The Spikes' debt diary

OneSpike

The washing machine has died, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It's a massive coincidence that it happened just as my stepson's clothes with ball bearings in the pocket (yes really) went through the wash. The digital display had been hiccupping for a while but the drum and motor were fine. Despite Nat's ministrations this evening it's very poorly indeed >RIP my lovely Zanussi< We're a family of five and I do masses of washing as I can't bear disposable things so we use cloth napkins and rags and handkerchiefs and so on rather than kitchen roll and tissues. Ho well, we've put the call out on Freecycle, and if nothing comes from that by the weekend then it'll be eBay - may as well try free before cheap! Just so didn't need this at this stage!

On the upside our car's bid up nicely and it's only been 24 hours. Similar cars are going for over £2000 so we could do rather better than we'd hoped

Mrs_Sparkle

Oh hun you poor thing- these things always happen at the wrong time don't they. Good luck with Freecycle, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Verbatim

Good luck with the freecycle. Oh the power of the internet.

James&Shell

Just a quickie wth the washing machine we took out a repair plan for our wm and when our tumbledryer ran out of guarentee we decided that it wouldnt break down as it was hardly used!

WRONG

2 days later a burning smell started to fill the kitchen so i rang up the nsurance comoany and took out a policy on it,
they asked if it was in working order and i said it was (my memorie fails at times!!) and they said cover has started mmediatly and covers accidental damage.

3 Days Later i phoned them back and they came to fix the problem and repaired it Free

chevalier

Did you have any luck signing up to survey sites etc?

OneSpike

chevalier wrote:

Did you have any luck signing up to survey sites etc?

I did this ages ago, having been a mystery shopper for a while. I found though that I was spending absolutely ages every day answering incredibly long, repetitive surveys about things I didn't use, like fabric conditioner, for no reward, so I gave up. I've signed up for Pigsback but I'm a bit lost now as all I can see is loads of adverts - do I really get something for just clicking on them? I'm a bit unworldly sometimes and just don't really get these sites!

OneSpike

More letters today. One company is being quite good about things and writing in a reasonable tone, but it's all complicated by the fact that I never got round to changing everything into my married name. I guess this is killing several birds with one stone! Tomorrow Nathaniel and I need to sit and plough through the latest crop of letters.

Great news, we've been offered a washing machine on Freecycle, yay! Just arranging to go and collect it. It's a Bosch, and our second hand 15 yr old Bosch dishwasher is still churning away very happily so that's all good. The car is bid over £1500 on eBay atm, but Dad has now said he's very interested (he retires and returns the company car soon), so that would be even better. I know it will p off the bidders, but Dad would let us use the car til they come up for Christmas but pay us now plus extra for getting some work done. We don't have to pay eBay or PayPal fees, we get a month's free use of the car and the money stays in the family. Even better Dad reckons the total spend would be half what he'd expected to spend on a car so it's win win win win win!

I've bought some candle-making bits on eBay today with the PayPal balance which Mum and Dad will pay me back for as my Christmas present, so feels like it's all going well today. Spent a wonderful few hours making candles for friends who are in hospital, having babies and moving house (three sets of people!) and getting a few in hand for Christmas and have to finish off tomorrow. Had a fantastic time doing it, made lovely hand-made items and reused a ton of old wax and shells from holiday last summer, collected with DD on a cold wet day in Wales!

Our seventh NSD in a row, if you ignore my boob buying non-PayPal items by mistake All feels okay at the moment. Loving the wintry weather, DD's being gorgeous, having good hair days and feeling slimmer - can it get any better??? LOL!

OneSpike

Phewee, been busy. Best thing is we've sold the car, and to my father too which makes things simpler. He's paying us for it now plus £1100 for some work that needs doing, but we're keeping it til mid December while the work's done. Can't say no to three weeks' interest plus no eBay or PayPal fees! That's almost as good as the free washing machine! We're hoping to get a bargain replacement car over Christmas.

