Ladies & Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts ...

benbenandme

Had a lovely couple of hours at the park, the sun was out and it was great I've had my bath and ds is about to have his before we begin the nightly battle of wits that is bedtime

I spent £30 in tescos today but hopefully that will last me the week.

benbenandme

Okay, so i've started the ball rolling, I have applied for a pack to open a new cash isa for this year and to transfer my existing one into it too. I have no idea how much interest its currently getting but I know its next to nothing. None of the cashback sites are offering money for isa's at the moment (except for legal and general but already have one with them), but I've read through Martins recommendations and am going with them

Its the first small step of many that I need to make to try and really get on top of everything again financially. I think I have become too complacent over the last year or so with things, the matched betting is easy regular money so I haven't watched all the other pennies as carefully as I maybe should have. Well thats all about to change. Every policy / account / contract I have is going to be reviewed and audited and will have to fight for its right to stay

One decision I have made is that instead of keeping everything in the mortgage pot I will fill this years cash isa and then keep about £2k in the pot for matched betting purposes. I may at some stage make a payment from the isa off of the mortgage, I haven't done that for a while as I was going to use it to pay for solicitors / estate agents etc, but as that idea has been shelved then I can probably go back to my original plan of hammering down the mortgage. now more than ever I need it gone

benbenandme

Just been trying to compare electricity suppliers but am too tired and am getting confused I thought I had found a better one with my current supplier but when I logged into my account it doesn't come up as one I can change to :cool: Will look at it all again next week.

Smart_Mart

Hi BB, only just found this diary as haven't been updating mine as often recently...:o

Good luck in your new adventure and with the twists and turns it might bring. I'm just bumbling along with little or no motivation at present but your diaries have always boosted me a little and encouraged me to continue doing my updates too.

Can only echo what others have said about you being a great role model. Many's the time I've read your diary and wished I could be so committed to my finances and particularly my kids. You're a marvellous mummy to B and although it will sound patronising and trite (don't mean it to), if I can be half the dad you are to him, I'll be very happy.

I really need to get a hold of my life and give it a good tidy up and sort out. The football season starts properly in less than three weeks time so the clock is ticking. I know where I'll have to go to give myself a kick up the :eek:

Best wishes

Martin

benbenandme

Had a lovely evening tonight, went to a friends for pizza and then we went bowling, all paid for by the sweepstake money, so a free night out :T

Not such good news though; car failed his mot, nothing major but will have to go back for it tomorrow and will find out the cost then too

Other not good news of today; I had yet another call from the csa to say that my ex has queried the amount he has to pay, so they've done yet another recalculation and the amount will be dropping by another £30-£40 approx a month Thoroughly sick and tired of the whole sorry mess, I utterly hate feeling out of control in terms of my income, I loke to know exactly what I have coming in and out and its a horrible feeling to have others dictating it and changing it with no warning :cool:

savingholmes

sorry about mot, csa and ex. Hope things improve....

benbenandme

Thankyou, it really does feel like an ongoing run of bad luck at the moment

dangers

Sorry to hear about the csa and your ex Benben. Is the new amount a lot lower than he was previously paying? Why is he querying it - doesn't seem very fair to me.

Thank you for your reply to my pm - I did type a reply back, but I can't find it in my messages so I hope it did send. (where's the confused smilie when you want it?)

hypno06

Hugs and jaffa cakes (no-point version) winging their way over to you.

Hope the car isn't too expensive. Mine got away with 2 windscreen wipers only last week, but if it had needed anything more I would have been up a particular creek without a much needed paddle, so count my lucky stars.

As for ex and the CSA - well, I wish I could say something to make it better x

benbenandme

The ex is querying it bacuse they haven't taken off the reduction he's owed because he has him a whopping 4 nights a month overnight :cool: This will save him just over £50 a month :eek: They say the last calculation didn't have the reduction on it but I am sure it did (as he queried it then as well), but I no longer have my copy of the last calculation (remember the mention of the police earlier :cool:), well anyway, the csa say they'll send me another copy of the old calculation as well so we shall see, but whatever way you look at it, my income is gonna be reducing quite noticeably :cool:

Car is home and mended though, it came to £136 in total (decided against having a service as well), and mum paid for it, she said she's worried about me at the moment and wanted to help, and she also said that dad worries, because he can't help me in any other ways any more he'd like to feel he is helping me somehow and so they insisted on paying :A

Just two more get ups for school now to go :j