The Ultimate Hard and Fast debt clearing mission

ruby_eskimo

Neither did I Tete! Both babies are still in the NICU but appear to be doing well.

Logged into my online banking this morning (like I do every morning) and discovered £139 from Quidco! It's for when we took out our Virgin Media contract when we moved. I didn't think we'd get anything because I didn't sign up for the "Quidco" offer, but we did! It's going to come in handy as I had no idea where I was going to get the money from for spending money when we go to Budapest in November!

N.I.M

ruby_eskimo wrote: »

Neither did I Tete! Both babies are still in the NICU but appear to be doing well.

Ruby I can't find where this bit came from. Whos in a NICU? How many weeks? What happened?

shrimpy_80

Wow great news on the Quidco money Ruby! Surprise money is my favourite kind

In other money related news, my remaining debt is finally under £2k for the first time ever! I am determined to be rid of it by Christmas.

ruby_eskimo

N.I.M wrote: »

Ruby I can't find where this bit came from. Whos in a NICU? How many weeks? What happened?

A friend of mine's wife went into labour 8 weeks early and had twins, when they were only expecting the one baby. All the scan pictures only show the one, so it's all a bit confusing. It will probably end up in 'Take a Break' or some such similar magazine. Babies are ok, one is on oxygen but they don't think it will be a long term thing and the other one just has her feeding tube and apart from that is ok at the moment.

Shrimpy - That's great news! Fingers crossed you can get it down by then, would be a great way to start the new year!

Dinah93

Woohooo go Shrimpy!

NIMs dad coming today, looking forward to it but I feel like I've spent every waking minute this week cleaning and tidying and I'm exhausted for it. Looking forward to seeing him and his partner though. NIMs mother emailed to say she'd like to visit next weekend (me thinks she got word of NIMs dad coming this one) and how far were we from St Andrew's as she wanted to get some golf in while she was over. For those of you who don't know our location, we're a good 5 hours drive south of there! I felt I was quite refrained as I didn't make any remarks along the lines of 'well so long as you're used to popping up to Belfast for a game you won't find this too much longer'. We're borrowing a friend's holiday cottage in Northumberland for the weekend though so not about anyway, have suggested the week after or any of them after mid October.

I think the budget is going well since we came home, can't be sure though as I haven't sat down enough to look at the banking all week, hope to do that this morning. New recipes will start appearing on the blog in the next few days, just haven't had a moment to type them up yet.

Grace still not feeding well so I think she's going to have to go onto more medication for reflux today, she's still taking around 350mls a day which is slightly less than she was taking 2 months ago at 6lbs. She's not doing badly weaning off oxygen, we're up to 1 hour three times a day, although I think it's pushing her a bit fast as there are a few signs it's tiring her out (and therefore using more calories and she's already struggling with weight gain), so I'm going to suggest to her nurse today that we either do 2x 1 hour a day or 3x half an hour a day over the weekend just to give her a bit of time to get used to it.

We're seriously considering not paying off the car loan and using £1000ish of the inheritance to put in a real fire - Grace needs the house warm over winter and I reckon having a real fire would save us about £60-£70 a month in heating costs. I really really want the loan paid off (and it would save us about £400 in interest over the next 3 years) as it's a step closer to being debt free, but maybe the wiser thing would be to save money over the next 18 months or so on fuel bills, and also have the money ready for the MOT and car insurance in November. We can keep saving towards clearing it but not have to worry about making ends meet the next 6 months until I go back to work. Thoughts please?

N.I.M

ruby_eskimo wrote: »

A friend of mine's wife went into labour 8 weeks early and had twins, when they were only expecting the one baby. All the scan pictures only show the one, so it's all a bit confusing. It will probably end up in 'Take a Break' or some such similar magazine. Babies are ok, one is on oxygen but they don't think it will be a long term thing and the other one just has her feeding tube and apart from that is ok at the moment.

Doctors and Nurses on those units are some of the best in the NHS I'm sure the kid'll be fine. If she/or he for that matter, wants someone to talk to about it I'm more than happy to help. Twin girls or twin boys?

Those feeding tubes lead to a LOT of fun in a few weeks time. I still remember the look on D's face the first time Grace got hers open.

