The final countdown... and a newbie in the DFSD house!

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

I hope you and DS (and your OH!) are having a good week. £150 is a dreadful price for breakdown cover. I wonder if they are trying to recoup costs from last year's hard winter.

I have been in London for a long weekend and spent a fortune! I always find it amazing how much cash I get through when I'm there and I was trying to be restrained this time. I suppose it is food and drink where a lot of money goes and, when there are a few of us, it is easier if we each pay our way in cash rather than use debit or credit cards. I also bought some clothes - sensible stuff for autumn/winter, some of which was even on sale, so I don't feel too bad about that. I still need some shoes, but then I should be more or less sorted and I might actually have a cheap month or two.

I hadn't realised how much I needed a change of scene until I was there, if you know what I mean. Perhaps you do when you have a baby to look after and it can be easier to stay at home rather than travel and disturb the child's routine. I'm finding that not having a car is OK most of the time, but it is easy to get stuck in a rut and only see my home town and work town. It was lovely this weekend to be able to visit galleries, go to concerts and plays etc and just walk around London seeing the sights.

On the clothes theme, I am hoping to have some free time this weekend to have another wardrobe cull. I have too many clothes, many of which don't get worn because they are either too old (and I have lowish standards so I mean very unfashionable cut etc), too scruffy for work but too smart for casual wear or are just too big for me now I have lost weight. I seem to put the clothes I do wear on chairs where they start to get creased because there is no space in my lovely wardrobe which is crammed with lots of clothes I don't wear! So I think it is time for a clear out of the autumn/winter clothes to the charity shop.

Best wishes x

debtfreesomeday

Hi chocs

Nice to hear you had a good break and recharged your batteries a little. It sounds like you had a lovely, relaxing time.

Good luck on the big sort out too! Hubby cleared his clothes out last week and got rid of stuff which was too short or small for him. I put the better stuff on eBay and it was making around £25 at the last glance which is great.

debtfreesomeday

Unfortunately it's been a pretty horrific week in our household. Again. Ds's condition has been horrendous, resulting in him being in pain and us not getting much sleep. At the height of the flare up earlier in the week I was getting 2 hours sleep a night and we were resorting to driving him round in the car in the early hours to calm him down. He's had another bad few hours today which has left me shattered and on the verge of tears.
My mum has also had another stroke. I don't really know what else to say about that, I just feel at a complete loss. My mum is not old, only in her mid sixties, it just feels so unfair.

To add to the worry, we are struggling so much financially, I really don't know what we're going to do. Everything had gone up so much and my wages have dropped by nearly £900 a month, so to say we are in a situation is putting it mildly. Our savings are now at under £1000 and I can't see that lasting to the end if the year at this rate. We have two years to get through until this loan is repaid and I don't see any way of us doing it without being back where we started. We have already built up a £700 credit card balance and i'm not even back at work yet.

I started looking into our bills this week and swapped energy providers to OVO who promised a capped cheaper rate for a year which will help save a few £'s. I also tried phoning the tax credits agency as I can't believe we're not entitled to more money considering i'm only earning £500 a month SMP. They were as much use as a chocolate teapot. Basically, I'll have to wait until I'm back at work to tell them how much I'm then earning to see if it changes the amount we receive. We currently get £30 a month, hubby's on around £21.5k a year and I'm now on SMP only. It's just so little!

I'm feeling really down lately, it's a struggle just getting through some days, nothing ever seems to go our way.

debtfreesomeday

Trying to think pro-actively, so just listed 9 books on amazon.

Chocforever

Oh, you are having such a tough time, I wish I could do something to help. I know you are normally full of energy and I can feel the tiredness and strain coming through your post from lack of sleep, the stress of seeing your DS in pain as well as your poor Mum. Can you leave DS with OH for a few hours this weekend and get out for a bit of time alone and without responsibilities?

On the money side, is there any way you can take the pressure off by extending your mortgage term or going interest only (or perhaps even increasing it a few thousand to buy you some leeway now). I expect you have already thought about it. It's great you had the foresight of getting into a good energy deal now.

It seems extremely unfair if you can't get anymore tax credits. I hope they readjust it later in the year for you.

Very best wishes x

debtfreesomeday

Thanks so much for your kind post chocs.

With regards to the mortgage, that's one area where we are very lucky as we don't technically have one. My parents own our house and we pay them every month. They really are wonderful to us.

Hubby is very good and often suggests I get out for a bit, but to be honest ( and without wanting to sound over dramatic!), I have nowhere really to go. I don't have any family here, and only really two close friends who work a lot and are not often at home. Most of my close friends live 300 miles away from us where my family are too.

Obviously I can't afford to spend any money either so have no desire to walk round the shops or anything. I like to walk, but not really alone. Since moving here I've lost all self confidence I used to have and find doing things alone really depressing, I guess because I always feel so lonely here.

Chocforever

Ah, I knew they had put some money into the house, I didn't realise they owned it. Best to keep paying them, then!

Well done finding some things to put on Amazon. I wish I had some things to put on there - I used to like getting the "sold" emails (sad, I know). I had a big clearout a couple of years ago and buy so few books that I haven't really got anything left that would sell for more than 1p plus postage! I hope yours sell quickly - sometimes the emails start coming through unbelievably fast.

I have started reading a bit more recently and I am trying to be good and use the library. I haven't read many books at all so there is no problem with finding things I want to read there. Things have moved on from when I last went to the library. Now it is all electronic self service. The books scan without even having to open the cover and with an online renewal service, its all very easy to use.

Have a nice evening. It's 6pm on a Saturday and I am almost falling asleep on the sofa! I was supposed to be going out tonight but just fancy a quiet night. I'm back at work tomorrow for 3 days and then have almost a week off which will be lovely.

debtfreesomeday

Hi chocs,

Yes, our library is also high tech like this, it's brilliant! I have been a few times lately, but unfortunately they don't seem to have such a wide range of titles in the areas I was looking for. I was quite surprised how old and out of date some of the books were which was disappointing.
They have a great children's section though which will be great for when Ds is older.

I also get excited at the arrival of a 'sold, dispatch now...' email! In fact i've had one already for £5 which is a good start. Will probably be nearer £2.50 by the time I've posted it but it was a book I no longer use so anything is better than nothing. I shall be paying bits off our credit card with these sales, just as I did before when our cc balance was huge. I need to add up how much we owe and add that to the debt total in my signature. Reducing it little by little keeps me motivated.

Hubby is also falling asleep on the sofa, he's just had to resort to a pot if coffee!

Have a great rest of weekend x

debtfreesomeday

The two lots on eBay are now up to £33 with a couple of hours to go. That's a great amount and more than expected. We've also made a purchase on eBay - two baby sleeping bags for Ds as he's outgrown his - they were £7.50 with postage, so a bargain.

The amazon book is wrapped and ready to send, I hope it doesn't cost more to post than it sold for!

We had to get a few groceries today, spending £9.50 ish.

I also finally spent some vouchers I have had for about a year. We got them for free during an online glitch, so bought £15 worth of photo printer paper as I'm printing lots of photos for gifts this year and also making photo scrapbooks for Ds's grandparents for Christmas.

I picked most of the apples we had on our little apple tree today. We were going to make a tarte tatin, but ran out of time today so will do it in the week.

Hope everyone's weekend was lovely.

X

Chocforever

You sound like you have had a nice day

Well done on the Ebay sales - always a nice surprise when the bids go higher than expected.

Have a great week x