Evans DFW Diary - Flybabies in every way!!

~evanesco~

I had the 3 for £30 thing, but my OH lives away from her Mum, and the bill was getting silly, so we've swopped to see if it works out cheaper. Somethings are needed, even on a DFW mission, IMHO this is one of them. She sacrificed her family to be with me, the least I can do is let her keep contact, it's a tricky situation.

Storm - We're not entitled to CTB, as the way they work it out is different to HB. Let me explain a wee bit. When working out HB, they deduct 65% of what is called excess income. When working out CTB this is only 20% so we've had all our CTB for this year.

On another note, anyone know how we can start reclaiming the PPI on my OH's loan?

Evans. xox

~evanesco~

Anyone?

PPI?

Will I be better over at CAG?

On a plus note, filed Request for Judgement from Halifax, as they haven't responded to my Notice of Issue. £357 odd heading my way soonish.:D

Andddddddddd been Mystery Shopping, another £20 next month.

Evans. xox

~evanesco~

We've just gone £12.75 over our monthly 'spending allowance'! I guess we'll have to rein in for the rest of the month, as I really want us to stick to this budget.

We've also spent £65 odd on some birthday presents, that weren't budgeted for!!

On a positive note, we recieved £367.97 in reclaimed bank charges this week. And received a cheque for £101.97 backdated housing benefit from my OH's house that she rented last year. We're leaving that in her bank so that we don't live in her overdraft, or we may pay it off something, since the overdraft costs us less than 5 of our debts, interest wise. Also, at some point in the next 2 weeks we should receive some back dated housing benefit fror our current house. We had a review, and they stopped all benefit. But I now have the documents they need, so a backdate from before Xmas is due. This should help us make serious inroads into our debts. As I think I've said before, we're still making minimum payments this month, so as to enable us to have enough money in the bank every 4 weeks for the rent.

Evans. xox

~evanesco~

We're doing very badly at this aren't we.....

Just updated spreadsheet and it's now at £5,670.16.:eek: There is a few more payments to come off it, but not more than £50.

I believe it's some additional spending from November, that has only just gone onto the credit cards. As said previously, we're trying to budget, but people will have birthdays/anniversarys etc!!

Seriously though, we will at least have enough money in the bank next month to pay the rent on time, which is a first for many, many months!! And then, on as planned. We know we need to stick to budget next month as there will be no reclaimed bank charges to bail us out!!

Evans. xox

~evanesco~

No-one ever responds to me *sobs*, I'm using this as a reminder to myself too though, so it's ok.

I've done the spreadhseets for up to the end of the month. There's some more income to go on, and another weekly shop.

It says there will be an amount of £500ish to carry forward to next month, although some of this has actually gone to paying off OH's overdraft (was only £60, but it'll help as a buffer).

The rent is paid, which means next month's rent will also be paid on time. And I'll have money in the bank after I've been paid too. This is a first!!

The spreadsheet for February is drawn up, with an initial overpayment of £60.00 on CC1. What ever is left in my bank on the 27th Feb will pay off that too. We can't just go straight and pay the whole £500 'spare' off it as we need to leave some in the bank as a buffer incase some minimum payemnts are a tad higher than what I've budgeted for.

How we did on the budget for January....

Overspent on pocket money by over 100% :eek: This is a lesson learnt.
A couple of bills were alot higher due to changing price plans, that should settle down this month.
And the total debt has risen again, by £180.00, this is due to stuff going onto the cards after I'd calculated our debts.

We are making progress. Not just with our debts, but managing our lifestyle too, we're flybabies in every sense of our lifes, we do a new challenge each day, to change our lives, lose weight, manage our finances etc. 2007 will be our year!!

Evans. xox

Siggy will be updated on 01/02/2007

Tustastic

Hi Evans, you seem to be making progress, even if it is just bit by bit. Congratulations on that, because every little helps. Hope you and yours are wrapped up in jumpers and hats so the heating bill doesn't get huge!
Have you given any thought to marking family/friend birthdays in slightly less expensive ways? Or, for example, by earning the money for them in vouchers by doing surveys and clicking for points etc?
Good luck with it all anyway.:)

~evanesco~

Thanks for that!!:D

I think I mentioned earlier that the birthday budget has gone out of the window, we're being very strict. The birthdays we've had are big ones (a 50th & 18th) for family and couldn't just not get anything, but we have scoured the internet for cheap, but very lovely gifts, and not spent a fortune like we would have done. We also celebrated our first year of being together, and again didn't lavish each other with expensive gifts, like we would have done, but spent a minimal amount and cooked each other breakfast/evening meal.

We've just discussed leaving the buffer in place, it'll be £100, for those emergancy moments, anything left at the end of the month will be paid off something.

Evans. xox

Tustastic

~evanesco~ wrote:

Thanks for that!!:D

I think I mentioned earlier that the birthday budget has gone out of the window, we're being very strict. The birthdays we've had are big ones (a 50th & 18th) for family and couldn't just not get anything, but we have scoured the internet for cheap, but very lovely gifts, and not spent a fortune like we would have done. We also celebrated our first year of being together, and again didn't lavish each other with expensive gifts, like we would have done, but spent a minimal amount and cooked each other breakfast/evening meal.

We've just discussed leaving the buffer in place, it'll be £100, for those emergancy moments, anything left at the end of the month will be paid off something.

Evans. xox

Good for you! Would still recommend the surveys and clicks. Check out the Pigsback thread on the Freebies board for ideas. cashback-rewards.co.uk is best for daily clicks. Quidco obviously ideal if you are making any purchases. Not that you should be making many at this stage!:)

~evanesco~

Eurgh!!!

That's how I feel!!

We have overspent on our spending money, again, and we're only half way through the month. This time we've kept a to the penny spending diary so we can see where it's all gone.......... bus fares and takeaways!! We haven't gone over as much as last month, and for now I can't see any reason for us to spend anymore.

We have a floating amount of money that we us for birthdays, emergancies etc, and that's nearly all gone too. The idea wasn't to try and spend the flaoter, it was to try not to!! The thing is, if I don't get my 'extra' wages (I only budget for a basic wage) we won't have a floater next month, which worries me!!

Then, our electricity bills are going up by £38 from march!! That's disgusting isn't it! So the overpayments on the CC are now going to have to drop £38. Good thing though, we should have bank charges back on OH's account by the end of the month which will more than clear one CC, and pay a little off the other. Plus one debt is clear as of tomorrow (it's clear on it's own with minimum paymnets, was only a little one), and 2 more will be clear by the end of March, again not huge ones, but min. payments were £40 - 50 a month, so that frees up £110 to throw at the others!! It'll also be good for us, seeing 3 less debts on our list.

Anyway, just wanted to post and record my feelings.

Evans. xox

tumbleweed261

Good work so far, keep it up and I wish you the best of luck with your dfw plans! And next time you think about a takeaway, think "what would the dfws say...?"!