Goal - 3 debts paid by Christmas

rainbow81

I was going to ask if you've stolen my DS but I see yours is 4 and mine is 7! Ear defenders are BRILLIANT aren't they? My DS uses his a lost less now, I think now he knows he's in control of the noise then he's not so worried about it, IYSWIM??

Anyway, I am a bit of a lurker round here and completely empathise with the food thing too. And the chewing the water bottle thing! You can buy the lids separately from the bottles at DS's school which makes it less painful.

Off to lurk again ...

Triggles

rainbow - good grief, you know I didn't even THINK to ask if we could buy the lids separately! Serious "smack myself in the head" moment going on here! LOL DS2 has just started using the ear defenders in school and does seem to like them - helps him cope better with noise - so we bought a pair that someone recommended to us off Amazon so we have some at home (and when we're out and about). He is too young right now, as he just panics and it's hard to get through to him when he's distressed about the noise. It's good to hear that when they get a bit older, he can hopefully cope with it a bit better. Thank you for that!

Triggles

Evil evil Lakeland! They've sent me an email with a perfectly lovely pudding steamer online for £7.99!!! :mad: I'm weak when it comes to Lakeland. So I'm going to be good and do some research into what I can make with this and see if I'll reasonably use it, before I decide if I'll purchase it. :cool:

I managed to hoover up a sock today - DS3 thought it was hilarious fun to throw things just in front of the hoover so I had to lean over and pick them up. I wasn't quick enough with the sock! :rotfl: Thankfully for the hoover, DH was able to extract the sock. The sock, however, didn't fare so well. It's now in the bin as he had to rip it to get it out.

Triggles

Just a note that the shepherds pie for tea tonight turned out wonderful. Cheap and easy, as minced lamb is actually less expensive than mince right now. Fairly easy to make as well. Definitely will be making that again! Basically a pack of minced lamb, onion, couple carrots, couple cloves of garlic, some potatoes (and butter and milk) and a stock cube. Easy peasy! Yay!

Triggles

Let's see, what have I been up to lately?

- moved all my debt, budget, printing, computer stuff up to the bedroom, to the lovely desk that is now a bit of a dressing table/office area for me. Love it, love it, love it!! All my binders/folders with debt/house budget paperwork are neatly standing in the cupboard, printer on one side (very large desk!!!), and plenty of room for laptop on the other side, plus writing area in the middle. It's out of the way now (instead of cluttering up the dining room!) and soooo much neater and more organised. I can go upstairs and work quietly on it while DS3 is taking his nap and DS2 is in school. Hooray!!!!

- received notice from DH that his supermarket employer is bumping up the Christmas bonus (to 15% off) starting on 17 October which is quite early this year and will run until the 4th or 5th of January!!! :j I am thrilled! This means all purchases at that supermarket will be 15% off for that whole time! Yay!

- been fighting and going around in circles between school and GP surgery regarding DS2. It's an ongoing thing, but lordy the conflicting information and stress is enough to send you screaming to a dark corner! And in the meantime, because he's now in fulltime school, he's exhausted and unable to cope as well as previously, which means more meltdown, less comprehension, and even more eating and sleeping problems on his part.

- Won £20 free bingo. Always a plus. :j

Triggles

Organising for tomorrow. Easy tea - scrambled eggs, toast, possiby some bacon or sausage, but not sure about that part yet.

Lakeland is replacing my mixer/food processor again - some kind of fault. But that's fine. Things happen, I'm just pleased that they have such lovely customer service. And I use it a LOT, so just can't go without it!

Spent some money today that I probably shouldn't have. Argh. Shame on me. I have been incredibly stressed, and I always have troubles with the budget when overly stressed and not coping well. DS2 woke up at 3am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, which happens somewhat regularly. So I'm exhausted and tired, and over-coffee'd. LOL

I'm at the point right now that I can't sleep. But will have to try to will be falling over tomorrow!!

maman

Hope you spent the money on something nice triggles. I think a small treat now and again stops you getting disheartened. I do hope DS2 sleeps through the night and you do too!

Triggles

Feeling a bit growly today. DS3 has just gotten over a 24-48 hour D&V bug, DH is in the middle of it (serious man-flu issues :mad:), and DS2 is just starting it (so is home from school today). Yep. We're having fun in this house. I'm just washing my hands like a fanatic and trying to make sure I don't catch it - as, unlike with men, if I get it, I'll still have to struggle through as the household seems to come to a screeching halt and spontaneously combust otherwise. In case you can't tell, I'm just having a slight moan over DH being ill and going to bed, leaving me to deal with 2 children that are not in the best of conditions either. Plus, he needs fluids to flush out his system and keep from getting dehydrated, and is he sitting up drinking fluids at all? Of course not! So it's going to take him TWICE as long to feel better. :mad: My stomach is jumping all over the place, but I think it's in response to general aggravation (and far too much coffee) rather than coming down with it myself....I hope.

