Eager Elephant's Effective Everyday Excursion ...

moo2moo

Could OH cope with opening a paket of diced meat and chucking it and a bag of frozen veg in the slowcooker with a jar of sauce and stiring? That would at least mean you don't need to cook every night. Or could you do the prep in an evening and shove the stuff in the fridge overnight before turning it on in the morning?

Eager_Elephant

Well things are slightly better as DH is able to do more.

We have been back to neurology, the new neurologist says that the level of Gabapentin is very high and if it has not worked yet it is unlikely to so the medication is being changed but we are not sure what to as he is writing a letter to the Gp to sort it out - hope it doesn't take to long because they have not contacted us yet.

Finally managed to get DS back to doctor's about his back, the xray showed nothing abnormal so the next option is osteopathy so we went earlier in the week and they think they can help.
It turns out that he has a few issues but the main one being that he has grown abut 4 inches in two years and although his bones are ok, the muscles and ligaments are not growing as quick hence the pain. So £39 a session and he should be sorted soon.

Still keeping track of elec usage, last Sunday the usage was about £18.82, hard to tell as I have moved tariff and I no longer pay a standing charge but do pay more for the first few units.
Will know better this year as can know enter meter readings online that actually adjust the bill instead of taking the info and nothing happening.

DH was not paid much in March as he was given 4 weeks SSP but as he went back for a week and a half his work have paid him the extra so not as tight as it was.

Just need to juggle the money about as had to pay into his account to cover his bills until money came in.

Hoping to redo budget and pay some bills this weekend and we can then see the debts coming down.

Not much else to report except lawnmower is out of the hall and all made up. Relative tried to use it and because it is self-propelled it basically dragged him round the garden :rotfl: when he gets hurt I will remind him that I didn't want it!!

We made a raised bed at the weekend as relative had brought cucumber seeds but we had no where to plant them. We told him we would get some netting but he planted them when we went out. The next morning the cats had dug them all up :rotfl:, I tried so hard not to say I told you so.

Then he went to town and brought more seeds but we are out of space so I don't know where he thinks he will plant everything :eek:

Keep calm and carry on!!

EE

beanielou

Keep calm & carry on indeed
Keep plodding too!

Eager_Elephant

Balances as per statements:

Barclaycard - £7456.82
Amazon - £2242.85
Abbey - £708.67
DH's card - £656.82

Total - £11065.16

Reduction - £108.76 :j

Obviously if I continue at this rate it will take nearly 10 years to clear which is not realistic at all...so a new plan is needed

EE

Eager_Elephant

Well things have been going ok for the last 2 weeks.

Relative still being completely annoying :mad:, his beetroot has come up and so has his lettuce but the problem with this is that he planted about 500 seeds in a line about 1.5 metres long - now anyone surely knows that this does not work - there is going to be a lot of thinnning out and wastage :mad:

We were all wondering when the cucumber would show when I read an article that now was the time to plant cucumber inside - so I found the seed packet and yep the instructions were to plant in a propagator(sp?) :eek: so relative has brought some and planted some more!!

He is also growing tomato from seed indoors but onlt because DH is growing sme in our lounge but the only problem is he is not watering them :eek:. I knew that most of his plants had died but I didn't really think why but DH showed me that everything is bone dry - I am not sure if he does not know how to garden properly or whether it is dementia and he thnks he has done it?

I am seriously worried about him, but we can't really approach his son's to say how concerned we are as they are !!!!!!!!
So apart from the lawnmower incident we have had a hose pipe incident :eek:. Relative decides we need a hose so he found one and brought it, later that day he went on his computer and could not find any record that he had ordered one so he ordered another one so yup we now have 2 hose pipes on reels :eek:. I know he is in his 70's but surely he should remember what he did a few hours beforehand??

I was going to keep a note of it all but instead I think I will write it on my diary and when the time comes for something to be done I can print off the proof!

I am also a bit fed up because what ever I say he does not believe, he brought some carrot seeds (not just one sort but 3 sorts with 100 seeds in each and we only have a tiny garden) and I told him that when he plants them he needs to also plant onions or marigolds - something with a strong smell to keep carrot fly away. He kind of listened but when DH got up I heard them talking in the kitchen and relative was asking if what I had said was true :mad:. There are more examples but I can't thing of them right now.

Also whenever we go out somewhere he always tags along and then says really random things such as 'well I don't recognise this place', I will say where we are and he says 'well it's changed since I was last here' - well turns out the last time he was there was 1980!!!
And he has an opinion on everything but only how it was 30 years ago, I try to explain how things work now such as benefits, jobs, etc but he doesn't really understand he just keeps going on about how it was when he did it which was years ago.

I am not sure how we would get him tested for dementia because I am worried about approaching him because he would not admit it and as I said before his son's don't care as long as they don't have to look after him or pay any money (which of course they have spent :mad:)

Anyway still cooking up a plan so will be back soon.

EE

Eager_Elephant

Well hard times are ahead for us (as if they are not already!!)

