Back in the black before baby

renovation.girl

I am inspired by your determination. I am sending you some happy vibes and wish you lots of luck, you sound like a fab mum xxx

Pinky15

Well done Miss Kitty sounds like you are getting organised! grr:mad: to nasty tax credits - we have had a letter saying they are reducing ours by £100 per month even though nothing has changed from last year and this years earnings will be the same - we dont owe them anything - am lost off with them as usual!

LittleMissKitty

Morning all

Pinky, I'm 'technically' an HMRC employee (on a career break - also NOT in tax credits) so I've seen the nightmare that the inside is too! It's scarey sometimes the way the Revenue runs. A&L haven't been bad for me particularly but I tend to use online banking and find the way they do theirs needlessly convoluted and confusing on screen. So I'm transferring DH to 1st Direct and I'm heading back to Nationwide because their real-time banking doesn't make my brain hurt

On the subject of Tax credits I wish you luck! I'd call them and see what they say just for the hell of it but I'm obsessed with having 'all available information'. I think it's commonly known as being a 'control freak' :rotfl:

Renovation-girl, what a lovely thing to say, thank you. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside

Nothing really on the financial front. DH got petrol this morning, £17.40, and then next money out should be Monday, £52.90 for the weekly shop (I've already done it online!). He'll probably have to fill the bike up again a few times next week (he's working tomorrow too, doesn't use an entire tank in one day!) The car shouldn't need filling up until next weekend probably and we get Child benefit in on Tuesday which I then have to make cover the food and petrol until the end of the month. We have the life insurance coming out on Monday and then bike loan comes out on the last day of the month but I've got the money set aside for that. Keep everything crossed for me guys, if I can get DH to behave then this month we should close out overdrawn by only double figures instead of triple! :T

LittleMissKitty

OMG!!! I have to say, I am VERY impressed with the government for once! Last Friday I sent off my claim for Maternity Allowance. I figured it'd take about a month to sort and was happy that, I noted down my application reference so I could chase it halfway through May. I've just got the post and they've returned all my documents with a decision that I'm entitled to full benefit and £89.20 arrears :beer: So, starting as of today I am officially on MA! I am a VERY happy bunny. It's all going straight into the offset account and then going to pay for our shiney new (old ) car. Let the debtbusting begin in earnest!

We also got the details of DH's approved 1st Direct account through so I can start transferring over the direct debits as soon as he's validated it. Woohoo! What a great Friday! :T

Pinky15

Thats great news miss kitty!

LittleMissKitty

Arrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!! I've just written a huge update and lost it because the servers are down. :mad: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, right, try again:
Anyway, I think I've finally fixed the keyboard issues - I gave up and bought a new one (£4.99, worth every penny) so I'm back again and I have.....

A new car :jI was browsing online last week and came across what looked like a potential 'good deal'. I emailled DH and he had a similar thought to me which was that it must be dodgy. Figured the only way to find out was to go and look. DH was working all last weekend (end-of year stock take) but managed to get away at a reasonable time on Saturday. His parents wanted to front the cash and for us to pay them back (saves us getting a loan) so it seemed only fair they went to look with him. I found it particularly fair as they gave DH a lift and used 50 miles of their petrol and not ours DH came back declaring it was tatty, the rear passenger side light cluster was cracked and the previous owners had obviously had a teething puppy in the back as it had bitten all down one side of the armrest. He'd driven it and it was nice and smooth and the bloke had replaced the cam belt and battery in the previous week. We'd been looking in the region of £2500 for 10yr old manual with around 100k on the clock, I assumed by virtue of the fact that they're 'family' cars that all of them would be a bit tatty. This was on for £1795, 10 yrs old and only had £83k on the clock! I did an 'auto-check' thingy and it came back clear so I told DH we'd get it. I called the bloke and arranged tax (it already had a brand new MOT ) and DH had asked me to mention that the radio was coded. Apparently the guy didn't have the code so agreed that, if we didn't haggle, he'd stick a brand new CD player in for us.:beer:. We went to collect it yesterday afternoon (DH took the afternoon off especially) and it's lovely! Either DH has become particularly picky in recent days or he was over-exaggerating how tatty it was to make sure I accepted that it wasn't perfect. A bit of T-cut and a hoover and I will be an exceptionally happy bunny :j I my bargain Zafira!

Unfortunately my estimate of £53 for this weeks shop fell a little short we ran out of meat and nappies on Sunday evening so had to add £9 to the bill. Not too bad though, still under my self-inflicted ceiling of £65 a week. Leaves us £84 to do food and petrol until payday on Friday.

