Hola from Mola - the thread killer is back!

Molanole

Ah, thanks Rog and Sea. It means a lot that there are "friends" on here who take the time to wish me happy birthday. Did you know, I've not yet had a happy birthday from either my little sis, or my dad. Hmph!

BUT, I have had a lovely telephoned rendition of happy birthday to you by my two year old nephew which was FABULOUS! He then went on to tell me that my card was at the post office! When I told him that the postman had brought it to me he said "nice postman!". Bless bless bless. See, proof that the nicest and best things in life aren't things you need money for!:D

Seaxwyn wrote:

hi Mola

Poor you, that's really frustrating, but there are other things in life besides paying debts, and having a quiet life away from people who wind you up is important too.

I hope all goes well with the move and you enjoy having your own space.

ISOM wrote:

oh dear! Youve done your best & as you say enough is enough! Time to move on & be freee!! If not debt free but money isnt everything, sanity, less travel time etc will all be positve changes leading up to the big day....

As usual, you're both very right! I'm feeling strangely calm about the delaying the DFD by a whole year today. I think I'm looking at it all with a bit of perspective today. This is supposed to be the happiest year of my life, I'll still have a very good wedding budget (mainly thanks to a VERY kind financial gift from my older sister) and being here with the in-laws is making it one of the worst years! No, time to get out, and start enjoying being an engaged lady of the ripe old age of 31!!!:D :rolleyes:

Seaxwyn

You go, girl! Have a fabulous day and a great year.

:bdaycake:

Gemmzie

Bit belated, couldn't find your thread earlier but hope you had a good day

Molanole

Hi everyone.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I had a really great day. We polished off a bottle of champagne which was given to us on our engagement (hic!). Not sure you're supposed to keep it for a year like we did but it was bubbly and I was tipsy so I'm not complaining! H2B then spent the day making sure I ate twice my body weight in food! Tapas for lunch (prepared by him) and then out for dinner at Jo Shmos for ribs, coleslaw and fries. YUM!

On Thursday we went flat hunting and have found somewhere really nice. We're going back to area we used to live in. Prices for one beds have rocketed in the eight months that we've been away. We were paying £950pcm and now it's more like £1150 :eek: . In the end it was a good day but it went something like this:

- We looked at some terrible places in our budget (£975),
- were laughed out of some of the letting agents for not having enough of a budget,
- got into arguments about what "10 minutes walk from the main station" meant - I meant 10 minutes, the letting agents meant 20 minutes if you're a champion speed walker,
- looked at disgustingly filthy places way over budget,
- walked into one flat where I had to force myself not to be sick, it STANK sooooooooo badly (and it was a single girl living there which really surprised me)
- seriously considered the brand new studio flats which were 20 mins away just because everything else was sooooooooo disgusting. I mean c'mon people, have some self respect. You'd be cleaner living down the local council tip!

But, we managed to get a viewing on a place which is being refurbed and isn't quite finished. Purpose built, brand new EVERYTHING and unfurnished which is just what we want (other peoples bed bugs YEEEUUUUKKKK! _pale_) and the best thing is, we put in an offer and it was accepted!!!! Wooo hooooo!:j I was a bit shocked when we got the list of fees through (I hadn't thought about admin, referencing and check in fees but that's probably just me being naive). We're going for it anyway. We loved the flat, it's 8 minutes from the station and best of all, it's just for us!!!!

So, as you can imagine, we're really excited about the flat. I've done the budget based on a drop of a grade when I get made redundant and it's all systems go.

However, yesterday I had a meeting with HR about our work situation. She basically said that even though they have to offer me redeployment or redundancy the likelihood of getting anything anywhere near my current grade is slim to non-existant. Not good. There are also no opportunities out in the sector that are near my grade so it looks like the paycut is going to be pretty horrible.

I therefore have a few options:

1) Find a new job now with a paycut of £14K. Don't overpay on debts and postpone wedding. The benefit of this is that I would be safer for longer (i.e. in a permanent job) so could deal with debts as I go
2) Sit tight on my salary for as long as possible, take redundancy and hope that I can get something decent quickly. The benefits of this are the redunancy will pay off my egg loan which will reduce my outgoings by 509 pcm but I'm taking a real risk that there'll be nothing out there and my eventual pay cut might look more like £23K.
3) Don't move, stay with in-laws (continue producing substandard work cos I'm so tired from the commute, senior managment notice that and don't want to redeploy me, lose my job, lose my mind, fall out with H2B, call off wedding anyway! )

Argh. It's all so confusing :wall:

PS - well done if you're still reading! That was an epic!:rolleyes:

Gemmzie

Congrats on the flat :T I don't think 3 is anything like an option because your sanity is more important than money.

