo's available.

Edit: £55 each from tyresite.com so £110 for the pair.............they can definitely wait!!! It doesn't surprise me they are wearing - even when at the full psi (28) they often look a bit flat and in the winter they do seem to 'drag' a bit in a tight 3 point turn not so bad in the summer though.

thats not tyres, thats rubber bands! they'll wear in no time! check out the prices for 195/65 and ask for a lower speed rating ( the 80V bit ). i'm sure they'll be cheaper and last longer......look for those part worns

Burlesque_Babe

lol....they also have fancy pants alloys on - again put on by the previous owner at a cost of £400!!! Perhaps I should sell them, but I scuffed one on the kerb not long after buying the car because the psi had been set at 18 by the garage and it was a pain to turn!!

I thought they were taking a long time peering at the front passenger tyre :rolleyes:

Burlesque_Babe

mortgage is due on Sunday, so I guess they will take it Monday so I've had to move some money from my savings

However, I am determined, through a combination of the £100 CC refund and the approx £350 interest I should get at the end of the month to pay back as much of the the savings as I can and also pay the car MOT repairs. I am NOT going to be beaten!!!

LouiseJ

Burlesque_Babe wrote: »

mortgage is due on Sunday, so I guess they will take it Monday so I've had to move some money from my savings

However, I am determined, through a combination of the £100 CC refund and the approx £350 interest I should get at the end of the month to pay back as much of the the savings as I can and also pay the car MOT repairs. I am NOT going to be beaten!!!

Thats the spirit Old Gal:D

Anything in the Jobs section that catches your eye today my friend?

Burlesque_Babe

LouiseJ wrote: »

Thats the spirit Old Gal:D

OLD?!!!!!!!!! :eek::rotfl:

LouiseJ wrote:

Anything in the Jobs section that catches your eye today my friend?

Yes - your new job

There's nothing in the paper this week - the same as the last 2 weeks in that there have hardly been any jobs at all - little more than 3 pages _pale_ There is 1 job at the council I work for which I could do but it needs experience of managing a large team and I've only managed a team of 6, that was 13 years ago and I was rubbish at it. I like to work too autonomously really to be a team manager I think.

There is an 18.5 hour job going to be coming up next month at work which is going out into the community and recruiting and training people to run their own courses on whatever subject they want to. It is a job I could do, it doesn't wildly excite me (I've done too many hours 'out there' working in the media and I like hiding away now) but it is a good step forwards.

I could run that alongside my other 18.5 hr job in the office. The salary would be 10.5k so with the 7.5k of my admin job would take me up to 18k. Just enough to pay the bills each month and then the teaching in the evenings would pay for food and petrol and AQA could be used at weekends to start hitting my debt because I need to start finding a way to clearing the 5.5k total (CC plus overdraft) because I'm just paying the minimum at the moment.

However, that would be 37 hours in the office plus 2-4 hours per week in the evening (term time) teaching plus x hours on a Saturday/Sunday. More hours than I'm doing now really, although I would do it as a stepping stone, I think I might be more knackered than I currently am :rolleyes: