Eager Elephant's Effective Everyday Excursion ...

Piquant_2

Good news on the pay front. Not so good news on the OH spending front, it is a problem you have to work round that's for sure.

It was controlled spending on the cc and let's be honest in an ideal world emergency expenses is what a cc is for. Don't beat yourself up over it. You have to feed your family.

Lidl is good for basics. Butter is butter and milk is milk. Why pay extra?

Have a good weekend EE

Skint_but_Optimistic

Exactly, you need to live. Lidl dont take credit cards though. I am beating myself up this week too, nevermind, onward and upward. x

debtfreewannabe321

oh no to your OH as you know i'm having problems with mine too and I just let him get on with it now even though he wastes hundreds each month that I could be putting in an emergency fund or towards debt. I've got bills that need paying and he's claiming he is broke already (this is a lie he just doesn't want to hand the money over for something trivial like a bill :wall:)

PinotGrigio41

I have found you ! Why did it take me so long ?! :rotfl:

Anyway I am glad I have, no time to read at the moment, but I will make the time ! x:D

banwa

PinotGrigio41 wrote: »

I have found you ! Why did it take me so long ?! :rotfl:

Anyway I am glad I have, no time to read at the moment, but I will make the time ! x:D

I am SUCH a filthy stalker. I have just followed both of you over here.:rotfl:

I had a complete meltdown at Mr B when he spent money allocated for bills. He had hit a deer (again) and the front of his car was a little untidy, and I told him to live with it for a month because we couldn't afford the repairs. He got it fixed anyway. I asked him how he paid. With money from my account, he says. :mad:Needless to say I had already banked on that money for bills and we had to borrow money from my Dad (which Mr B HATES doing).

It's interesting, it seems that it is mostly the girlies that control the finances on these boards....

Skint_but_Optimistic

Girl power etc.

Eager_Elephant

I am back .......................................

I don't really have anything exciting to report - my life has been quite boring and mundane:rotfl:

The event we did in July for the committee I am on went birlliantly and we raised loads of money - the best for years!! But.... the chair person has turned in to a !!!!! and threatened me and DH - not sure why she picked on us specifically as lots of people said the same thing in a meeting (that she was rude and abusive on Facebook and she needs to stay away if she is writing on behalf of the Committee - she refused and stormed out of the meeting).
DH has now stepped down but I am staying for now as I am Treasurer and signatory on the account - but we have lost loads of committee and helpers because of her.
I was hoping she would stand down which is what she threatened but unfortunately she is still there but things are very strained - I am looking for a new charity to join who will appreciate me.

DS left school and is now at college - he got 8 GCSE's at B & C which he was very pleased about but I was :mad: but didn't tell him that :rotfl:
He got in to his college of choice and he is enjoying it and meeting all these lovely girls and now he wants to bring one home:eek:

DD is just her usual self - very hormonal at the moment and am pondering on whether children can have Agnus Castus as it keeps me sane :rotfl:

DH still doing his temp job which he started in may and should have finished in Aug :T. Really it is any time soon when he will have to leave so we are making the most of the money and he is job searching - the problem is he can only do part time and this rules out a lot of jobs.
His head problem is no better and he was given some new medication to try (usually for epileptics) and it knocked him out - he was asleep for 20 hrs a day and completely off his face - cheap way to get off your face without spending on drink or drugs:rotfl: and I had no medical people to talk to - his consultant works in London and only comes to our town twice a month, his secretary is part time and the GP surgery didn;t know what to do so I decided (with no medical qualifications) that he should just stop them which he did and he is fine:rotfl:(thankfully!!). They stopped his pain but sleeping all day is no life so now he has stopped them his pain is back but he can work so we are waiting to be referred to a special hospital in London who can prescribe a certain medication that no one else can.
On his days off he has been working in the garden and it is starting to look really good. Now just got to get the house sorted :rotfl:

Me - well I am plodding on as usual - very disappointed in the debt reducing which has been just minimum payments. I always find when I am not posting on my diary I go a bit money happy :rotfl:
I have been managing to save £100 per month in to a Xmas/Oil fund and I still save with the local credit union.

I am still working full time and too be honest it is very hard going, I am on the two committee's as well and my house is a tip. Weekends are just housework

I have got today off work plus the weekend and hopefully Tuesday off and I am determined to sort my house out and get my paperwork filed and I also need to see about reducing some of our outgoings as we have too much going out when eventually we drop to my wages only :eek:

And best of all Agnus Castus has kept me completely sane over the last few months.
DS was so lovely and the other day he told me I deserved a medal for everything I put up with from the rest of the family and also to keep the house running (It brought a tear to my eye that my lovely 6ft tall 16yo could say something like that - I thought he lived in a world of his own:rotfl:)

I am going to post our budget up in a minutes and then see how much I can reduce our outgoings in the next week :eek:

Eager_Elephant

I haven't got time to do a proper budget (which is stuck on my laptop which DS dropped and now it won't switch on :eek:) so I will just list the outgoings we have for bills etc and then work on food and petrol another time.

