Mrs Sparkle's sparkly debt diary

Mrs_Sparkle

jessicamb wrote:

Blimey Mrs Sparkle - thats a huge challenge

I know you'll get there though so good luck - and make sure you get a good payrise for your new role

Thanks Jess! Well I'm cheating a little as I haven't updated my MB profits for ages and I still have that to use when I need to. I've spent this evening loading stuff onto eBay- maternity clothes as they're still pretty popular even in January when nothing much sells. One way or another I'll get there...

Mrs_Sparkle

Another busy week both at work and at home. The midwife was worried about me this week and sent me for a scan to check the amount of fluid around the baby as there seemed to be too much. I'm happy to say that all is well but it was a little worrying at the time. The good news is that we saw our baby again and he's starting to get a bit plumper now- he's a good size and we're looking forward to meeting him soon.

Not much progress financially as it's that awful time of the month when it's ages till the next payday and there's nothing much I can do in the meantime. I've got some stuff listed on eBay and I'm doing Pigsback and Quidco clicks- that's about it really. Still waiting to hear what my pay review will bring although I've started my new position already. Anything will help as massive childcare costs are looming!

I'm not doing very well on my £100 maximum grocery spend this month as I've spent £44 already- oh dear! I really must get back into the habit of meal planning as I've got stacks of food in the cupboard and freezer so no excuse.

My client at work gave me a huge bag full of babygros the other day because I mentioned I still needed to get a few. I'm so pleased with them- people can be so kind. This should keep me away from the baby clothes aisle in Tesco which is very tempting at the moment with the sales on.

Hope everyone's well and the other DFW babies are coming along nicely

Mrs_Sparkle

Forgot to say- a big GRRRRRRR at Egg for causing me stress this week. They sent me a letter saying I hadn't paid my direct debit and could I contact them to make a payment of £149 to make up for it. My overdraft limit is £2.5K so there would need to be a serious problem with overspending before I had a DD refused so I was really worried.

I checked my bank account and the DD of £399 left my account as usual. When I phoned Egg they explained that because I'd made an overpayment of £250 in December this wasn't counted as an overpayment but rather early payment of my monthly payment. Therefore I was £149 short!!! How rubbish is that! They acknowledged that the £399 would have reached them as well as the £250 but the computer couldn't cope with that and it had to be manually adjusted. Still waiting for them to sort it out as when I logged onto my account tonight it flashed up immediately that I'm in arrears.

Snaggles

Hello! Glad to hear all was well with your midwife appointment, it's really worrying when you think there's a problem of any kind. Hope Egg are not causing you too much stress - what a strange computer system they must have! Hope it's all resolved soon anyway. You should write to them and tell them how much stress it's caused you, tell them you are pregnant and ask for compensation lol! Take care, love Snaggles xx

Mrs_Sparkle

Thanks Snaggles! Feeling better today and proud of my overpayment even if their rubbish system can't cope with it. Just popped to the Mothercare sale to get a few last bits and pieces for the baby- it's all very exciting. I'm going to sort through all the clothes I've been given and put everything away so I feel organised. Love to Baby Snaggles x

Mrs_Sparkle

It's been a very quiet weekend but that's good because I've hardly spent anything. I've cleared out more clutter from the house- some eBayable and some rubbish- and I've sorted out the baby's room. All of his clothes are now tidied away into drawers and his cloth nappies stacked and ready to go. I'm ready for Baby Sparkle to make his appearance now!

I'm planning on a really cheap week this week with hardly any spend on food- I need to get back on track with menu planning. Happily the freezer is packed and I'm convinced we could survive for a month on all the bags of pasta and beans I've accumulated.

Have a good week everyone and I'll be reporting on Moozie's thread this week to prove how good I'm being :-)

kathfisch

Ooh, not long until baby arrives hey Mrs S, you must have been excited getting his room all tidied and ready! Glad to hear all was well after your scan, that can't have been nice waiting to check all was ok. Good luck on your cheap week foodwise... now all you need is plenty of variations on 'pasta and beans' :rotfl:

Kath x

bungo_2

Hi Mrs Sparkly,
Sorry to butt in on the conversation but I wonder if we can help each other out? I write for Essentials magazine (womens national monthly mag) and urgently need to find a 'case study' within the next couple of days to go with a feature on dealing with debt (I've actually got a request posted further back on this thread - the regulators gave me the OK, by the way!) As I need to find a female aged between 28 and 44 and with debts of £20,000+, you sound as if you fit the bill perfectly! I'd interview you by phone about how you got into debt and how you're dealing with it now (happy to let you check through draft copy before it's filed so you know how it's going to come across) and you'd need to be willing to be photographed at home (likely to be next week). Normally we don't pay for case studies but under the circumstances they've agreed to pay a fee of £100, which might help the debt-busting a bit!!
If you're interested (or if you're not but someone else reading this is!) could you contact me at elliestott@hotmail.com asap, and I'll tell you more? And in the meantime, good luck with the saving...this site is really inspiring and has already prompted me to open the pile of bank statements I've been in denial about....!

jackieb

Mrs_Sparkle wrote:

Forgot to say- a big GRRRRRRR at Egg for causing me stress this week. They sent me a letter saying I hadn't paid my direct debit and could I contact them to make a payment of £149 to make up for it. My overdraft limit is £2.5K so there would need to be a serious problem with overspending before I had a DD refused so I was really worried.

I checked my bank account and the DD of £399 left my account as usual. When I phoned Egg they explained that because I'd made an overpayment of £250 in December this wasn't counted as an overpayment but rather early payment of my monthly payment. Therefore I was £149 short!!! How rubbish is that! They acknowledged that the £399 would have reached them as well as the £250 but the computer couldn't cope with that and it had to be manually adjusted. Still waiting for them to sort it out as when I logged onto my account tonight it flashed up immediately that I'm in arrears.

Can't Egg tell the difference between a direct debit and an extra payment? Kind of worrying as I have a DD set up for the minimum payment but sent an extra £400 just today. I guess if you overpay by more than your DD you'll be okay, but your DD is pretty high already. Seems they have a daft computer! Hope you get is sorted okay. And I hope they don't stop my dh from using his Eggcard as he's abroad and needs it for work expenses. :eek:

Mrs_Sparkle

It's ages since I've been on this site. Thought I'd better write a few notes on how January is going. I've started my new role at work but I'm still waiting to hear about a pay increase- should be the end of this month. I should also get a bonus at the end of Jan but- this is typical- the TV blew up this week so we just had to get a new one. So part of my bonus is spent already.... still I suppose I should be glad it died on us in a "good" month rather than one full of other expenses.

I've completely spent my grocery allowance for this month already so we'll be living off what we have in now- not a problem as I've stocked the freezer and cupboards and have meal plans for this week.

Only 2 weeks left at work then I'm on maternity leave. I've managed to take my first week as annual leave, which keeps me on full salary, then I switch to maternity leave the week after. Unless Baby Sparkle puts in an early appearance like he almost did last week- I had some minor spotting and rang the midwife who advised me to come into hospital to have it checked out. They had me wired up to a monitor and a drip needle in my hand within seconds... I didn't realise how serious bleeding in late pregnancy is. Anyway, all is well and Baby Sparkle is happy in there so hopefully he'll be a good DFW baby and hang on in there for another 3 weeks to give me maximum income for January :-)

Hope everyone else is well x