Eager Elephant's Effective Everyday Excursion ...

Eager_Elephant

Have sent you a PM, I am happy to help anyone at any time (well unless I am asleep!!)

EE

Eager_Elephant

Think I should have detention, I will write out 100 times 'I must post on my diary every day!!' - if only I had the time!!

Well the other day I did spend £20 on pantomine tickets.

Since then I have spent loads of money, mainly at Asda on food shopping.
Trying to use up the bits and pieces from the cupboards before we move.

Move in date is looking like 12th Feb, providing the references are ok and of course that I have the deposit.

Did an online discussion thingy for Yougov the other night, I should receive a cheque for £25 very soon. Good pay for 1hr 45 mins work.

Have sold bits on ebay, have transferred £25.64 from Paypal which should arrive in a few days.

Not quite sure how I am going to get the rest of the money together but end of this week is payday so should be able to scrape the money together.

Maybe I will get a few more Yougov surveys as nearly at £50 payout level.

Have also signed up for Pinecone, just waiting to hear whether I have been accepted.

Have done all my surveys and kept up to date with my scratchcard.

Ooh just remembered, sold one of our turkey stags -alive - to someone who wants to breed him. Was just going to swap him for turkey eggs later in the year but the lady has given us £30 plus will give us eggs as well.
Will pay this money in the bank tomorrow.

Also have some expenses to claim, still not sent the ones off for my committee and now they are lost somewhere in the house.
New expenses for car parking for team meetings over the last few months plus mileage for numerous home visits and team meetings.

EE

Eager_Elephant

I managed to pay the £30 from the turkey into the bank.

Still not managed to claim my expenses!!

I need to have a proper sort out this weekend as loads of filing and I need to find some important paperwork.

I am going to write my credit card due dates in my diary as we keep missing them and getting charged.

I need to ring Barclaycard to see if they will let me have my promotional rate back - I hope so otherwise it will take forever to clear the debt with the interest as high as it is.

I tried to give blood for the first time but my iron level is 121 and the minimum they can accept is 125 so need to get eating something with loads of iron in. I can go back in 4 months to try again.

Hope to post again this weekend to say the deposit cheques have been sent off.

Still keeping up with my surveys and scratchcard. Not heard back from Pinecone yet.

EE

Eager_Elephant

Hi

Got so much going on at the moment I haven't had time to post.I sent a cheque off to the Estate Agents the other day for £1300 which is 2 months deposit. Still need to find another £425 when we sign the tenancy.

References have all come back fine which is good news, just waiting on some permissions like Sky etc.

Having loads of trouble with getting my phone changed even though I am in the same village - will probably be phone less and internet less for a while. Grrrrr!!

Been doing my scratch card every day and trying to keep on top of surveys.

Claimed my expenses from my committee the other night - £73.71 paid into bank.

Claimed some work expenses today - £180, just a bit more to claim but manager is having to check something for me.

Will need to get a new bed when we move as ours is over 10 years old and the metal has all bent and can't get back into shape. Have seen a nice one on ebay we can buy with a free mattress for a reasonable price. Just need to find the money for it.

Still not had the current house valued so may have to move some furniture back in when the valuer comes as the house must be my main home!! before I can buy it!!

Have been having thoughts on quitting my volunteer job and finding a job which actually pays me and also so I can be at home for the children more, I will have more housework to do as the house is much larger and I do not want my weekends to be taken up with housework plus DH's relative will ned running around to appointments.

Has anyone been watching Dream Farm on Ch 4 on Thursdays? I record it so did not watch tonights but it is in the same county as me.
Basically Monty Don is helping struggling Smallholders to have a business plan etc.
It is really good and DH is 100% certain that he wants us to buy a smallholding and he will give up work to run it as a business and I can work full time which I don't mind.
Hopefully he is more on track now to clear debts so we can make our dream a reality.

EE

Eager_Elephant

Hi Everyone

I am back!!

We have moved into the new rented house and my DH’s relative moved in 2 weeks ago so the house is full.

So far things are going quite smoothly. The internet is finally up and running and so I can do more online such as pay bills etc.

First months rent due 12/3 had to be paid in cash as I had no internet to set up the s/o and I do not trust my bank to do it properly. Need to get this set up asap.

Only issue is that I have not done a proper budget yet and we had only guessed at the expenditure. At the moment DH, me & relative are putting in £350 pm each for rent and bills.
Then we are putting in a separate pot £100pm each to cover food etc.

I am not sure if this is going to work out right as we have just had the Council Tax bill in for the old financial year and we don’t have the money to pay it. Technically DH & I have to pay it as we were living here first and we did not put any money aside as we were still paying for the old house!!

Which leads nicely on to the old house, we are still renting it. The valuation has been done and has come back at £125,000 less discount of £34,000 so need to find a mortgage of £91,000. We have not approached any lenders yet because we are waiting official confirmation of the valuation – it has been 3 weeks or so now – I chased it a week ago Friday when I was told it would soon be sent and I have just emailed her again.

I’m not even sure we can get a mortgage of this amount!

In the mean time my brother is living in my old house paying rent and council tax until I can sort the mortgage when he will then rent from me officially.

I have checked the credit cards as we have used them and luckily the debt has only increased by £300 since January. Which is not too bad but puts us right back at the start.