Next April we will lose our Tax Credits :eek:, at the moment we have a fine balance between me workng part time, DH working full time and claiming Tax Credits. We get more than most in our situation as I have child care to pay out but from next April the lower limit is only going to be approx £23,000 and of course we earn more than that so will have to live without Tax Credits - I can't wait I have always had to have benefits of some sort all my life but I must not complain as without it I would not be working, I would probably be a stay at home mum on Income Support as I had my son so young :eek:

So I have about a year to clear my debt which is not really doable as it would need over £1000 a month to clear it and I don't earn that :rotfl:.

DH's debt has increased slightly this month as last month we had to do a Paypal transfer so he could manage his minimum payments as he had a low pay and I could not afford to cover it all. Hopefully after this month it will reduce although he has done something a bit daft but as it gone one over his employers who were peeing him off he does not mind :mad:
Because of issues with wages etc DH raised a grievance and asked for a loan of £1000 plus to be paid back at £80pm. They have agreed to loan him £650 to be paid back at £90pm :eek:. Well anyone can see they got the better deal, I have managed to explain to DH that really it doesn't work because he has no spare money to pay £90pm and he has no debt that will reduce by £90 if he pays £650 so he is actually in a worse situation :eek:. DH is thinking he will get his truck resprayed and all sorts - I thought he had grasped his situation after I helped him with a spreadsheet that shows how dire his situation is.
So DH's debt is £21,000+ so he would need to pay £2000 pm to his debts and again he does not earn that!

Will we ever get through this?

Sorry for rambling...

So the plan is this - I am doing an extra 15 hours per week at work at the moment - this is about £65 per day but after tax and NI is about £45 per day so this month I did 7 days so I have £300 to transfer to a debt, next month I should do 8 days so will have £345 to transfer which means that the debt to DH's card should be paid off :T.

I am also still on the list for relief catering assistant on my day off so I might get a few hours from that each month which can also go to the debt - if not my day off will be housework and entering comps on here!!

The bonus with clearing the debt to DH is then I feel better that I don't owe him (the bank) any money plus I can then clear his Capital One card for him which he can then close as he only opened it out of stupidity :rotfl:

The extra days I am doing at work (lower grade) were supposed to last 8 weeks which will take me to end of May but in my main job they have a temporary 6mth contract for 15hrs per week to start straight after which will be about £82 per day before tax and £52 per day after so hopefully for a few more months I will have extra to throw at my debt.

This obviously won't clear all my debt but I am going to sell some things on ebay when there is another free listing day and also I am going to have a car boot sale with all the books I have that I used to sell on Amazon - I have about 2000 books so if I can sell most of them I should have some more money to pay to the debts :T. I was thinking about selling them at 4 for £1 (hopefully people will need books for holiday)

I think we will start the car boot in the next few weeks and if it goes ok we are going to try and do one a week over the summer until all our stuff has gone.

So that is the start of the plan, not sure what to do about DH's debt but will thing about him when I am under £10,000 :rotfl:

EE

Eager_Elephant

So to start my well oiled plan (:rotfl:) I have transferred £305.76 to DH's credit card so I only owe him £351.06 - I am going to see whether I can clear this before the end of next month so it can be a big fat 0 when I do my totals!!

Not quite sure how but with the child maintenance increasing and my expenditure coming down more (?) I should be able to do it!

Thought I should just mention that me working extra hours does not really incur any extra costs as I am having to drive DH to work every day still so as I work in the same town I am actually saving money on petrol as I am only making the one journey and also there is no car parking charge as it is on the outskirts of the town with free parking.

DH has started his new medication (as well as his Gabapentin) and it is working some times and not others so we will just monitor this until he goes back which is 4 months and not 6 like we were told.

DS has had some more osteopathy and it seems to be working, the day after the second treatment he came downstairs to say 'Oh mum, I can actually stand up straight without it hurting!!'. By the time we went back it was hurting again but not as much and his spine was definitely straighter.
We have to go back in a fortnight to see how things are but it is likely after the next one he won't need to go back unless the pain starts again :T. Money well spent me thinks!!

EE

Eager_Elephant

So I have had a busy weekend, Saturday night I had to do a cinema audit - should get me £12.

Yesterday I did two supermarket audits so that should be another £30 less mileage etc but will count it all as a payment when it arrives.

Then we went to an open day for someone from our group but had to pay for the hog roast, luckily relative paid although I didn't have anything as nothing was veggie so quite a cheap day.

Today I am doing housework and trying to catch up on paperwork.

Hopefully will be able to make another payment by the end of today.

EE

Eager_Elephant

Forgot to say that I am still tracking our usage, forgot last Sunday on account of it being Easter and I was a tad busy eating Easter Eggs.

For the last 3 weeks and possbly the one before that we are averaging about £18.00 per week (exc VAT) so hopefully this will bring the debt down as we pay £136 per month and have been in debt since we moved here.

I don't think this is to bad as there are 5 in the household, with someone at home all day every day plus 3 fridge freezers, 1 chest freezer and 4 TV's, 2 PC's, 2 laptops and numerous other things that no family should be without!!!

EE

Eager_Elephant

I'm having a bit of a down day today, I might come back later for a rant.

Anyway to try and be more positive I have paid another £56.85 to the debt I owe DH. This means I now owe £294.21.

This money came from postage which I was owed from the business and also a £10 lottery win :T

Hopefully I will have some more money next week to pay to it.

EE