More letters from the banks. I *desperately* wanted to have our replies out today so that it wasn't hanging over the weekend, but Nathaniel hasn't gone through our final figures for the 97th time yet so can't be quite sure what we can pay. I know he hasn't had the time to go through it today so I'm not fed up with him but it's in the back of my mind that the letters need to go. I have at last - hurrah! - changed my pension plan and life insurance into my married name and faxed all the bits to PayPal so I can change my name there too and get it linked to the new bank account. So much red tape, it's unbelievable.

It feels like things are under control. I'm still ecstatic about the washing machine (god, how tragic is that LOL!) and delighted the car is going, but SS wants to go on a weekend away with a group he belongs to, which will cost £10. Such a paltry amount but not easy to find. Ho hum. DD had a 'wear what you like' day at school today but instead of £1 the price was a bottle, so we sent her in with a bottle left over from some do some time at no loss to ourselves! It was a Chardonnay and I just can't stand it so I was rather pleased to get shot of that instead of parting with a whole precious pound!

The other cool thing is some decent jobs in the local paper this week, woohoo! Two are even in heritage which is just too good to be true, I never expected post-baby to get back into my chosen field so I'm off to get the Brasso out on my CV! It's looking up, looking up

anniestar

Great news. Just wanted to say well done. You have made huge steps since first posting. Excellent, keep up the fab work.

OneSpike

I'm ploughing through the letters to the creditors, giving them a breakdown of our finances and letting them know the amount they can look forward to for the next three months. Things should shift a bit so more is available to give them, but we're starting off holding more back for ourselves (ie in the food budget, things like that) so that we have a bit of room to negotiate. I'll have a great time later cutting up cards

Thank god salary finally arrives tomorrow. Nat will give me £92 cash and that's the food budget for the week, though in reality I don't expect to spend anything like that. We've decided to manage without a second car as long as we can once the Renault's gone on 14th December. DD will be on the school bus from January which will remove the main reason for needing two cars. It means at last we'll have some cash in hand, which we can use as seems most appropriate. It feels hard, but I think we should pay off a chunk of debt. Nat's not so sure and thinks there's something to be gained by having it as savings, but personally I'd like to keep at least one creditor sweet! The trouble is if we do that we then have absolutely nothing to fall back on if a second car becomes a necessity again, so I'm sure we'll end up saving the money to turn into a second car when we can't manage without. In the meantime we get interest

I've got my job application all ready to go Found a little article about the project on the Beeb news site so that was helpful. I'm going to drop in the application tomorrow so they can put a face to my name and I can save us 32p. I'm in town anyway for physio on my silly finger so that makes the trip all the more worth it. I've just realised it's more conservation than built heritage but I'm hoping that won't matter toooo much and my general heritage/lottery funding experience will be what matters. Can but try! My previous two job apps have come to nought, but first time lucky would have been just too jammy!

SD and I got our garlic and onions planted today, SD doing the digging and compost lugging as I managed to do something interesting to my back yesterday - perhaps I should ask the nice lady at the cottage hospital to give my back a quick blast with the ultrasound too?? While we did that Nat was down at our wonderful wonderful neighbour's dismantling their greenhouse. They don't want it any more and I've wanted one for yonks so this is brilliant. Next stop Freecycle to ask for the paving slabs we need to stand it on. I'm so excited about the greenhouse - is that tragic or touching?! While he was down there he nabbed them for New Year's Eve sp that should be brilliant, and we were at other friends' yesterday and have arranged for them to come over with the children for a post-Christmas drink. They'd made sushi (one half being Japanese) so I was in heaven and made an absolute pig of myself!

Right time to stop rambling and carry on with the letters. Boring as hell this diary I know (I'll never be a Mrs Sparkle!) but it helps me keep track of how things are going. Oh oh oh, the best thing of all!!! NATHANIEL FOUND HIS WEDDING RING, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!! It was in the overnight bag he'd taken to London, must have come off when he was scrabbling around. I'm so thrilled, awwww! :T