DH appears not to have had his lightbulb moment, he is spending again on his credit cards. Before we moved house we noticed that one of the speakers on DH’s stereo had started peeling – it appears that I had draped the laptop charger over it which when hot melted the plastic cover!! The speakers worked perfectly fine and with an ornament on top you could not even tell and we did talk about claiming on insurance but with the excess it did not seem much point. I thought we had decided to wait until we were settled and the finances were settled before we looked for another speaker.
DH’s credit card statement arrived and when I looked at it (after he had opened it) I noticed an ebay payment of £67.00.
Turns out DH thought he should have new speakers earlier than we had planned so brought some on ebay and then paid for them on his credit card which was linked to his Paypal account.

I have made it quite clear how annoyed I was but I doubt it will stop him. I think I may have mentioned before that we have been for marriage counseling before and my DH says that he spends money even though he knows we can’t afford it because he wants to prove he can make his own decisions and not be treated as a child – he could not see that I only treat him like a child because of how he has acted in the past and so we have a vicious circle. Hence why we now have separate bank accounts.

I have managed to sort out my working hours, I am cutting right back on my voluntary work but this will have to happen gradually as I have too many clients to squash into 2 days of work so I will no longer do voluntary work in school holidays and I will cut down to one day a week from after Easter holidays and hopefully by end of May will not be doing any voluntary work!!

To make ends meet I hope to restart my Amazon selling. I have loads of books at the old house which need to be checked and relisted – there is about 50 fruit boxes so enough to keep me going awhile.

I must also sort the CSA calculation which is wrong as this is leaving me short every month also.

I have used my childcare money to pay the deposit for this place so I am behind with this, I have today paid for Feb and should be able to pay March’s later this week and then next week I will pay for April. I really should be more organised.

So my goals for April are to sort the household budget and my budget and start PADing again and I will concentrate on clearing my credit cards and not DH’s.

I have started doing all the surveys which come up and also must remember to do butlins bingo everyday.

I have got to payout on YouGov again, the last time was July 2006 so 3.5 years to get to payout – it’s along time!! I have also received the cheque for the focus group I did but I appear to have mislaid that – need to find it as that is another £25 to go towards debt.

Will start posting every day for PAD (although I have not read that since 12/2 so have some catching up to do as they have moved threads!!) and also to report in some NSD’s hopefully.

Thanks for following me again!

EE

Eager_Elephant

Well today has been ok...

I have paid my YouGov cheque in so once this clears I will be able to transfer that to a credit card.

I have made a PAD of £1.30 to Barclaycard.

I have done my scratchcard and all my surveys.

Nothing else to report at the moment although I should be able to do my budget on Friday night as DH and relative are going to see a band play.

EE

Eager_Elephant

Hi,

I have done my PAD of £1.31 to Barclaycard.

Scratchcard done, 10p only and played 2 games of bingo so balance reduced by 20p (don't want them getting suspicious!!)

I only have 1 survey in my inbox so that can wait until tomorrow.

Nothing else exciting has happened!!

EE

blue-bells_2

Hi Eager Elephant

Well done with the PADs- it all adds up! It's good that you've had a payout for your surveys- I gave up after having problems with them although I may try and start again!

Hope you have a good day

magpiedawn

Hello
You helped me on another board so i poped in to read your diary. I started
at the beginning and already you have moved home.
Was sorry about the cat that got run over i know how sad that is, my old cat died recently she was 17 so not unexpected but very sad, i still have the young cat she's 3 and i have had to be very stern with myself not to have another one untill my housing probs have been sorted.

Wishing you well Magpie x

Eager_Elephant

Sorry I have not been on for ages, I was poorly over Easter! (so poorly that I did not even eat my easter eggs - I have however made up for it now!!) and then life got in the way again.

I did post on Moo's diary about my DH, his spending appears to be out of control again!! He has purchased from ebay a 4x4 for £5000+!! He should be collecting it mid week as I refused to drive up with him yesterday!

We had discussed the buying of a 4x4 to help with the straw, chicken feed etc but DH had said he would see if he could do a part exchange etc for his car. No joy there but there was no real urgency.
Now the weather is drier he can't get my car stuck in the mud up the field - oh and the little thing of he is not allowed to borrow my car again might be helping!!

He is intending to sell his car but who knows when that will happen!

Because I told him how annoyed I was over it we have not really been speaking for a few days so DH did his usual childish thing of buying loads of stuff of ebay because he knows it will annoy me even more.

We tried to have an adult discussion last night and DH admitted that when I do not show him enough attention or when I am moody with him he will buy off ebay because he knows it will get a reaction and that is proof I care!!
He has such a warped view of life. But basically I am damned if I do and damned if I don't!

He also said last night that if he had a switch to turn himself off forever he would of done! Now clearly this is emotional blackmail again, whenever I voice my opinion of something which goes against his he always mentions how depressed he is and he wants to kill himself etc so then I feel guilty and I feel like I can't voice my opinion.

So what should I do? Do I not comment on anything so I do all the housework and he does nothing or do we continue as we are bickering on a regular basis which is clearly not good for the children.

We have been to Relate before and it was really good, I have often said that I would like to return there but I think you can only do 12 weeks.

Will see what today brings.

EE