PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

I am feeling a little bit p****d off at the moment. DS announced the other day about a Spanish trip he wants to go on, that school are organising as part of his Spanish GCSE course. He said at the time that it costs about £500 and takes place in February. That is bad enough but he has just phoned me to say he had got home safely from school and told me that he had found out some more information – the cost is £480 and they want a deposit of £140 by the end of this term. I have not seen any letter about this and DS is assuming that he is going – would have been nice for him to ask if he could go, but that is another story. What really annoys is that he just sprung it on me that he needs money in about 3 weeks time. I am hoping the Ex will agree to pay half the cost but even so, where am I meant to find an extra £70 before the end of the month?! That means £70 I won’t be able to pay off the Egg card. This month is not a great month anyway because I have got to pay my membership fee to the camping and caravanning club and I was hoping to save up a bit of money for our own holiday, or at the very least do some serious debt busting before we go. I wouldn't have minded so much if I had been given a bit more notice so that I had a decent amount of time to save up for it. Very very annoying! :mad::mad::mad:

PigginSkint

Hi All

I should have been on Jury Service this week, but when I turned up at the Crown Court on Monday morning I was told that I had been excused and that I should have had a letter (I didn't) telling me so. Quite disappointing really!

It's kind of weird being at work when I wasn't expecting to be! Still, it means I am getting all the jobs done that I didn't manage to do before I left on Friday and starting others earlier than I was expecting to!

Having updated my spreadsheets the other day, I discovered that moneywise things are going to be a teeny bit tight this month, mainly because the payment for my membership fee for C&CC will be going out sometime this month.

With that in mind I have decided to temporarily reduce my daily payments to my Egg card, but I have also renamed 2 of my currenly unused online savings accounts (both LTSB) to use one of them for saving towards next year's C&CC membership fee (a weekly payment to that one will suffice) and one to build up a bit of a house maintenance fund (daily payments of 50p). The bit about the savings accounts I have been meaning to do for aaaaages!

I got summoned to an account review meeting at the bank on Saturday - something I didn't manage to get out of this time because they said I had to go in to review my overdraft (currently a scary £5K:eek:). I was expecting them to be really patronising and to try (yet again) to sell me a new loan or remortgage. Actually it wasn't so bad. The bloke said he thought I was managing things very well (I told him all about my MSE and PAD related activities and my spreadsheets:money:) and he didn't think there was any point me having another loan (yes!). :T

He asked me what I would like them to do if anything, and I had come prepared for this question (I thought it best to go into this meeting with an idea in mind of what I wanted). So I said that what I would really like to do was for them to set something up so that my OD limit is reduced by £50 a month (a figure I had already worked out I could afford) and tackle my huge overdraft that way.

I do want to get it down because, apart from the Egg card (designated spending card = 16.9% APR) it is by far my biggest interest rate on anything, at about 12% APR. So anyway, I am waiting for the phone call to say that they have sorted it out for me.

Right, I had better get on with some work. I am getting a new computer at work this afternoon :jso there will a period of time when I shall be computer-less - just waiting for the IT bloke to phone me to tell me when to expect him.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

I forgot to say, DS decided that he didn't want to go on the Spanish trip with school after all. I said that I didn't want to pressure him to make a decision either way, but he made up his own mind - he had originally said that he wasn't sure whether he wanted to go because of all the younger kids going. Bless his heart, he weighed up everything I had said about it as well - e.g. how expensive it would be, poor organisation etc. I think we have a little MSE'er in the making! :money:

I am sure there was something else I was going to mention, but I can't think what it is now....it'll come back to me I am sure!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Feeling sorry for myself at the moment - very very tired today, I burnt my arm taking the dinner out the oven earlier (currently sat here with bicarb of soda and water paste on the burn itself and cling film wrapped round my arm) then when we were coming back into the house about an hour ago I smacked my knee on the door frame (I am currently sat here with a pack of frozen peas and the whole of my lower leg from knee downwards absolutely throbbing!)

dawnybabes

Ouch !! Not nice ....

PigginSkint

That's putting it mildly Dawn!

Arm feels a little better today and although the throbbing in my leg has stopped, my knee still hurts.

PigginSkint

Hi All

Just a flying visit - need to do some work!

