Work travel problems...help!!!

molerat

£125 a week is £542 a month. The petrol is covered as you were already spending that anyway and the hire car would be more economical. Have you got a quote from a taxi company ?

firesidemaid

have you rung around several taxi cos for quotes and also told them that it would be for for 4 journeys a week for the next 8 weeks for example - they may be more able to give you a discount if they know this info?

also, is it me, but is it not against the EWTD to work more than 13 hours in a shift?

hope you are able to manage x

liney

Cycle there. Taxi home. Try freecycle/local paper/beg/borrow the bike.

ska_lover

Hi Steph,
Im sure you could pick up an old banger for a couple of hundred quid. ive just sold a perfectly sound little old fiesta for £200, and know there are others out there. If I was in this situation, I would buy the car out of the money/wages i have, then defer paying a couple of bills until next pay day, and buy very little food shopping, eat very cheaply until next pay day. Beans on toast,scambled egg that kind of thing and be completely skint for the month. If you dont get a car, you are going to be in a much worse position if you loose this £800 a month and spend months getting back on ur feet and not only that, are these shifts going to be availiable once again, when your hubbie has sorted himself out?, or will his employer give them permanantly to someone more reliable? in my workplace, if a staff member didnt turn up because they couldnt organise themselves- the staff member would be sacked and rightly so - for not sticking to their contract - employers dont want to hear sob storys, they are running a business and that is ALL they care about - they want someone who can do the job, and if they cant, what use are they? Your hubby needs to be aware that he may well loose these shifts permanantly or worse still, his job. You say you were looking into hiring a car at £125 a week, but feel it wont be worth it after fuel costs, you didnt say you couldnt actually AFFORD this, just that you dont want to afford it as you wont be profiting, so get a banger. thats my advice. To be honest, if i HAD TO , id rather hire a car at this cost, than loose these shifts, even if i didnt profit as i would want the job security.

Stigy

Steph, you say your husband works for a large security company? Do they have any vehicles that they don't use routinely that hubby can "borrow". Obviously you'd be putting the fuel in etc. He works 15.5hrs per shift? I used to be in security and 12hrs was the norm, and that was after opting out of the working times directive I believe (think that's what it's called!). Unfortunately security companies aren't exactly known for their compassion, and as such have a large staff turnover. From experience in working for a couple of small-ish security companies, I wouldn't expect any favours I'm sorry to say! I understand that walking isn't an option, as after 15.5hrs I'd imagine the poor bloke is about ready to die! Having said that, if he needs the job, which I'd imagine pays about £20,000 to £25,000pa (Educated guess), he might not have much other choice, and although he's licenced, he'd be lucky to find another security job that pays this well!


Good Luck all the same though!

ska_lover

Oh and another thing, I work for a vehicle hire company, and if you call up and say you would like a quote for a MONTHS rent, rather than a weekly price, you should get cheaper costs, as it is less administration fees to them if the vehicle stays out on rent longer so tell them you want it until January on a Monthly rent, rather than a spot rental price of a week. Just a thought

Spendless

When does your OH get paid steph? I can understand £60 per week to have in your hand is a lot to pay the taxi faryes-but a chunk of that money would have gone in petrol if you'd still had a car and you''d have had to have had that money available. You need to find the rest, for which every option you take by making savings elsewhere, as someone said, eat what's in your cupboard, eek the grocery shopping out more etc.

Evilm

stephbond89 wrote: »

Just looked into a taxi, its £13 each way, so £52 a week for two shifts, and then an extra £13 every other week as he has to get there on a firday night too but would be ok picked up the next morning, so its a HUGE bill for a 15 minute journey!

Which still means you gain £600 over the nothing you will get if he doesn't find a way to get there.

Its huge but if your husbands only choices are not to work to do this... I know I would choose the taxi short term.

Have you considered seeing if you can get a friend or family member to drop him off and pick him up? Even if you paid them a small amount for the petrol used it would be better than nothing.

FBaby

could it be that the others get picked up because they don't have a licence rather than not a car and their shifts fit with others who do drive? They might consider that the fact that can't accomodate your partner within current working arrangements AND that 'all' he needs to do is get another car makes him not a priority?

stephbond89

I ahve today scoured the web and local newspapers for a car, and there is officially nothing available. We have even taken out a small loan of £250 (the most we could borrow) and were planning on putting the same amount to it ourselves on payday which is in a week and hopefully lending the same again from my mum and my husbands dad- but the cheapest cars in our area were over £1000 well out of our price range!!!

I have looked into taxis yes, this is the best quote we got!!! Sadly the next town down which has a different council do a subsiudy scheme where you onyl have to pay something like 10% of the fees if your using the taxi for a work reason.

His work dont have cars, or they do, but none which are available, it was the first thing we asked his boss, but theres simply none available for him, they're all used for Supervisors work and bosses anbd things. Im pretty sure they have a 25 yr age limit on too!

My husbands mum is "thinking" about lending us her car as she doesnt need it at the moment as she isnt working and they have a 2nd car, but at the moment she is umming and ahhing about it, which is pretty annoying considering she knows its my husbands job at stake.

As for people saying that £125 etc isnt much of an expense compared to a loss of £800- no its not, BUT the whole £1300 of our wages is taken up in bills etc, with very little spare, plus it means having it in advance, before payday. Its alot of money when you dont have it to hand. Had it been after payday, we'd have been able to put a couple of bills back a month and use that money, but sadly thats not the case.

Asa for the 15 hours, I am also pretty sure its illegal too, but my husband is adamant its not cause its written into his contract...I HATE him working those hours, all in all he is out of the house for over 16 hours a day takign into account commuting time, its horrible. But he's used to it now, done it for 2 years, and it pays the bills so he doesnt care lol.

And again, the person who said walk/cycle. Walking...its something like 10 miles to work, thats 20 miles round trip...that'd take hours and be extremely exhausting for my husband. And cycling isnt possible due to the roads, he has a bike from when he was on a different site and he has said he would be happy to cycle if it was a) closer (again 10 miles at 5 miles an hour or so on a bike is 2 hours each way and I think it would be around 15 miles once he had taken out the roads he could not use- motorways and dual carriageways) and b) the roads were better.

I guess we're going to havew to cross our fingers for borrowing my MIL car, the only thing holding it up at the moment is the insurance, if its going to cost her too much to put him on her insurance, then we cant do it, last time my hubby looked it was over £250 a month to insure him on his mothers car, which you may say "better than a £800 loss in wages" but it would be just as bad, we'd still be losing £250 a month, which is needed for bills.