PBR's "M" for "mortgage" diary!

agiaga

poorbutrich wrote: »

Finishing work is a great idea- I was thinking of working right up to the event, but it would be nice to finish early and get everything ready.
/QUOTE]

I'm reading your diary with interest and getting inspiration from you and all people posting here...:A

I'm expecting my first baby as well and very very soon - only 3 weeks left... As I wanted to spend as much time on paid maternity leave as possible I was keeping almost all my annual leave entitlement to take in one go just before maternity leave. This way I'm on holiday until due date :rotfl:

Lois_E

poorbutrich wrote: »

Well I don't think anyone is reading. I'm prattling away to myself here, but I'm going to let off a rant so it's out of my head and I can get on with being my normal positive self! I know that things are tough for most people and there are wars, people starving and in dire poverty all over the world, but I want to get my moan (put in a MFW context) out of my head.

It was all over the news yesterday; life is tough for working families. DH and I appear to be living proof of that and we appear to have timed it worse than most! With our LO due in a few months, I knew things would be tight - they always are for us! We always seem to time things so badly. We bought a house just as things went pear shaped. We knew they would, but have been hit with a punitive interest rate which made one of our friends laugh at our much mortgage cost: "For that ****hole???!!!!" were his exact words.

Now, after listening to our "friends" harp on about how their tax credits (up to £700 in some cases) "paid for our holiday to Disneyland", health in pregnancy grant ("it paid for our new sofa"!, child trust fund (here's £250 and another £250 to come!), free laptops etc etc, we had a look and we will get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Now that's fine - why should the taxpayer fund our choice to have a child? But after all the money we've shelled out in tax and really having had our noses rubbed in it over the last few years, I am simply stunned and disappointed.

Having said that, we do get something. £20 a week child benefit. We'll get by, but I can't help feeling punished. DH and I work so damn hard when we'd be better off if we didn't. if I think about it too much, I want to cry.

Instead though, I've just read through my post. I think after the mortgage is paid, my next project is to get a better quality of friend!

Sorry for the moan. Normal service will now be resumed.....

I'm another one that reads your diary - I try to thank your posts, too, so you can see that somebody's listening.

I do know what you mean about people who can't be bothered to work. But sometimes, the system does do what it's supposed to do. I did all the "right" things - waited until my then husband was earning enough to support me before having kids etc - and got almost no help. And then it all went wrong, and through no choice of my own, I found myself a single parent with two kids under 5, in a rented house, feeling VERY grateful for the tax credits that enabled me to keep my head about water financially, and especially for the tax credits help with childcare, which enabled me to work (part-time) without shelling out more in nursery fees than I was earning. Six years on, I'm back on my feet, working more hours, paying down a mortgage and receiving only a small fraction of the TCs I used to get.

Good luck with your little one. Hope you have an easy birth and a wonderful new person to join your family.

sarahevie

I think what PBR is getting at is the 'lifestyle' choice to live on benefits.

What gets my goat is that you can be financially better off without working and that to me is wrong.

When I left work (as my contract wasn't renewed) I was living with OH who earns minimum wage, we would have been better off on benefits as we would have had our housing and council tax paid, how can that be right?

Long term though you are better off on benefits, they are only really generous for children and they won't be young forever, so long term you are better off in work. Thinking like this gets us through the day:rotfl:

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Hello,

The benefits gravy train of rent paid and free everything really makes my blood boil when I start to think about it too much, so it is best not to. I don't think they can be really happy with such an unfulfilling and unstimulating existence and if you tried it you would probably hate it. Although I am sure this is true, I admit that when I am tired, I also indulge in the odd rant!

You are doing all the right things. Good luck.

Squirrel

ultrarunner

Nail on the head there PBR - while we may feel angry or resentful of those on benefits getting something for nothing, it is more satisfying to look at your house and your life in general and think, 'this is what I have worked for and achieved'.

agiaga

Hello poorbutrich

Yes, it's my first one. Little boy shoud be with us very soon :j

Eating_Daisies

poorbutrich wrote: »

got into a cupboard because I thought it was a lift,

That's exactly the kinda thing I would do! That made me laugh out loud!! :rotfl: The lodger must think I'm a right weirdo now!

basscadette

poorbutrich wrote: »

Well I don't think anyone is reading. I'm prattling away to myself here, but I'm going to let off a rant so it's out of my head and I can get on with being my normal positive self! I know that things are tough for most people and there are wars, people starving and in dire poverty all over the world, but I want to get my moan (put in a MFW context) out of my head.

It was all over the news yesterday; life is tough for working families. DH and I appear to be living proof of that and we appear to have timed it worse than most! With our LO due in a few months, I knew things would be tight - they always are for us! We always seem to time things so badly. We bought a house just as things went pear shaped. We knew they would, but have been hit with a punitive interest rate which made one of our friends laugh at our much mortgage cost: "For that ****hole???!!!!" were his exact words.

Now, after listening to our "friends" harp on about how their tax credits (up to £700 in some cases) "paid for our holiday to Disneyland", health in pregnancy grant ("it paid for our new sofa"!, child trust fund (here's £250 and another £250 to come!), free laptops etc etc, we had a look and we will get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Now that's fine - why should the taxpayer fund our choice to have a child? But after all the money we've shelled out in tax and really having had our noses rubbed in it over the last few years, I am simply stunned and disappointed.

Having said that, we do get something. £20 a week child benefit. We'll get by, but I can't help feeling punished. DH and I work so damn hard when we'd be better off if we didn't. if I think about it too much, I want to cry.

Instead though, I've just read through my post. I think after the mortgage is paid, my next project is to get a better quality of friend!

Sorry for the moan. Normal service will now be resumed.....

Haha I had a similar rant to my OH the other day. Great diary by the way, but thought I should jump in now because this subject is so close to my heart.

I see people are getting 70p in the pound towards childcare, a 600 a month in working and child tax credits and despite us working our butts off, many of these claimers have much more disposable income than we do (close family included :mad:). What's worse is even if I wasn't bringing anything in with the business, OH would still be taxed to the eyeballs relentlessly, meaning we would be still be worse off.

It's the kids that do it though. I went through the income tables and a couple on £17k between them also get virtually nothing - the system is seriously effed up. And they want to steal more to pay for a couple more lazy gets :rotfl:

oasisfeverish

poorbutrich wrote: »

Welcome Bascadette!

Thanks for your comments. After talking to people, who, like you say, get £600 a month in tax and working credits, I thought we would get something similar or a bit less after recent changes. To do the calculations and get a big fat zero was a bit of a blow though! I thought I'd typed with such desperation that I'd broken the website calculator and did it about five or six times before the bad news sunk in!

Someone in my family got a new laptop for free in some sort of government IT scheme for families a couple of years ago. I'd work from 8am to 6pm -then onto my evening job, then when I'd come home at midnight and see a whole string of rubbish on FB that she (and her 9 year old, also on FB) had been doing all day - Farmville, Poker etc etc while I'd been working to pay for it!

I must stop ranting! I was in a terrible funk yesterday but have tried not to talk about it today, having drawn up a very meagre budgetary plan with DH yesterday. I have also put down the Thomas Hardy novel which I'd been reading as DH said it was probably contributing to my moaning!

I've just subscribed to your diary too and am stunned at everything you've achieved in just one post! To take on a house to do up, start a business that is already successful and a baby on the way! :A

I will be following your diary with interest! When is your little one due?

I know what you mean about FB and others, I see an old school friend always registering scores on games, and sending me requests for more 'coins'. Then he moans that him, his partner and 8 children are overcrowded in a flat, and wants to move from London to Hastings, but keeps being unsuccessful in the bidding process.

Each to their own, but why so many children?

Also I once ended up sleeping in a cupboard, was a long time ago on holiday in Kavos, had a little too much to drink, didn't have the energy to take my clothes off and hang up, so thought it easier if I just slept wearing them, where they should of been hanging. Gosh my neck hurt the next day!

Just concentrate on you, your baby and your own position. Think that at least you have a house that one day will be all yours. We have a young girl 2 doors away, living in a HA house and about to give birth to her second, she has never worked since leaving school. Whilst we both work, and pay our own way.

It's just the way this country is, benefit levels will reduce, so the less you rely on them, the easier it would be for you.

Everytime I read another diary it inspires me, that despite the current climate, people can still be so positive, and that's great to read. Keep it going.

mouche

poorbutrich wrote: »

I was just looking to see if you had a diary and I see that you are also on the baby journey! Many congratulations to you! I think we're both about the same stage?

Yes I am, thank you. I think you're a few months ahead of me as my little one isn't due till the beginning of Feb. I'm looking forward to it and am terrified in equal measures as I'm not the most maternal person. OH was born to be a dad though and he's perfect so I wanted to give him at least one baby.

I will be going back to my home country of India to have the baby because I can't cope without my mum - which means I'm taking maternity leave 2 months before the due date. I'm going to be bored stiff so will post lots more then - and will hopefully start a MF diary of my own then as we are hoping for some good news next week. Fingers crossed!