Back filling the big hole I dug with my credit card

PiggyBankShaker

Ok, so I pulled my finger out and have listed 4 items on ebay. I'll set ATS the task of doing 4 tonight and that'll be a good start made for March.

Also, going to make a start in my expenses for March now so that I don't have a mountain of paperwork to do at the end of the month.

I need to try and get back into doing surveys. I might get ATS doing them as I started to do them when he was working and I wasn't, so it only seems fair to swap. I haven't had a p1nec0ne one to do for ages, shame because I like the way they pay out quickly.

I have done some sums and worked out that I should be able to afford to put £963 into savings on the 10th March, which will take us to £3,000 in the bank. Good start, but a long way to go.

PiggyBankShaker

It's me again. I'm posting more often to try and help stay focussed and maintain momentum. One ebay item I listed yesterday has an opening bid and 10 watchers so I'm optimistic that it'll net a few quid. Due to miscommunication between me and ATS I didn't ask him to list 4 items, maybe we will do that today.

I was playing around with the mortgage repayment calculator on the site and we wouldn't have to overpay silly amounts to seriously reduce the term of our mortgage. But what struck me is the huge amount we would save in interest payments £12,000! We have to wait until May to find out what our future minimum guaranteed income will be but I can't see how we can't do this really.

If we could earn enough money that maintain a frugal lifestyle that we enjoyed and overpay enough to pay off the mortgage in 4 years from May that would be the best case scenario for us as we would be free to move without worrying about work constraints.

In the meantime just need to plod on and make sure that come May we are in a secure position, whatever happens.

PiggyBankShaker

Today is my birthday. I have had £55 off relatives in lieu of gifts, and I'm going to spend £30 and save the other £25. Also, the few bit's I listed on eBay are ending today and should fetch £15 or there about.

I have been offer an interview for one of the jobs I applied for and it is in two weeks times. I haven't heard back from the second application yet, but they said they would let me know by tomorrow, if they wanted to interview me.

I'm opening new savings accounts for the kids tomorrow to get them better interest on the bit of money they've got. I know it's sad, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Other than that, just counting down to pay day on the 29th March....

PiggyBankShaker

Took the car to the garage today for a new tyre and ended up having to get 3! Good bye £154... This was not budgetted for of course, but luckily I had the money 'spare' to pay for it, it just means I am VERY short until the 29th March now.

I moved DD's and DS's money into better paying accounts, which made me feel very MSE and even set up a reminder in my calander for 1 year's time in order to review what are then best account's then so as to start looking about for another good deal for them then.

I asked work to get the ball rolling on my back dated pension contributions and made an enquiry to The Independent Pension Advisory Service to see if there is any chance of getting some unpaid contributions by a fomer employer made retrospectively. I doubt it to be honest, but it is worth a try.

I also requested a National Insurance contributions review to check I have made the maximum possible contributions for the years for which it is possible to make back payments - I should get ATS to do this too.

I started 'tidying' my old pay slips and P60's and looking at the papers relating to my Student Loan. I realised that neither of my current two employers have been taking any repayments from me, which is a pain and I will need to sort this out.

That's all today. Quite boring really

PiggyBankShaker

A little bit to report. Following the advice on the MSE homepage, I contacted my mobile provider to try and renegotiate my contract. I successfully reduced my bill from £45 a month to £20.50 a month, and I'm only tied in for 12 months. I'm really pleased as I didn't think I'd be able to do it much before July, so I have save an extra 4 months worth of full payments, totalling £100!

I'm still applying for new jobs - God, it is so tedious. I'm sure one of the applications will come good. It would make everything so much easier for us, to know that we had a secure income that would cover all of our outgoings and ATS wouldn't be under pressure to get a job.

ATS hasn't posted for a while, I think he feels a bit like I hijacked the the diary with my rant about him and the house etc. I wish he'd come back, things are so much better when we do it together.

Aesop

Hi PBS and ATS,

I have been reading, but not posting as not have really felt upto it.

well done on all your hard work over the last few months and renegotiating your mobile bill.

actually wanted some advice from you PBS, my DS' CTF is with Britannia and I don't like the Customer Service I get with them.

Am looking to change but wasn't sure which way to go, saw you had found better interest rates for ATS and your children's savings.

Any advice please?

PiggyBankShaker

Hi Aesop,

Thanks for dropping by, sorry to hear that you have been feeling down. This is from the homepage (now my Bible!)

You can transfer your account both to another provider and to another investment type, e.g. you can move from savings to stakeholder. There will be no transfer penalties for doing so, though shares type providers may charge dealing costs and stamp duty when you close them.
To transfer simply sign up with the new provider; it'll inform the old one for you. Ask the new provider to move the money for you and inform the old provider it is being moved. You can't split the CTF if you transfer it though – you must transfer it whole.

The best rate of interest is with Yourkshire Building Society, at 3%. But I think you might need to open in branch (check this) and I don't know if you have a near one.

PiggyBankShaker

The last week I have had a bit of a secondary LBM. Last Christmas when I had the first LBM, it was because of the debt situation and how we had no disposable income at all as it was all going on debt repayments. This last week I have had an LBM about what we would be able to do if we had savings and a good income!

I know it might sound obvious, but it has really just started to dawn on me the sheer number of posibilities IF we had to cash to fund them.

What got me started was seeing a repossessed farmhouse for sale, really cheap. So I played around with a mortgage calculator to work out what mortgage we could afford if I got this new, better paid job. If we got our two contracts renewed in May and I got this new job, we could have a mortgage of about £270,000 (obviously need deposit too, which we don't have!)

I started looking at smallholdings for sale in West Wales, as this is my ultimate dream. A modest farmhouse with a few acres of land, and no neighbours for miles. Best case scenario would see a few small holiday lets on the site too for extra income, but I'd forgo them if it wasn't practical.

On that kind of budget, £270,000, we could actually attain this dream! Now, if only I hadn't been a !!!!!!!! for years and actually had some savings to my name instead of all this debt then we might even be in a position to do it now. But we're not, and there is no point looking back in anger.

So if we are to stand a hope of getting there in the next four years, we need to save. Last year we paid off £7900 off my Credit Card, and that was with quite crappy income. We could easily save £7500 a year with an increased income and over four years that's £30,000 excluding interest. That's our deposit.

We could save more if we kept being frugal, and every extra £1,000 is less money we need to put on a mortgage.

The first two steps to make all this happen are I have to ROCK this job application and interview, I have to blow them away.

Secondly, we have to get these damn contracts renewed. It's not guaranteed by any means and we really need to to make sure we have the best fighting chance possible.

If those tow happen, we have to spend a bit of time and money geteting the house into a sellable state, as at the moment its only fit for me and ATS, no one else would be remotely interested.

So, not much then...

PiggyBankShaker

Money to do list this week:

• Send off claim to HMRC for £170(ish) tax rebate
• ATS to invoice £200 for some freelance work
• Money jiggerypokery on pay day
• Do my expenses for work
• Rock job interview and get offered new job.

I heard back from one of the jobs I applied for, and they didn't want to interview me It was the full-time, permanent one and I would have been very good at it. But that's life. Just need to knuckle down and do myself justice in the interview I do have this week.

Aesop

PBS, them turning you down, means there is something better out there for you, so the universe has said this is not for you. good luck, hun, keep on going.