determined to be debtfree!

debtfreewannabe321

:wave: morning Slm glad to see you back! So glad i had the flu jab it's been going round here again :eek: Is everything going ok? Hope the dmp has settled down a little

Well this morning I woke up and have decided I am on a diet. I weighed myself. Not impressed at all with my weight my bmi is 26.2 which i know is not hugely overweight, but nonetheless it IS overweight and i can feel it on me.......so going to shame myself now.

I am 5'4" and weigh 10 stone 13 and a quarter lb

Today was shopping day so i have stocked up on fruit, cup a soups, veg, salad etc. And have found my old slimming world book. I've tried to follow it again but still getting my head around the Extra easy plan, when i went it was red & green days ....but so far i'm full up :T For breakfast I had cereal with small amount of milk. Snack, yoghurt, blueberries & tea. Lunch cous cous & 2 slices of wafer ham! Just hoping i don't give in to the cravings of chocolate now :rotfl:

I'll be back with today's spends once I find the receipts.......

PinotGrigio41

Dont talk to me about chocolate, I have just raided someones leftover Xmas selection box and eaten their Mars Bar !!x

debtfreewannabe321

Spends £22.12 in ald* and £15 on petrol! Leaving me with around £10 for the rest of the week & into next week :eek: ! roll on payday!

Will be back later to read everyone's diaries just dealing with a crisis here !!!

debtfreewannabe321

Oh gosh! Having major dilemma (again, nothing ever easy in DFW321's world Grr)

My mum is having problems, someone (i'm suspecting family) has grassed her up to benefit fraud for earning more than she does! They have said she was earning over and above for at least the last year! well luckily for mum she is pretty honest! She brought down all the wage slips and showed them to the benefit team and she wasn't doing anymore hours than contracted up until oct/nov.......she worked a few *like 8-10* hours extra a month and they are charging her with £400 over payment. I feel so awful for her. She already goes into the red every month just to keep the silly little job where they don't show her any respect or thank her for doing 3 people's jobs (grrrrrrrrrrrrr) but she refuses to give up her 'independance' and so now she will be going £122 extra each month into the red to pay for extra rent & council tax.......even though her hours are back to normal and there is no extra work (she only did it because she wanted to treat the kids to nice xmas presents so i feel proper guilty now )

So effectively she earns £400 a month.
Her rent is now £ 200
Her council Tax is £52
Her bus pass enabling her to get to work is £76
she confessed she has had the heating on twice this winter. Simply because she can't afford it she was crying down the phone and i don't know what to say

She spends less than £40 a month on food/cats stuff/cleaning products/ toiletries and it is all mostly whoopsied stuff from her store than she works at.

Sorry I know this has nothing to do with my money matters but i feel awful i just don't know what to do. And to make matters worse she has finally found a house exchange that she loves and they love hers. Of course she can't move with rent arrears so they need paying a.s.a.p or they won't even entertain the idea of it.

So i think i am going to give her the £400 for the rent/council tax arrears. I know i don't have much money either but it's sitting in my account waiting for me to use and i'm just praying dh gets his bonus so we can top our money back up in time before we need it. I don't know how to sort out the fact she has to find an extra £122 a month though. I haven't got that sort of money to lend her. Even if it is just for a few months until she moves (after she moves she will be living a 10 min bus journey away so should be much cheaper) oh blimey rambling now, could do it for england me. I find if i get things off my chest though i feel better. So need to re-jig spreadsheet and find £400 now, and call dad and see if perhaps he could loan me the rest of the shortfall until march/april when she can go back down re-submit new wage slips so they up her benefit again to covering it. It would help really if her rent weren't 3x the amount of her wages, she could do what she wanted then ok will shut up now :silenced::think:
Not expecting any replies, i just feel better for venting. This is so much cheaper than therapy

slm6002

sorry really dont know what to advise. Is she better off with or without job? Is the new house cheaper rent or council tax (if smaller)? Surely if it was seasonal extra work they could see it - would work write to them stating her hours - might get them to reconsider earlier?

