Aiming to get to payday with money in the bank!

Intergalactic_Floozie

Would your husband's company do an offer on a bus season ticket?

My brother works in a call centre for a large building society and they provided him with a bus/train ticket, and it comes out of his wage at £57 per month otherwise, like your DH, he would be paying £72 per month for a bus-only pass. For some reason, it's not something that they advertised, he only found out about it from another colleague, and he had to go and ask about it.

Anyway - best of luck to you and I would agree with keeping a spending diary (you could keep it on your thread) and then you will see where the money is going.

kymbogs

A spending diary is great in theory, and I have done one in the past, but at the moment the thought of having another thing to keep on top of makes me want to hide in a darkened room for awhile! I keep all my receipts and will try and think of a way to quickly input the information instead of having to sit down and write them all down, might do a quick spreadsheet I can just type the figures in.

Primula, the gas and electric I've never really thought that they were great but thankyou! I am uber careful with them. We haven't had the heating on for a couple of months now and even in winter only have it on a couple of hours a day. I make sure to rinse things, like the milk bottles and the cans and jars for the recycling box, with cold water so it's not costing us to recycle lol. In Feb 08 our immersion heater and back boiler were replaced with a combi boiler so our usage has dropped quite a bit due to that as they were both so pricey to run. Also the windows were replaced at the same time.

lennymfo I do think my tax credits are right, I spent ages at the beginning of the financial year making sure everything was right with them as they said I'd been overpaid last year but it was a mixup cos of maternity pay, got a £700 payment 2 days after christmas which was nice as they decided I'd been UNDERpaid in the end. We used to get about £110 a week but went down when Megan turned 1 in March as they do. Have got the renewal papers anyway and everything is correct on there.

Floozie, thanks for that I will get him to ask. I'm sure he's mentioned it a few years ago but he's moved about jobs a lot over the last few years due to redundancy but he's actually back at the same company he was with for 7 years previously so there's a chance it might have been them.

kymbogs

Well today we did spend some money but just on some essentials. Stuck to the menu plan again which puts us at roughly 3 weeks since the last takeaway - a real achievement considering over recent months we've been really bad and getting food in once or twice a week. Made a gorgeous lemon cake this afternoon nomnom. I will be spending a bit of cash tomorrow as my bestest friend is going to hospital in the morning for a c-section and as soon as I find out what she's had I'm going to be going to buy the cutest thing I can find - it's very tempting to go overboard but I shall restrain myself, and she knows we're broke. If the wee baby turns out to be a girl she'll be getting a shedload of the clothes my two have grown out of anyway

kymbogs

Primula wrote: »

However this year, just as the renewal came in so did a leaflet from Hydro Electric offering exactly the same but much cheaper

Hiya Primula,
just googled them, is it Scottish Hydro Electric and their Shield plan?

Primula

Re heating insurance plan thing, I am in Scotland so it probably was Scottish Hydro Electric - are they not in England? I assumed they would be. I might even still have the leaflet at home so I will have a look later and if I do I will check and see if there is a website address.
Just catching up and you are doing well, and awwhhh a lovely new baby, but one you can just "borrow" now and again and give back, how lovely! :rotfl:

mrstheking

I haven't got a clue what the APR's are I never seem to find the time to get all the paperwork out and find out. I imagine the Welcome one is pretty huge but it was the only option we had at the time. It was a pretty large secured loan.

I think it varies with welcome from branch to branch how hwlpful they are but they have been amazing with us - we've gone from paying £280 a month to £90ish a month...yes we'll be paying it for longer but it freed up some money to pay off other bills when I stopped working and avoided us having to go for bancruptcy (which they didn't want either as they want their money)

Primula

Primula wrote: »

Re heating insurance plan thing, I am in Scotland so it probably was Scottish Hydro Electric - are they not in England? I assumed they would be. I might even still have the leaflet at home so I will have a look later and if I do I will check and see if there is a website address.

Sorry, I did have a hunt at home for that leaflet but it must have got thrown out.

kymbogs

Hi Primula
not to worry, I googled hydro electric and the only one coming up was Scottish Hydro Electric - I'm sure they probably do provide to England too but the package wasn't any cheaper than what I currently get from BG. I might ring BG up and threaten to leave anyway and see if I can get a couple of quid off hehe

kymbogs

A quick post before bedtime!

I was doing my tax credit renewal the other day and whilst looking at DH's P60 I noticed his tax code was BR. I asked him about it and he didn't seem to think this was an issue but I am fairly sure this means he is being taxed 20% on ALL his pay rather than the bit after the £6030 or whatever it is these days. He's going to speak to HR about it but I'm hoping he'll get a rebate, it looks like he's been paying it all year (he worked a few months at another place so they might have had the right code).

DH asked about bus passed and they do do one for a year which comes out of his paypacket but it's a Metro bus and train one which is more than the First Bus ticket and might work out more a week I need to do some maths.

Kimberley

Flower08

Hi kymbogs,
Just read your thread and you seem to be doing great, good luck with it all!
Regarding the BR tax code, yes i am pretty sure that means he his paying 20% on his earnings. So definatly check that out and i think he will be entitled to a rebate, which would be nice for you!!