Pinot's Potty debt free journey!!!

debtfreewannabe321

Look forward to seeing you back soon I hope, you're sorely missed around here

Another DF and no longer a wannabe here.... You can do it, and we can all help you along, I hope you find a solution soon and get up to date with payments (((hugs))) xx

grannyx2

Hello my dear, lovely to hear from you. I know just how you feel about needing to get off this blinking annoying never ending roundabout and have too lost a bit of my mojo but I'm sure together we can join the ranks of the above 2 amazing DF people

Lots of love, hugs, well wishes and understanding

Granny x

Piquant_2

'tis good to hear from you again, it's been a while. I hope you can sort out the work/life balance problem and that it's plain sailing from there on.

Piq x

HappyNow

Oh THERE you are! I knew you'd be back! Lovely to hear you are fit and well and still keeping that chin up . Looking forward to a proper catch up soon x

kerri_dfw

Lovely to hear from you Mrs P Just remember in dire times we're all still thinking of you and wishing you well, as well as sending sparkly happy vibes your way xx

brizzledfw

kerri_dfw wrote: »

Lovely to hear from you Mrs P Just remember in dire times we're all still thinking of you and wishing you well, as well as sending sparkly happy vibes your way xx

Seconded and thirded!! We have MISSED you and all your tales. So sorry debt merry go round is as grim as ever..but keep on plodding as the lovely beanielou often says.. It will get easier I promise and work balance is always a hard one. As my lot know only too well..:o

PinotGrigio41

Lovely to hear from you all .

Am currently snuggled in bed with my exhausted girls , watching Grand Designs Revisited with, a glass of PG no less and plotting my return to diary land update . One which won't bore you all to tears but will hopefully explain away my absence and stressiness !! Xxx

brizzledfw

Yay

Well not to the exhaustion obv but to your plotting

PinotGrigio41

Right ladies and men if there are any around these days, here is my update. Don't want to bore you all to tears though which I am sure there is a very large chance I may so will keep it as short as possible .:p I am inclined to burble as you know, I cant actually remember what I last posted about or where we were with all the hassle we have had this year, so I will start where I think I left off as I really cant be bothered to read back in my own diary.I would bore myself I think

The dreaded car trouble topic. Mr PGs car you may remember went in for about £250 worth of work in June, it finally came back to us early August I believe, with a bill of £1800 :eek: . We had already paid another bill to the first garage of £500. There began the start of us falling into arrears with things. We needed the car back desperately, we had borrowed cars, hired cars, but the bottom line was that we needed two cars and my car , as has been well written about was on its last legs and constantly breaking down whilst Mr PGs car was in the garage. It was really worrying me, my dad was poorly and I couldn't always get over there to see them as much as I wanted, needed to . Lots of reasons really, why we just had to find the money to get the car home, so we spoke to the Mortgage Company and we paid for the car repairs with the mortgage money, therefore arrears number one !! We have since managed to pay back £600 of it so currently owe them £1200. With a mortgage of £2100 a month to find anyway, any extra to clear the arrears is difficult to come across.

So, we had two cars. We then had some really good news :T:T. Mr PG was waiting for a pay out from a car accident resulting in him needing an operation and being off of work for a period of time. Thee accident was 6 years ago and the payout finally came !! Some good news at last. Having had a £2K repair on Mr PG's car, but with my car playing up leaking etc etc and now on 200K miles it needed to be replaced. As much as I know many people will say we should have got an old banger, or used this money to pay the bills, Mr PGs car is now on 130K miles so the decision was that I would now drive that and he would have a car with lesser mileage, bearing in mind that he travels at least 4 hours a day .We needed to Keep Up Appearances work wise as well as we had heard rumours abound of our financial state. We went to the Auction having done lots of homework first and got ourself a shiny four year old car. We were really pleased as we picked it up for approx £2K less than Glasses guide price. The plan being that we would keep it for a month or two, pop it up on ebay, see if we could maybe make at least additional £500 on it, then repeat the process again, hopefully building up some additional funds. It is so lovely to have a car, that doesn't break down, shake rattle and roll and leak water all over us when we drive round the corner. We were happy, all we had to do was then sell my car for whatever we could and put that money towards the mortgage arrears and we were back on track !! Simple, surely ????