Birdie85

Great news about the Quidco money Ruby, and the debt total getting under £2k Shrimpy! :j

We got a letter from the water company saying we're £95 in credit and they're refunding it to our account, yay! Waiting for the gas and electric statements to arrive as I'm sure we'll be in credit with them too so more moolah for [strike]me[/strike] us!

Otherwise I'm skint, OH's birthday and going down to London for Gaga have cleared me out! Get paid next Thursday so we're having a quiet weekend, OH's quite happy to sit and play on his new tablet all weekend and we've downloaded some movies to watch so it'll be nice. I should be getting a little more this month in my paycheck as I did some overtime, hooray! I hardly ever get the chance to do overtime so it's a lovely treat when I do get it! It's all getting put to one side for our holiday, which is only 50 days away now! :j

I'm looking forward to hearing our company year end results in October as they're running a new bonus scheme which is attached to how the company does. Not sure if it'll be £50 or £500... leaning towards £50 but nobody knows for sure and the bigwigs are being quite vague! We get it in November so should come in handy for Christmas.

Dinah, I think the plan about using the money to install a fire is a good one. If you can make the payments on the loan without a struggle then carry on doing so. Make a point of putting the fuel savings to one side to pay off the loan so you feel like you're still doing something towards getting it paid off early. It's more important that Grace has a warm house to live in than for the car loan to be paid off.

Hope you have a nice time with FIL this weekend, and LOL at MIL wanting to pop over to St Andrews for a game of golf!

Dinah93

Banking checked, not quite as healthy as I'd like. £24.15 from a MS company in NIMs account so that's had to go into this month's spending money instead of off the debt. Our maternity budget was very firmly rooted in minimal car use, and with me having to go to the hospital with Grace twice this week (and every day the week before we left), and NIM driving to work I think two days this week we just can't really find the money anywhere to cover using an average of about £7 a day in fuel. It absolutely guts me to be doing all this ebaying, surveys, cut backs on food etc to clear debt and just wasting it in diesel. If I'm spending money on fuel I want it to be lovely food for us not diesel for the car!

Car needed new brake pads/disks? I don't know. It was making a racquet while on holiday so we had to get that fixed too - so that was another £230.20 to find. I'm back at that dark place where thinking of money just makes me want to cry. I hate that debt and low earnings have such a hold over us. Two of our three accounts were a little in the red this morning, so have had to take some money out the spends pot (which covers food, fuel, travel and all general spends in the month, but not bills) to get them back to £0. We certainly have enough to see us to the end of the month (after a minor panic to think a £225 payment hadn't come out yet when it has) but we need to have some talks about next month.

On the plus side I think the being skint and eating less meat is already having an effect on my figure, wearing a dress today which was uncomfortably tight at the start of summer and now it's fine. NIM made us a motivational spreadsheet to track our weights from now until Christmas, see how a non-diet diet works for us (ie changing eating habits not following a set plan) - oddly we both have about 35lbs to loose.

Have been told inheritance should arrive on Monday. Decision time on what to do with it I guess.

ruby_eskimo

NIM - Thanks for the offer, they seem to be taking it all in their stride but will let them know you're available for a chat. Oh and it's little twin girls

Birdie - Great news about the bonus money! Hopefully it's more like £500 but every little bit helps!

Dinah - I know what you mean about the cost of fuel at the moment. I spent £47 filling up half a tank! And I only have a little 1.2 engine!

By forgetting to do something at work, I appear to have got someone else in trouble *whoops*. I forgot to update part of a report this month (just filling in a particular column that is left blank otherwise) and was reminded by this particular person to do it. Went back and checked and I forgot to do the same last month. Turns out last months data had something really important in it that wasn't checked. Now all sorts of questions are being asked as to why the person in question never picked up on my failing last month...Oh I love my office I do.

wendz86

Dinah - i think the fire sounds like a good investment. I agree with Birdie keeping Grace warm is more important than paying off the car loan.

Grr to the car costs as well. We have our mot MOnday and i am nervous although i think it will be ok.

Shrimpy - well done on being under 2k, i believe you will be rid by christmas yay!

Ruby - hope the twins are ok, must have been such a shock.

Birdie - sounds like you have some good money news with the water money and the bonus money. Shame about being skint but a weekend in every now and then is nice.

Not too much to report here. Starting to get more organised for the wedding , just over 10 months now to go is creeping in quick. Getting some quotes for djs at the moment.

I am now 5p away on one poll and have been for 2 days, so frustating!