If you take redundancy are you looking at a decent enough pay out so that you could not overpay the Egg Loan and live on it as a bridge until you found something?

Seaxwyn

Great news about the flat. Clearly option 3 is a non-starter so what are your feelings between 1 and 2?

Molanole

Argh! I just did a really long reply and it logged me out and wiped it. Grrrrrrrrr.

It was a bit rambling anyway so I'll reword it when I've ironed a few of H2Bs shirts (he is cooking me dinner at the mo so it's a fair exchange!! )

In_Search_Of_Me

I always worry that we all merrily give advice when we dont know people IYKWIM but from the options given I would go for the flat & just plug away at it. If you get redundency at least you get a lump sum for a job that has taken an awful lot out of you for a long time if youre honest? Meanwhile sommat may come up & if the worst came to the worst could you do temping for a while? As for the wedding I would have thought that postponing now would cost a bomb anyway so I would just go for it! Just look at the figs now compared to at the start & its pretty flipping fab isnt it eh!! How is OH doing with dosh?! Hugs for you! Keep us posted!

Molanole

Hellooo!

I've been away for a while (what with house move, no phone line, no broadband etc) so thought it was time for a little update!

May was a reeaaallllly expensive month as we had to scrabble together the money for moving. Unfortunately, I've gone £180 over budget (£80 in overdraft and £100 on credit card) I'm not too worried though as I've wiped the overdraft with this months pay, and next months will get rid of the credit card without making too much of a dent. I also refuse to beat myself up about spending more this month because frankly, being in our own place again is TOTAL BLISS! It's so nice to have our own space back again.

It's pay day today and I've had a little incremental rise. This month it's worked out that I've £100 extra which is fab! I'm waiting for all the debt payments to come out before updating my totals though. Hopefully that will all go through on Monday.

Still no job lined up unfortunately. I've four months to go now! Still, have worked out various scenarios based on staying at my current salary, right through to temping for minimum wage. Obviously, the wedding is kind of in limbo planning wise until I know how much money we've got for it! MIL2B keeps on and on about flowers and button holes and inviting random people I don't know. I keep having to remind her that I could be unemployed fairly soon and that we'll be living on H2Bs salary of £21K so she's best of keeping her [strike]interference[/strike] input to herself!!! :rolleyes:

Other than that, not all that much interesting to add. I'll post again when the new debt totals are in. I'm getting soooooo close to the below £10K. I think it'll happen with June's pay and I'm wishing the month away!!

Hope everyone's doing well in DFW land.

Ooooh forgot to add!!! I met the great man himself last week! We went to the recording of the last in series of It Pays to Watch. Those of you who've seen the corresponding episode of It Pays to Watch More will have seen me on there! I'm not going to tell you who I am, but some of you will probably guess! I really wanted to thank Martin for everything but it took me so long to pluck up the courage to talk to him that all I managed to say was "I'm one of your debt free wannabes" and then he got accosted by other people for photos I should really learn to be more assertive! And I forgot to take my copy of The Money Diet to get signed

But, ISOM you'll be glad to hear this, having seen the great man in action, the OH has been inspired! I think he finally gets what I've been going on and on about for sooooo long. Oh! There's another thing I have to remember to thank Martin for!

Molanole

I've just realised I have't really answered you guys about the options above!

I'm still really confused. The right job hasn't come up yet so I'm sitting tight. There's two out recently which I'm going to take a punt at, no idea if I stand a chance but it's got to be worth a try. I've got a three month notice period anyway so if I leave it much longer my decision will be made for me! Also, work have identified a possible redeployment opportunity, at a lower grade and lower salary, and it's only maternity cover, but it's got to be better than temping at minimum wage if nothing better comes through! There's a few conversations to be had here though before the formal procedings get going and I'm looking for a few guarantees if I'm going to be taking a pay cut.

So, I guess this is more like option 2! To be honest, I've not worked this hard to throw it all down the tube now!

Gosh - between reading up on here and looking at eBay wedding dresses from China I have done absolutely no work today. And I've got to give a speech to 400 people tomorrow :eek: Best get on!! If you see my green light on, feel free to have a go!!!

Mola x