PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Hi All

Back at the library again today! Not really much to report. I have been to one of my survey sites to do a bit of a catch up there - most closed though. I only get an hour a day at the library for internet access so I shall do some more tomorrow.

OH is still quite poorly but has still had to go to work this morning and will have to go to work this evening as well.

Finally got my new claim pack for TC at the weekend so I will have to sit down one day this week to fill that in and get OH to do his bit on it.

I am currently surrounded by teenagers so I think I will finish with the private-ish stuff and do something else!

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Quick update as I have only got 11 minutes left of my allotted internet time at the library.

OH was very ill over night and in the morning of New Year's Eve - he was burning up again but worse than before and I had to sponge him down again. When he revealed that he had been coughing up brown stuff I didn't take any arguments and insisted he went to the doctors. I found the number, dialled it and handed him the phone. Luckily we managed to get him an appointment that day. As I suspected - chest infection. He has antibiotics.

All this meant that I didn't get to the library that day - I left OH at the Drs while I ran around and the did the bits of shopping that I needed.

Obviously no library visit on New Years Day and yesterday I was ill most of the day with a migraine.

Yesterday evening I did manage to get the cross stitch stocking finished that I had been working on for DS. I have put some chocolate in it and hung it on the tree.

DS is back tomorrow and I am really looking forward to seeing him as I haven't seen him since Boxing Day morning.

There was a risk that we were going to get invited over to my Dad's tomorrow but I have phoned him this morning to put him off saying that tomorrow I just want a day at home with my son.

In other news - I have sold 2 books through Amazon (have printed off packing slips here at library) which I will post on Monday. Avon delivery is due on Tuesday and it is a reasonable size - thank goodness. Got the elec bill the other day and my DD is doubling - not pleased! Have not done TC yet so will photocopy form at work on Monday so we have a 'practice' one to fill in before completing the real thing!

Anyway must go - only 3 minutes left and I want to see what I have missed!

Will update again on Monday from work.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Just a quickie update as I have rather a lot to do! Back at work today – woohoo ! (Not!) OH has very kindly given me his cold (how generous of him!) but I do hope it doesn’t turn into a chest infection like his has – at the moment my throat hurts like hell (I am just about to finish my 2nd packet of Soothers today) and I have earache as well.

Just been trying to do my 1st January figures so that I can update my sig – just missing a couple of balances. It’s not looking too bad actually – it looks like the total credit card debt will just be a smidgen more than last month (perhaps about 20 quid) but total non-mortgage debt will actually be about £100 less than last month (thanks of course to the LTSB loan – as I get nearer and nearer the end of it, a greater proportion of my payments are paying off the debt rather than the interest).

Posted 2 Amazon parcels today and I have got to post another one tomorrow (money should hit my account on Friday – not a lot but it all helps).

Avon delivery is due tomorrow so I shall be busy this week sorting all that out – must sort my books out tonight as this will be another short campaign so I really need to get started.

I have updated my ‘current month’ spreadsheet today and I am glad to say that I have still got enough money to pay everything this month. I shall even have enough spare to do some overpayments this month – the Egg card is the first target, which has a big chunk of Christmas spending on it.

The other job I have done today is to calculate the total of my monthly household bills (mortgage, utilities etc etc) so that I can work out how much OH should be paying me. I had already told him that I would have to increase his ‘rent’ by the end of this month – TC repayments, much bigger electric bill. Currently he has been paying me £50 a week (it should have been £75 but I kept it low to allow him some spare to repay me the £145 he still owes me for the cheque that bounced – something that hasn’t happened yet) but I told him a few weeks ago that it would have to go up to £90. Given everything that has been happening money-wise – the aforementioned plus the reduced mortgage payments etc – I needed to completely recalculate everything. It comes out at £95 per week (I should point out this accounts for 50% of the household bills) so all things considered it is not as bad as I thought!

OH has been warned that this is necessary to make ends meet – if he comes to me any week and says ‘sorry I haven’t got it’ then it will not go down well! All I can say is watch this space!