I hope she gets sorted soon as its obviously distressing for you both

debtfreewannabe321

slm6002 wrote: »

sorry really dont know what to advise. Is she better off with or without job? Is the new house cheaper rent or council tax (if smaller)? Surely if it was seasonal extra work they could see it - would work write to them stating her hours - might get them to reconsider earlier?

I hope she gets sorted soon as its obviously distressing for you both

Thank You Slm

She is financially better off by around £400 a month if she quite work (basically her wage) but she refuses to 'sponge' as she puts it. I was trying to say to her though that she wouldn't be sponging if she is doing it for genuine reason and plus she would be looking for another job because she wants to work. I hate the way the system helps those who don't help themselves and shuns those trying to better themselves. Very sad !

I've offered to pay for the rent and council tax arrears and i've got dad to agree to pay for her removal costs to new house & any shortfall :T The house she is moving from is a 3 bed to a 2 bed. So cheaper rent (although not by much it's another suburb of london) and council tax also not much cheaper but every little helps. She will also save money on the buses as she has to pay to go through more zones at the moment so it's moer expensive! I really want to help and feel so frustrated. Mum doesn't want my money (prob cos she knows my situation) and so is getting herself into a tizz oooh i feel all confuzzled!

I have decided that i can take the money from my 'holiday' fund which has £500 in anyway i'd already decided that i wasn't going on hols this year anyway so it's just sitting there (was saving it towards my savings goal) but i'd feel terrible not helping when i have it sat there!

She is off to the C A B tomorrow though just to see if they can help in any way if not i will transfer the money straight away and get her to pay it in cash the next day so they can't add any interest to it!

Oooooh why can't my life be boring.

slm6002

Wouldnt a boring life be nice sometimes I have DMP review tomorrow and expect payments to go up but hoping not by much as trying to keep a little of the extra OH giving me so that i can put it to savings for tax etc. Only got their letter to day saying they would call tomorrow so now looking at my figures and getting ready - feel a little nervous although i know i shouldnt really

debtfreewannabe321

aww don't be nervous! I cried the first time i had one pmsl i was convinced they were going to tell me they couldn't help me anymore :eek: ! they didn't though and are so helpful

You can put the car tax into your budget each month. Then either pay it into a post offce budget card thing like i do or a seperate bank account so you can't touch it :)xx

slm6002

thank you fingers crossed they dont want too much more

debtfreewannabe321

afternoon

slm- i hope your dmp review went well
bonnington & happy- hope your decorating is coming along nicely lol

Well today was going to be a NSD. Bumped into a friend though and she twisted my arm into going to a$da with her for a cuppa. Well a cuppa turned into a breakfast :eek: & tea! :rotfl:

Then i decided i needed to look at the tops upstairs in the clothes dept! I found a plain black top to replace one that has holes in it at home and was only £6 :j was happy with that!

Also picked up a pack of sweets for kids as i had promised DD one. Well they overcharged me for the sweets by 40p :rotfl: so i asked for a refund on it ..The top then went through at half price :T so only £3 for it

I went to the customer service dept and the man was lovely, and he gave me £2 gift card for my inconvenience :eek: wow! great CS! Was very happy with that

I got home just in time for a delivery :T and have dd car seat already! She fits perfectly into this one compared to the last one. I had to accept some help putting it together though from a kindly man passing by :o i wasn't quite strong enough :rotfl:

THEN friend that we had had brekkie with wants to go out again to play centre. I said i couldn't afford it as pay day is round the corner but she wouldn't take no for an answer and paid for the kids to go in (which i now feel incredibly guilty and leech like about ) but she had had a row with her hubby and just wanted to get out the house.........she put it on the credit card though which makes me feel even worse. Will have to see if i can repay her next month!

but anyway total spends today are:

£4.50 for breakfast & tea
£3 top
£1 sweets

Dh has phoned a couple of times. His exercise does not sound nice can't obviously go in to detail. But think it's suffice to say, i would not do any of what he has had to do. end of. :eek:

have decided to buy him a nice bottle of red (from ald* sorry hubby :rotfl:) and some nice bath soak stuff hmmm and maybe some olives or other yukky thing he insists on eating, but cos i don't eat we don't have in the house :rotfl::p he'll be back next week sometime so plenty of time to wait for payday to get it