Rent................................ £400
Council Tax....................... £114
Electricity......................... £68
Water.............................. £46
TV Licence....................... £12.12
Oil................................... £100
Car Insurance.................... £28
Car Insurance.................... £45
BT................................... £26.50
Mobile.............................. £10.50
Mobile.............................. £10
Mobile.............................. £26
Broadband........................ £29.99
Sky................................. £51.75
Newspapers...................... £40

Total................................£1007.86

As you can see I don't have house insurance, not sure why it ended but we need to have this so I need to do some comparisons this weekend - brought home to me recently when I saw a neighbour from across the road and she said the reason they have not been about is because they had a house fire, the dog had been left home alone and jumped up at the cooker switching it on and the items on the top set on fire and spread to the whole house :eek: - no damage to the outside of the house which is why we had not noticed.

So I want to get this down by at least £50 per month and at a push by £100 per month:eek:

Eager_Elephant

I have not done a balance update since Feb 2012 :eek:

Back then this is what I owed:

Balances as per statements:

Barclaycard - £7186.48
Amazon - £2161.65
Abbey - £1032.25

Total - £10,380.38

Now I owe:

Balances as per statements:

Barclaycard - £7351.11
Amazon - £2203.87
Abbey - £1039.38

Total - £10,594.36 :eek::mad::eek::mad:

The Barclaycard is more because I missed some payments and they added charges and interest but now I am on a DMP with them.
I know I spent on Abbey recently and I must have spent on Halifax ages ago - the problem with Halifax is the minimum payment is interest from the previous month + £5 so it takes ages to go down.

I need to get more on top of things instead of wasting money.

I have spoken to DH today, he still wants to go bankrupt so he will have to start saving for that - it will cost £700 :eek:

I will start payment a day again and start paying off my Abbey as that has the highest interest rate.

But...........first we need to get our hall/landing replastered and then a carpet on the stairs and in the lounge.
Then the hall/landing will need painting, and the lounge (we have the paint already) and then we need to sort the kitchen, bathroom and back door area :eek::mad:. Not sure how much it will cost but would rather get it done and then we just live off what we have left in the bank otherwise we always spend to what we have.
This all needs doing as DS wants to bring his girlfriend round and although we can put up with the mess it does not give a good impression.

Have been busy today on my day off, I have sorted through all my clothes and got rid off loads - a big bag is ready for charity tomorrow.
I have opened all the post from months ago (I knew they were just statements and left them) and filed all the pwk.
Tomorrow we will pop to Lidl and get some shopping - I have also emptied the fridge and freezer and cleaned all the shelves etc - take the bag of stuff to charity and then sort some more bits out.
I also need to wash the floor in the kitchen and bathroom and sort more things out of the lounge ready for the decorating to commence.

On top of that I have to see what bills I can reduce - have made a start and am waiting for some statements to come in tomorrow and then I will know where I stand.

Eager_Elephant

Eager_Elephant wrote: »

I haven't got time to do a proper budget (which is stuck on my laptop which DS dropped and now it won't switch on :eek:) so I will just list the outgoings we have for bills etc and then work on food and petrol another time.

Rent................................ [STRIKE]£400[/STRIKE]Can reduce to £373 as I have been overpaying
Council Tax....................... [STRIKE]£114[/STRIKE]My DD was set up late so I am paying May - Feb and not April - Jan otherwise I could have spread over more months.
Electricity......................... [STRIKE]£68[/STRIKE] Did up to date meter readings and we used £72 last month so no chance of reducing :eek:. Not even sure why it is so high when we are hardly at home - will start taking readings weekly and try to work it out.
Water.............................. [STRIKE]£46[/STRIKE]Tried to reduce but they say that I am only just on track to pay off my bill due in Jan so for now I will leave it but if DH loses his job I will ring again
TV Licence....................... £12.12
Oil................................... £100
Car Insurance.................... £28
Car Insurance.................... £45
BT................................... [STRIKE]£26.50[/STRIKE]Prices are going up from 4/1 but looking on the website I am thinking about paying for a year up front which would work out at £11.45pm plus calls. Tried to log on to my account to get the monthly package reduced in the mean time but it keeps crashing - no doubt everyone is leaving them due to price rises!!
Mobile.............................. £10.50
Mobile.............................. [STRIKE]£10[/STRIKE]Don't talk to me about DS' phone bill :rotfl:. Went to get money out of my account at the weekend and it wouldn't let me - when I checked my account online DS' mobile bill was £137for the month:eek: (I always know when he has a girlfriend as his bill goes through the roof)
Mobile.............................. £26
Broadband........................ [STRIKE]£29.99[/STRIKE]Have moved to Plusnet which will £19.49pm for the same package and no transfers as the company we are currently with were taken over by Plusnet a few years ago
Sky................................. £51.75
Newspapers...................... [STRIKE]£40[/STRIKE] Got a statement but we are slightly behind so will keep at this.
Total................................£1007.86


So I want to get this down by at least £50 per month and at a push by £100 per month:eek:

Well I have been doing bits on and off but haven't managed to save much :mad:

DH is only in work 1 day this week so his wages will be reduced at the end of the month :eek:

Due to DS' phone bill I cannot sort out the home insurance as I have no money to pay the deposit with - this will have to wait until the end of the month.

I have managed to file nearly all the paperwork and the bedroom looks much better. Lots of stuff to go to charity at the weekend.

Now going to try and sell some stamps on ebay - relative has given us a small collection that he started for his son's years ago of duplicate stamps and if we can get at least 99p for each one then that would be great. I have loads of envelopes and lots of stamps from the Royal Mail thing so not much to come off the sale price and whatever we make should help towards some bills.