Anyway, hope to be going home soon so just need to finish a few things off.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Had a madly busy day yesterday so I didn’t get chance to update. I am still full of cold and am very worried about it possibly getting worse (I am O.K. so long as I don’t cough – when I do, it hurts!) so yesterday was spent doing as much of the urgent stuff as I possibly could, just in case. Today I am still managing to plod on, so I am trying to get through the important-but-not-as-urgent stuff!

Yesterday I had 2 bad-ish things happen at work. Just at the beginning of this week, the 3rd person in our office (who was our day-to-day supervisor) left to start a new job (still in the same building though). Not that she had the courtesy to tell us of course. We knew that she was applying for a new job, when she went for her interview and that she had got the job – basically because we are not deaf! She had been telling lots of other people, even when we were in the same room, but not us! Anyway, we were quietly celebrating her departure (we have been a martyr to her moods for a while!) when a bombshell was dropped on us. Yesterday I was told that I am being moved to a new office (to form a team of us who do similar jobs) but my friend (the girl on the opposite desk) is not being moved into the same office because there isn’t room. O.K. I am not going far, just down the corridor, but it would be fair to say neither of us is best pleased about it.

The 2nd thing was when I was having a meeting with my manager (the same one at which she told me about the above), she had my sick form to sign off from before Christmas and yet again she gave me the 3rd degree about my being ill a lot. Like I can do anything about it! She seems to imply that it is my fault and that I must be doing something wrong to keep getting ill – I’m asthmatic so vulnerable to chest infections anyway and there are lots of bugs going round! Yes I am taking vitamins to try to restore my immune system but there really is only so much one person can do to avoid getting ill! It makes me so mad! Oh well, I know she hasn’t got a leg to stand on because (a) When I have been off sick I have been genuinely ill, (b) I have doctor’s notes to prove it, (c) I follow my doctor’s advice regarding medication and what to take to revive my immune system, (d) I follow all the rules regarding absence reporting etc. I know I should just let it wash over me but it really gets to me sometimes.

Moneywise, I had a letter from Amex yesterday about my Blue card. From 1st March they are increasing the minimum payments to 5% of the balance or £25, whichever is the greater. I suspect I am about to get a similar letter about my BA Amex card. The minimum payments are currently 2.5% of the balance on those cards which means they will double. Thank goodness they are not my biggest balances! And I suppose it means the debt will get paid off more quickly as well!

In a way I was quite glad about this, because it has strengthened the case for receiving an increased weekly contribution from OH – my cashflow is being stretched even further so I need that extra money off him! Thanks Amex! (Never thought I would hear myself say those words!)

Incidentally, my minimum payment on my Virgin card is also 5% / £25 a month – does anyone reading this know whether they are owned by the same company?

Last night I put my Avon books out and bagged up my order. Tonight I shall do at least some of the deliveries. I think I shall just do half of them though – partly because I want to watch The Diary of Anne Frank on the telly and partly because breathing in the cold air really makes me cough (I’m all right when I am sat inside in the warm) so I think to ought to try to spend as little time outside as possible. Then I will do the other half tomorrow, plus collecting the books in. Oh and I have also got to put the books back out again tomorrow. Hmmmm! On 2nd thoughts, perhaps I should try to do all my deliveries tonight so I can reduce the amount of time I have to spend outside tomorrow.

I have been reviewing my finances for this month, and it looks like I can afford to make a daily payment of £10 to my Egg card (I have paid £5 daily the past couple of days). It’s giving me quite a good feeling that I can do that, so I can get it paid off as quickly as possible and so I can turn my attention to other cards – the balances on the LTSB and Virgin cards are both on 0% APR for limited periods so I want to get them cleared asap and preferably before the 0% expires.

I think that’s all the news for now.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Just a quickie update as I’m going home soon. Yes – I am still managing to get to work, just about. Feel like carp though! The weird thing is that I actually feel O.K. in myself – I’m not wobbly on my legs or anything. The sore throat and earache have definitely improved, however my sinuses are very blocked and uncomfortable – bought some Sudafed inhaler today to try to ease it. My chest is O.K. so long as I don’t cough and when I am in the warm – breathing in the cold air and coughing really really hurt, so I am trying very hard not to! I am actually being a wee bit naughty at the moment – self prescribing. I think (hope!) my chest is bad because the cold is aggravating my asthma, so I have been taken some of my steroids that I had left over from before Christmas – I am not taking too many and will only take them for a few days. They can’t do any harm and might do me some good!