We've also been switching all the DD's across to the new First Direct account. I'm waiting, with baited breath, for them to appear on the screen and then I get the great pleasure of cancelling his A&L account finally. We had a couple of DD's that come out mid-way through and at the end of the month which have been annoying me so we changed them to come out on the 1st seeing as we were on the phone anyway. A nice side-effect of this date-switch is that the bike loan (which used to come out on the 31st) will effectively give us a 'free' month. Instead of taking it out next Friday they'll take it out on Monday which rolls us over into Mays budget. Although we'll be paying the bike off a month later, in real terms it's actually only a day later, and I get to use Aprils £133.30 for something debt-busty :T So, we'll get a new batch of wine brewing (should cost around £30) and I'm buying me a chocolate cake coz I'm pregnant and I deserve it . The rest is going straight into our shiney new offset account to boost the 'pay off the in-laws' fund. Or maybe I should put it aside to pay for DH's birthday, or our anniversary..... or should I just pay it off the mortgage....um, help?!

Ooo, yeah - Best till last - DH had his annual pay review (he's only been there 8 months...) and he got a £2k payrise! That means that in the 13 months since being made redundant last March he's managed a £5.5k payrise!!! And people thought we were nuts praying that he got redundancy :rotfl:

Pinky15

Yey - to the wine brewing:beer:!!!:D
Great news on the payrise am praying my DH gets something in this region - it would make a huge difference to everything - fingers crossed.
When is the baby due? Cant be long now - loads of my friends are expecting - I will have to have loads of cuddles to stem the broodiness!

Choc-addict

Great news on DH payrise :T Glad you love the new car too Seems all is going well for you!

Hope you enjoyed the choc cake I tell myself I deserve one, however not pregnant so not quite sure how that one works! x

LittleMissKitty

Pinky, we've been brewing our own for a good year or so now. I dread to think how much money we'd have spent in that time. DH is a big drinker (he's not a binge drinker or anything! Just has a couple to relax most nights) We now have a barrel of IPA, one of merlot and a small vat of dandelion wine sat in the kitchen slowly fermenting. I keep tripping over them and they're annoying me

Still a while till the small human's due, 15th July's my due date but I fully expect to go at least a week over which should co-incide nicely with the start of the school holidays

Choc, the cake was a bit disappointing actually :eek: but DH quickly rushed out and got me a black forest gateaux to make up for it :rotfl:

Nothing very money oriented happening. All of the DD's have appeared on the new account so I'm waiting till Friday (payday) to make sure DH's salary goes into the correct account and then it's bye bye A&L. Got a confirmation of DD change from Black Horse (the bike loan) but they haven't changed the date yet so I may not get my £133 to put aside this month, I'll nag DH to call them tomorrow at lunch just to double check whether the change will be implimented next month or not.

And a small positive, after being scared silly getting insurance quotes for the new car we were very happy to be told by our current insurers that they wouldn't charge anything to switch the details and it wouldn't change our premium :T Very happy since the cheapest new quote I could find was an extra £8 a month PLUS £80 deposit!

LittleMissKitty

Oooooo, long time no write. Naughty Kitty.

Well, I did it. I cleared the Overdraft :j And the day before payday we even had £24.21 left in the current account!

We were lucky that DH got an extra £70odd in his pay packet as a thankyou for the weekend he did stocktake. Neither of us expected it at all, he was happy with the free lunch they all got for turning up. This has meant that I can afford birthday presents and cards for the THREE parties the kids have been invited to this month. I've also used the remainder to buy DH a new tripod because (bless him) he bought one just before Christmas that he didn't realise wasn't complete and he's been desperate to get some decent landscapes photos but can't due to lack of tripod. He's been so good not to buy one so I've got it as a surprise. It was only £39 inc P&P and it's exactly what he wants so hopefully it'll give him a little boost . He more than deserves it, he's been doing coursework every hour God sends and trying to juggle extra responsibilities at the club with work. I actually had to come and bully him into bed at 4:30am last week so he got a couple of hours rest before getting up for work. He does so much for us and is so good about my sudden 'beans-on-toast' budgetting that £39 is nothing if it makes him smile.

My Maternity allowance has started being paid now and I got my Health-in-pregnancy grant so that's £400 to the offset/debt repayment fund. On payday I put £500 away so that's £900 saved and (fingers crossed) if we can behave till the end of the month we shouldn't have to much trouble finding the other £451.80 we need to completely clear the tax credits overpayment

Also, in todays financial news got a call from the SureStart Maternity peeps and I need to get DH to fax through our tax credits award notice so they can check our entitlement and then I should have the £500 in my account next week. That means we can get on with putting a patio down in the garden and decorate the hall, stairs and landing in time for baby arriving. All in all things are looking good.

Actually, bearing in mind this doubles as a spending diary I'm gonna start keeping tabs on money spent from the maternity grants so far as it's all been 'pre-allocated' to various tasks (including a few baby/Mummy-to-be treats) So, so far: £190 recieved from HIP Grant, £70.47 spent on a Graphics tablet (it's for the baby, honest )