Had to turn on the heater again - a bit chilly in here which made it miserable for the little ones as they were dealing with chills as it was. And with all the laundry this is generating (DS3 alone has thrown up on his clothing, bedding, towels, myself and my clothing!), it's helpful to have a few warm radiators to put some of the wet laundry on to dry just a bit faster.:T

At least relieved that DS2's appointments have come in post today. We were told it would likely be at least 6 weeks before we were given an appointment. Thank goodness it's sooner!

I see that Santander refused to join up with the other banks to fight the FSA regarding PPI (it's under latest MSE News). Happy to see that since they mis-sold PPI to DH and we've only recently requested a refund on it. Here's hoping it's settled quickly and in a positive manner.

My living room looks like a toy box exploded (again). DS2 for some reason cannot just root through the toy box to select a toy... he has this apparently undeniable impulse to dump the entire contents on the floor and then look through to see what he wants to play with. He's always done this, to be honest, but lately it's a bit of a "shaking my head" moment when everything gets tipped out, knowing we'll pick the entire contents up and put them away a good half dozen times today. For now, as he's not feeling well, I'm just going to let it stay spread all over the floor, rather than stressing over keeping it picked up.

I think I'll do a little browsing on the freebies and competitions boards today. I won a couple little competitions last time (a pack of lovely charcoal drawing pencils which I've put away for Christmas present when DS2 is a little older and some garden toys), so maybe I'll have a bit of luck again this time. We were hoping to win that cottage, but nobody showed up at our door with a new house key, so I'm thinking we didn't win that one! :rotfl:

Not sure what our plans are for tea tonight. No clue who in the household will be able to eat and who will be feeling ill. So it'll most likely be a simple last minute throw together for whoever can eat at that point.

Triggles

Ok, have already apologised to DH about the man-flu thing, as I promptly got hit with the same stomach flu the other night after he started feeling better. :rotfl: Hit me like a ton of bricks, don't even REMEMBER the evening - DH says I pretty much passed out briefly and then was quite ill - I just remember stomach pain and then waking up the next day. So now DH & I have both had it, as well as both boys. Soooooo not fun. But, as I said, I apologised to DH as obviously it was worse than I thought.

So anyway, on to more cheery things. Doing a major happy dance today. We've received a letter in the post from Santander saying they will be giving us a full refund plus interest on our PPI reimbursement request. It will pay off the balance of that loan plus give us some extra to make a significant payment on another debt, as well as a small amount to add to our Christmas fund. :j We couldn't believe they agreed so quickly - we just made the request a couple weeks ago!! What a lovely surprise!! So that is ONE BILL PAID COMPLETELY OFF!!! We will be breaking open a bottle of wine when THAT receipt comes in the post!!

Current tally:
loan - being paid off due to PPI refund, so will have zero balance
loan - still awaiting CCA info, after making complaint to ICO about company being obstructive
catalogue account - CCA unenforceable, they have no paperwork whatsoever
credit card - CCA unenforceable, do not have correct paperwork
credit card - enforceable, making payments, in process of putting together PPI refund request
credit card - CCA unenforceable, do not have correct paperwork
credit card - enforceable, requesting SAR to make PPI refund request
credit card - zero balance
overdraft - making payments, currently no fees/interest on account

So things are ticking along well at this point. Once we get some of these PPI situations sorted, we can then look at making F&F's to the two that are enforceable and paying off the overdraft.

DS2 has a number of appointments coming up again over the next few weeks, so a fair bit of paperwork and things will be a bit up in the air. We've gotten a bit of DIY work done this morning, patching some nail holes and prepping a wall to paint, as well as starting repair on the living room wall as the curtain rail was coming out of the wall. We have rubbish walls in the living room - just horribly crumbly things - and I think we're going to have to put a piece of wood across so it fastens to the wall at numerous points, as the wall just doesn't support curtain rods at two or three pressure points - personally I think it's because the previous owners did a lovely job of ripping the walls apart putting a zillion holes in them when they lived here. Filling the holes was initially like going in after a demented woodpecker attacked the walls - it was dreadful! Anyway, couple loads of laundry done, ironing done. All in all a fairly productive day so far.

I'm off to play a bit of free bingo and hope to win some ££££.

maman

:wave: Hi Triggles. I've been a way on a short holiday. So sorry to hear about your tummy bug but delighted to hear the good news from Santander. Not many people have good tales to tell about that bank. Well done. I don't know the history but I do commend you tackling that list debts, it must feel overwhelming sometimes.