I managed to get some of my Avon deliveries done last night – roughly 2/3 of them. I didn’t take them all out in the end – one of them was extremely heavy (4 biiiiig bottles of bubble bath) so I decided to leave it and all those for the same street at home. I didn’t want to lug it about if the customer wasn’t even going to be in. Tonight I will be able to take DS along to help me – we will try that customer first and if she isn’t in I will just get DS to take that delivery home while I get on with the rest.

So my plan for the evening is:

· Do more Avon deliveries
· Collect Avon books in
· Put Avon books back out
· Drink Hot Toddy a la Nigella
· Have long soak in lovely hot steamy bath
· Early night

Bye all!

hypno06

Sorry to read that you are still not well!

But the hot toddy sounds just the thing.......:D

PigginSkint

Hi All

Sorry I have been quiet - I have been off sick again. Last week I gradually got worse all week and by Friday I had to admit defeat and stay at home. I managed to get myself an appointment with my doctor that morning - bronchitis. He was unsure whether it was bacterial or viral or a combination of both - probably both as he could hear evidence of 2 different things going on in my chest. He gave me antibiotics but warned me that even though I needed them, he didn't know whether I would feel much better afterwards - because of the the viral element.

The timing couldn't have been worse because of everything going on at work this week, but it really couldn't be helped because I have been really really ill - every time I coughed (which was a lot) I felt like my insides were being torn out. All the coughing was also leaving my completely exhausted. Very unpleasant. My doctor didn't give me a sicknote, which means I could just wait and see how I went and go back to work when I feel well enough. I can self-cert for the first week so without sick note I must go back on Friday. Until yesterday I really didn't think I would manage even that but I do actually feel quite a bit better today. I was able to roll over onto my left side in bed last night, something I haven't been able to do for a week, and you can no longer hear me breathing! I shall still stay at home tomorrow, just to make sure, and go back on Friday.

More in a separate post (just in case!)...

PigginSkint

In better news, we are online at home again (ooh, so worried about saying that out loud just in case!)

Because I was feeling better today, we went into town on the bus to check out a reconditioned laptop that OH had spotted for £199. Very impressed with the spec (Dual Core processor, Vista, 1Gb RAM etc etc) and a good price so we decided to go with it. Let's hope this one behaves!!

It appears to have quite lot on it already - including Excel, woohoo!!! That means I will able to manage my spreadsheets from home.

There might be a time when I go quiet again fairly soon. I am pretty sure my broadband contract is about to expire and I am looking at changing over to Talk Talk. I already have my phone package with them and I have preliminary discussions with them about having their combined phone and broadband package and it appears I would actually save quite a bit of money. The only problem is that I have been told that it takes about 30 days. There was no point doing anything while we had no functioning computer at home - now we have, we can make a start on the process.

OH has already started giving me his increased payments, which will certainly help.This means that I should be able to pay off the cost of the new laptop fairly soon - I shall be going flat out to pay it of asap.

Anyway, I think that's all for now.

Bye all!

dawnybabes

Aw - glad you are feeling better. Perhaps you need to start wearing a mask at work to stop germs ? My LO teacher swears by the gel hand wash thingies, she too has ashma and surrounded by 30 5/6 yr old's sneezing and snotting on her os horrific but she reckons on just one bad bout a year now (down from 7-8) She rubs the stuff on her hands every half hour or so ....

PigginSkint

dawnybabes wrote: »

Aw - glad you are feeling better. Perhaps you need to start wearing a mask at work to stop germs ? My LO teacher swears by the gel hand wash thingies, she too has ashma and surrounded by 30 5/6 yr old's sneezing and snotting on her os horrific but she reckons on just one bad bout a year now (down from 7-8) She rubs the stuff on her hands every half hour or so ....

Thanks dawnybabes

I think my problem is the commute - a train full of people coughing and sneezing all over me twice a day!

I might try the handgel thing though - I have got some in the bathroom cupboard. Thanks for the tip!