Well of course it wasnt. We popped my car up on ebay for £800, within 5 mins the phone was ringing off the hook with cash offers and bids on ebay. We couldn't believe it. We listed the car with every single fault known to man, including two faulty injectors, the leak etc etc. The car at this time was still going ,although breaking down occasionally, the potential purchaser being made aware of all of this. We got £2K for the car !! Amazing. But, and theres always a but. It broke down completely the day the auction finished and the potential purchaser was due to collect. There was no way we could let the car go when it wouldnt not start for love nor money. So, we decided that we would get the two injectors replaced at a cost of £350, which when we then put it back up for sale we may or may not recouperate but at least it would be a working, but leaky car. Simple plan we thought.

We had discussion with the specialist garage ( the one we had just spent £1800 with on Mr PGs) car explaining exactly what we wanted doing. As economical repair as possible on the two injectors. Mr PG spent three hours under the bonnet scraping all the gunk off before sending to them to save some money. We were aware that three other injectors were blowing but again this would be mentioned int he listing it was just the two that were completely kaput that needed replacing.

All set, we tried to find a slot in the diary when Mr PG wasn't working , and I would tow the car to the garage and leave it there until such time as they could fit it in for repairs.

In the interim , my lovely dad went into hospital for an operation. Seven weeks later, after numerous complications and a horrific time, he passed away . I wont go into detail on this one, but I miss him every single day. He was like my mum and dad rolled into one and I cant quite believe we wont see him again. He was the loveliest man ever, in my eyes at least.During this time everything monetary wise went to pot. We spent £1600 on fuel in six weeks, business costs and on me flying backwards and forwards to the hospital, I forgot to pay the Predators, we couldnt pay the bank loan as I needed the money for the fuel to get to hospital and everything completely went to pot. Mr PG couldnt be around to help, the girls were being passed from pillar to post, or spending an awful amount of time on their own, which in itself upset me, and all in all its been the sh*ttie*t few months imagineable.

To top this off, a couple of days before Dad passed away, the garage called informing us that they had replaced ALL of the injectors at a cost of £1200 to us, not the £350 we had budgeted for. They say they realised they all needed doing so pushed ahead with the repair without our consent or knowledge. My car is now being held to ransom !! We cant / wont pay on principal and he wont budge. We have offered £500 to get the car back and sold and some money in the pot. They refuse. Upon the advice of Trading Standards he is in breach of contract. We have written a letter to him as such and are awaiting the response. If he wont budge, we could end up with a court case on our hands !!! Just what I need right now.

In amongst all of this crap though, I do have a small piece of good news. You may or may not remember I had some debts which had been passed to DCAs which I believed were unenforceable. I have during this time received confirmation that one of them, to the tune of approx £10K is indeed unenforceable and they wont pursue any further. The other two have gone eerily quiet.

Its been a emotional exhausting and worrying few months, but now is the time to get myself back up and running for everyones sake. I will tackle this all head on, debts, work , life in general . Running away sounds great as long as my lovely family come with me of course , and hiding in a forest in a lovely log cabin, but its not to be.

Its so lovely to hear that some of you are now indeed Debt Free, I am soo soo pleased for you. It made me smile, theres not been many smiles of late. Kerri, I cant wait to catch up on your diary and your baby news either, Piq I skimmed ( of course !) your diary and see that you are moving. I haven't read back far enough to see how that all came about, but I hope it all goes well for you. Mrs H, my partner in Keeping Up Appearances crime has a lovely new lodger I see !! Mrs B, still working hard like the lovely crazy lady that you are !! All of you are a massive inspiration to me, thankyou .

I have no alternative but to kick myself up the bum and get on with this.

First on my Hit List, the shot in the dark Bank Charges reclaim to NW...............................more on that one later.

If you are still awake and I havent bored you too much , I will catch up with you on your diaries soon.

Lots of Love

Mrs PG xx

please-let-me-be-lucky

Oh my goodness you have had such a lot going on! No wonder you were MIA!

So sorry to hear about your Dad. Big hugs.

Good luck with the car situation. Garage man sounds like a Twonk Xx