I had some good news over the weekend - I received a letter from my employer informing me that I have been awarded a performance related pay rise (this is part of an annual process). As you can imagine I am pretty pleased! :j:j:j

It won't mean a huge amount extra, but every little helps. It takes effect from 1st August so I will know exactly much once I have received my August salary which is due to hit my account on 27th August.

I still haven't heard anything from my bank about the monthly adjustment to my overdraft limit. Now that I know that I will definitely be able to afford it, I need to chase this.

I have received the confirmation of the deferral of my student loan, so I can breathe sigh of relief on that score for another year! I will need to get a substantial pay rise (in the region of £600 a month - my new pay rise is actually £600 a year!) before I ever have to start paying it off.

And in other news, the Very Important Job that I have been nagging OH to do for months - without spelling it out, it should have been done by paper version last October, or online by the end of January - he has finally done! The stupid thing he doesn't actually owe anything for the year in question (and may actually get money back), and it didn't take him long to do in the end, so why he had to drag his heels for so long to do it, I don't know! Very frustrating! Hopefully now he has done it, it won't take him as long next time!

How on earth can we plan for the future, if he can't get his a**e in gear to do this sort of thing! :mad:

Rant over, this turned into a longer post than I was planning - oh well!

Bye all!

dawnybabes

And breath ..... At least hes done it now so one less hassle ...

Good news on the pay rise :-)

PigginSkint

Thanks Dawn!

I shall have to think about his next task should be - perhaps get to grips with internet banking!

Anyway, it is our summer social at work today so I am dressed all summer-like - all in pink!

The difficulty is that it also my weigh in day at WW tonight and there will be food at this do - oh dear.

I can't remember whether I mentioned about joining WW, but I feel I ought to update about my success so far! When I joined I was 15st 4.5 Lbs, but the week before I had been 15st 7 Lbs. It is now about 6 or 7 weeks since I joined and last week I weighed 14 st 8 Lbs, so I am very pleased! I am currently wearing trousers I haven't be able to get into for a very long time! Still a long way to go though.....

Anyway, must get on with some work!

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Did I mention about my savings pots? I don’t think I did. I have now got 6 on my internet banking with LTSB alone – transferring money between accounts is so easy!!

Some of these I already had and I have mostly renamed them with a new nickname, but also opened some others (so easy to do – I’m impressed). The 6 are:

· ISA (currently nothing in this one)
· Christmas (50p a day)
· Holiday (£1 a day)
· House maintenance (50p a day)
· Camping and Caravanning club member ship fee (£1 a week )
· Savings for Provisional licence and driving lessons for DS (currently £1 a week)

The Camping and Caravanning Club membership fee is currently £37 a year (it has just gone out of my account this week) so assuming it will go up a bit in the next year, £1 a week will be plenty.

DS is currently 15 – he will be 16 at the end of October, so it means there is over a year to go before he can start driving. I was lucky because my Dad was very keen that me and my brothers should all learn to drive, so he paid for all our lessons and we all started on our 17th birthdays. I would like to try to do the same for DS, but will suggest to other family members that they might like to pay for a driving lesson each for his 17th birthday, and the Ex of course! That way, hopefully, I won’t have to pay for it all!

The Holiday fund will save up a bit prior to my holiday – it won’t pay for it all by any stretch of the imagination (as there is less than 4 weeks until we go), but it will help.

I forgot to mention – I booked our holiday yesterday. We are going camping in Wales at the end of August. I have got 2 weeks off work but OH is only able to book 1 week off. As advised by the lady I spoke to at the C&CC yesterday, I have booked 12 nights for just me and DS and we will pay for OH’s site fees when he actually arrives (probably 6 or maybe 7 nights).

I have also booked the car hire (by far the most expensive bit of the holiday booking). I normally book a class D (Focus or similar) for a camping holiday, but last year we ended up with an Auris, which is sadly lacking in boot space compared to the Focus. So this time, I decided to look at how much extra booking a class E (Vectra or similar) would cost - for the 14 days car hire, it is only an extra £24. So I have booked it!

We have still got just under 4 weeks to go (for me and DS), before we go away – so exciting!

DS is currently with his Dad for 3 weeks so it is very quiet at home – DS and the Ex go to France tomorrow for 2 weeks to stay with Grandma.

Anyway, really must get on with some work now!!