New Life, New Bank Balance!

Aimee-lou

Hi everyone,

I've not been on here in ages and I need somewhere to note down my frustrations so I thought that this forum would lend me a sympathetic ear. I hope you don't mind.

Here's how things are with us. We've taken the plunge and my hubby has started a 5 year spell at University. He is taking a 4 year biology degree followed by his PGCE in order to get his career on track. He's 26, so not exactly past it, but he felt a distinct urgency with the arrival of our son in October. Earl is fab, he's 11 months old now, walking, starting to talk and generally a bundle of laughs!

Me, on the other hand, I'm not having it so good. I've been unemployed since my maternity leave finished. We've had to relocate to allow hubby to go to Uni, and we're currently living with my MIL, her husband and their 3 dogs! I've been job hunting like crazy for the past month - got sick of nothing happening and managed 114 applications in 8 days, got 2 interviews and got both jobs. 1 job I had no choice but to decline as the childcare would have been unworkable (would have cost me well in excess of £700 a month and I'd never se my son!) so despite it being the better paid of the 2, I took the Sainsbury's job instead. I start on the 16th October :j

Now is when it gets tricky. The travelling is proving expensive and tricky, not to mention unreliable for my hubby to get too and from Norwich....we currently live near Colchester. We have decided that we need to get moved to Norwich, or at least closer to Norwich, as soon as we can. So I am once again job hunting, trying to get us sorted out. It's incredibly frustrating!

I've been on JSA, and that's been our only income for the past 2 months. Thankfully we're rent free at the moment but JSA and CB doesn't really go far when there's 3 of you to feed, clothe and support, plus a car and a bike to run and insure. Consequently all my DFW attempts over the past 3 years have fallen by the wayside and after managing to pay off 10K in the past 3 years, my ratings have dropped, we're not on the electoral roll and we've missed the last 3 months of payments on virtually everything!

We have about £12k left (£4k of which is on active credit cards) and we were on top of it all before the move, but it's all pretty much gone to pot. I'm trying to get a better paid job to try to get back on track and get us moved. Hubby has his student loans coming in (most of which are in grant form thankfully) in the next week or so so we can clear some of the backlog with that (and hopefully save enough for a house deposit, but it's still not enough with all the outgoings. I'll do a brand new SOA for our situation in my next post but for now, I've got to go and see to the little boy! Hopefully I'll have some more good news pretty soon.

One of my main worries though, is what if all of this, and the fact that our ratings are pretty naff at the best of times, will this make it impossible for us to get a house? We can't get council housing as we're really low priority as we live outside the area and every time we try to bid there's always 70+ people in front of us in the queue. I desperately want a job that is Monday to friday, 9-5. I don't care what I'm doing as long as it's in Norwich and pays enough for us to get by. Oh and I can't get through to the Tax Credits line to order a new form! :mad: I'll do a brand new SOA for our situation in my next post but for now, I've got to go and see to the little boy! Hopefully I'll have some more good news pretty soon.

Thanks for reading and any thoughts I'd be glad to hear them.

Aimee-lou

Good Morning everyone -

Sorry no SOA at the moment....things are once again in the air. Until I get my paws on hubby's student monies, I can't really say what's going on. Should be in tomorrow....woohoo! :j

Today's drama was caused by National Express. Hubby has been getting the train to and fro, and we buy his tickets in advance, online. We got a day return for £16 plus £2.50 for bus travel. We bought 3 days worth, and it went through fine. Something went wrong in their system and it was holding the cost of the tickets (despite the payment already cleared and paid) in situ in our account and we couldn't draw on it at all. £55, all our money in the world. Hubby unable to get to Uni for the rest of the week, unable to buy his textbooks, unable to eat! :mad: I spent an hour on the phone yesterday, and about 30 mins this morning and eventually managed to convince our bank to cancel the non-existent transaction. :j Panic over!

I've found a house that may be good for us. Of course I need to get a job, but I have another interview in Diss on Tuesday next week. It's 3 days a week but has potential to be more in the summer (in tourism). I'm not sure how we'll do but hell, we can't be much worse off than we are at the moment, and there's a bus to Uni for hubby from the village, which is 1/4 of the cost of the train tickets!! It would be pretty perfect - but I'm trying not to get too excited. I need to keep my feet on the ground - there's too much at stake.

Right, small one is asleep, washing needs to be hung out, and I need breakfast - would love to go back to bed if I'm honest. Can't cope with these long days! (up at 5.30 today ).

Aimee-lou

Well today is a busy one. Small stuff is asleep so I managed to get some phone calls made. I have an interview for a TIC job in Tuesday next week - it's 18.5hours a week but with potential to be more during the summer. It's not great rates of pay and to be honest, it's not enough money to get a house (not with hubby only on £6k a year). I'm tempted to email her and cancel but I'll see what comes of the other 10 applications I've done this morning. Takes my grand total to 125 applications since the 8th September! :eek:

I rang up about the house, and it may be gone but there may be others. They're in a 'rent-to-buy' scheme and you need to have some savings. Not sure how that would work but worth investigating at least.

What else......Student loans still not in, fuel running low on the car, hubby and I have £10 to our name. I'm expecting a bit of money in from elsewhere tomorrow which will see us through. I'm just hoping andpraying that the same as last year doesn't occur when students just didn't get their money. We need that money guys!

Have a good day everyone :cool: