On the up (Hopefully)

sugarcube84

Hubby in school today which means happy hubby!!

He has managed to pick some more work so thats £200, which is great as we have a couple of unexpected expenses some new knives and forks (as we had no forks left - don't know where they go!!) a bill that needed to be paid for the work done on the car and a new tool for hubby.

Ebay week next week as he has been busy, although he has said that he seems to have picked up a lot of work so heres hoping it all materialises.

We are going to have a look at swapping the car we have had a long talk about it and its been great for the past 6 months but as hubby is taking on more gradens/diy jobs rather than driveways that he was doing then we don't need a car with such a big towing capacity.

We are going to look for another 4x4 but short wheel base and with a smaller engine. We are sticking with a 4x4 because bizarrely it is cheaper on insurance than an estate and he still needs to be able to tow a trailer. So we are going to have a look at the weekend.

Jobs for today
- check the banks
- update spreadsheet
- tea is sorted last nights leftover chicken legs from the cider casserole with pasta and a white wine sauce and probably some tomatoe pasta as well because i dont think there is enough.
- lunches are done
- load of washing on and another drying

Thats about it, back to work.

sugarcube84

Wow not updated for a week!

Well, i'm having a re jig of our finances (not taking out more credit!!) just moving money about to save interest. Should save us at least £50 a month plus hubby has only just told me he is paying for his bank account £12.95 a month!! :mad: so thats being cancelled as well.

I have been doing a bit of research into home/life insurance and worked out we can save £40 a month!! :T plus earn cash back so now i just need to find out if we can cancel now rather than in May. I have persuaded hubby to save another £18 on a subscription he has, or now he hasn't!!

I also bought th paper to get the aldi vouchers so that up to £11 saved off my shop :T

Also need to look into student finance, tax credits and childcare vouchers. We get vouchers at the minute but not credits and im wondering if we might be better off the other way round when hubby is working less/earning less.

Now for the bad news, we need new windows, we cant go on without them much longer we have leaks, have tried repairing them but they all need replacing including the doors. Heating has gone up as we lose so much heat despite having had the loft insulated and now we have damp patches in the bed rooms. Got a couple of quotes for A rated windows and its £4200 for the full house including doors, think we are going to ask hubbys dad to help out and then use some of the student loan to pay off the rest. Not ideal but we cant carry on as we are hubby has asthma and its been getting worse.

Good news hubby is really busy again!! we have managed to pay off £200 off the overdraft this month and ds has his cast off in 2 weeks (I like to end on a good note) :T

sugarcube84

well it's been another busy week, busy in a good way. I managed to squeeze in the @ldi shop to take advantage of the vouchers in the paper. We moved some credit cards around to make the most of the 0% offers that they seem to be doing ( just moving between cards not taking more out!!) and i moved hubbys overdraft to a credit card which is 0% until next year, the interest plus account fee plus a cancelled subscription will pay a good lump off it each month. Now hubby just needs to go to the bank to reduce his overdraft and cancel the posh account and go back to a basic one, we don't use the perks and TBH i didnt even know he had it and went mad when i found out!!

We ordered the windows which i have felt sick over for a week but we can't manage without new ones much longer they are rotten.

We also applied for hubbys student loan which starts in September, i have just got the form to fill in with my income on and then that should be it done, feel quite organised!!:T

I also put a load of stuff on ebay and managed to make £180 so im going to sort that out this afternoon ready to post on Tuesday as im off work to take ds to get his cast off.

Busy, busy, busy!!! Not to mention that i've managed to do 2 loads of washing today, plus cook leek and potato soup and start all the veg for our roast dinner tonight. Not bad for a sunday!

sugarcube84

I've been a bit quiet lately, theres lots going on here.

My bathroom is finally finished!! Its only taken 2 years and the garage has been cleared out so we can put the 'new' one up. We bought a secondhand one off ebay last year! Don't know when hubby will get round to it as he is just about to take a load of his Dad's gardens on but i actually feel like the house is getting sorted (and cheaply as well as we already have most of the stuff!! :T)

We also had a change around in ds room and it looks a lot better and bought him a new quilt, a new rug and put his pictures up which we bought ages ago, got a couple of storage boxes as well for his toys. I used my ebay money that i made.

I seem to have made (or feel like i've made!) progress this month. I have paid a whopping £367 off the overdraft as well as paying just over the minimum off the cards and thats including the extras for the house and the stuff i needed for ds birthday party next month. All in all a good month money wise:T the £200 from co-op helped loads!!

Now i just need the same to happen next month and my overdraft will be under £1k, i dont think its likely though but im aiming for £250 off it. I would like to have it paid off by July when i finish paying for the sofa and start paying for the windows This would mean that i would still have extra cash to throw at the other debts.

This mild weather is great for us at the minute as well as it means that the grass is growing so hubby can start the gardens earlier, it works out at £450 every 2 weeks and only 12 days work in every 4 weeks. Thats all his half of the bills paid so any extra work will go straight off the debts or towards building the business.

I also had a chat with my boss yesterday and i will be finding out soon where im going next (site wise) and at what level, maybe i will get my promotion after all!!!

sugarcube84

Sat down and went thought the figures with hubby last night its actually 36 gardens which works out at £600 every 2 weeks and should take no more than 5 days.

so 10 working days a month and £1200.

He needs to sort out some tools ( new lawnmower etc) as he has been borrowing his dads, thats not going to be cheap, around £700, but will be covered by the first months gardens and the business overdraft.

Now just need to go through his record keeping/diary so he knows exactly how to fill in his books and what to do with receipts and mileage etc (as its our car not the companys). I also ordered him a book on running a gardening business, used my survey vouchers and ordered it off Amazon. Its got really good reviews and covers all aspects from marketing to pricing and record keeping. If things change at work for me i might not be able to help out as much as i have been so i need him to be prepared!

Might try and get him on the selfemployed HRMC course as well.

Lots to do!

sugarcube84

Just read my opening post of this thread about our LBM being hubby extending his overdraft, this has now been reduced!! So can't let myself get too despondent we are moving forwards we have just had a lot thrown at us which means that its not happening as fast as we'd like.

Got lots to do!! It was ds birthday party at the weekend so i could do with going to the bank and taking some clothes back which won't fit, will have to wait until Wednesday when im off to do this.

Hubby needs to decide what to do with the car, tax and MOT it or flog it to his mate. This needs to be done by the end of the week.

Lots of stuff to photo and put on ebay.

Pay water bill, which i could do now but i've forgot the bill!!

Need to sort some photos for my driving license, think i can do this on wednesday as well.

Thats it, although im sure there was loads of other stuff that i needed to do.

Steadily plodding onwards with the debts, managed to pay a good chunk off last month but then needed to pay less this month as hubby had to pay some money into his business account for a new mower and strimmer for the gardens, that combined with only 40% of customers paying for their first cut (weren't in/ no cash etc) meaning the remainder will pay next time, left us a bit short for the mortgage so had to borrow some off his mum. It will be paid back next month when cash in catches up.

Not the end of the world but don't like borrowing (even short term) off family. Hubby is now starting 2 cut of the season so will be collecting outstanding amounts from 1st cut plus 2nd cut.

Hubbys cousins girlfriend has also offered to put his details on the database of the the estates agent where she works (think her uncle owns it) as they always struggle to find reliable gardeners to look after the gardens of empty properties or carry out full gardens tidies.So that looks promising.

Which is good really as i don't think hubby will be going to uni now, he likes the teaching and gets a lot from it but doesn't like how inflexible it can be sometime. There are loads of pros and cons but factor in the 3 years where he wont be earning and that it looks like il'l be getting a promotion and my hours will go up means that one of us really needs to have a flexible job to enable us to be there for ds. We aren't sayng it won't happen just not yet.

sugarcube84

Well we bought a new car, its lovely!! Really pleased with it, it's 04 and one owner from new, smaller engine and petrol instead of diesel with a higher mpg so much cheaper to run.Only cost us £25 to swap the insurance until June but it cost us £50 for tyres for the little trailer and £207 for a tow bar. All in all to swap cars it cost us £202 for something 2 years newer with less miles, better mpg, lower insurance group and a lot cleaner, as in bodyworks,and 6 months tax. Not bad!!

Hubby is slowly starting to get more of a business brain and has ordered new business cards, margnets for the car and leaflets to post to the local estate agents. He also is now coming round to the difference of wanting and needing something, ive told him that unless it is absolutely essential for work he can't have it. Business card etc were essential due to change in phone number. Although i did have to remind him about paying for fuel with cash and told him he must use his card otherwise i've no idea how much he is spending on fuel each month, now he understands why i want him to do it, it will hopefully make him think a bit more!!

I got £50 cashback for an insurance policy- happy days!! and £90 back into my account for swimming lessons i'd paid for, for ds, which id asked family for money for, for his birthday.

Hubby doing well on the garden front and collecting some overdue money, he is doing well considering the weather we have had he isn't too far behind with them!!

Took loads of photos of items to ebay which i might list tonight and i'm awaiting credits of final value fees for a buyer who didn't pay, then i'll get them re listed.

Going to be a tight month next month as i got my fuel card return in late so all my petrol will come off my wage, never mind it will sort itself out the following month!!

Off to see where i'm up to with surveys!

sugarcube84

Well a couple of big decisions have been made, hubby isn't going to uni its been a difficult decision to make and for various reasons that i won't go into hubby has decided to stick with his business which at the minute is going really well, so well in fact that he has had to get another self employed mate of his to help out!!:D I was really looking forward to hubby having a 'normal' job with pension/sick pay etc but its the right decision for us as a family at the moment, never say never!!

Hubby has always maintained that the majoirty of the debt is 'his' but we have been tackling it together and up until now has been adamant that my pony is going to remain unaffected. Anyway i've made him see sense and while i havent made the massive decison to sell my pony i have decided to move him closer to home to a much cheaper yard.

So savings are about £90 a month in stable costs, livery service (which i wont need if hes closer) and petrol (old yard is 9 miles away. I have rung up a couple of places and i'm going looking at one tonight so fingers crossed, altough if this isn't the one there are still a couple of options:T

It actually feels a lot better now i've made the decision although i will miss some friends and the facilities but as my friend says it doesn't have to be forever if i really don't like the place i could move again or move back but i'd be stupid not to look at other options as its a lot of money to save each month.

Debts don't seeem to be going down but i think this month has just dragged and it feels like we bought the new car longer ago than we actually did if that makes sense? So the banks are still showing the effects of swapping cars and getting the little trailer on the road. I have also move some money about to reduce interest payments so that makes things look worse on paper due to the balance transfer fee but what it really means is that £30 a month i've been paying on my overdraft is now being paid off the balance instead!!:T Just need everything to go through and then i can reduce the overdraft to £500 for starters.

Thats about it for now off to go look at stables!!

sugarcube84

Wow lots of things have changed since i last posted!!

An opportunity came along that was too good to turn down so my pony is now on loan to some good friends of mine for 12 months, possibly longer,it makes sense for everyone
- i've been given more responsibility at work so my hours have increased
- we are saving on fuel and the cost of livery,food,bedding, vets etc
- my pony gets to go out and compete and friend gets a lovely straightforward pony that she can enjoy
- hubby can have a break from helping out

Ultimately we get to pay a chunk off the debts, so although i'm upset :(i can go up whenever i want and it's the best possible situation for everybody at the moment.:)

Finances have been a bit up in the air but are settling down now, we seemed to have a run of 3 weeks or so when nobody was in to pay their bills! As a result i haven't decreased my overdraft it's there as a back up.

The car insurance renewal came through it had over doubled, went up by £66 a month!! Managed to shop around, get cash back, a meerkat and only increase the cost by £7 a month!:T

TV license came through so i'm paying 12 months over 6, then 6 months in advance, spreads it a bit better. What i'm aiming to do is put a set amount a month aside to cover water, tv license, presents haircuts etc

We finish paying for the sofa (0%!!) in July so that frees up £45 which will go towards the £150/month for the windows and the remainder will be made up of the saving for not having the pony. So basicallly we will still be better off taking into account the new windows and increase in car insurance.

Due £140 cash back in August for the life insurance and £35 for the pet insurance- whoops we might have inherited a puppy!:o

Must list a few things on ebay i've got some clothes and some vouchers for John Lewis which seem to sell well.

Busy weekend coming up with it being fathers day, me and hubby have decided that they are all getting homemade flapjacks, biscuits and fudge plus a card and that it!! So busy day on Saturday making it all, i might start Friday night.

Must admit that i have slipped with the MSE ways and as of today i will be

- doing all the surveys that come through
- meal planning (i'd forgotton how much it can save!!)
- packed lunches

thats for starters!

Really busy couple of months coming up, hubby is busy at work so am i, plus the windows, ebaying and we need to finish the garden. So busy, busy, busy!!!

sugarcube84

Well i have just been on the HMRC website and used the child tax credit and the CTC/Voucher better off calculator and beacuse of the budget changes in April i'm now £100 a month worse off taking the vouchers a massive change!!

Vouchers have been cancelled and a claim pack requested, potentially we could be £100 a month better off, add that to the extra money from paying off the couch and the windows are paid for!!:jJust a shame i've been too busy to check before now as they only backdate them by a month but nevermind!!