PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

I forgot something from my last post (well, it is Monday!). I have just changed phone providers as they offered me a really good deal. When I checked my bank balance this morning I discovered that payments have gone out to both! I think I know why this is – on my last bill from my old provider there was a debit amount (about £40 I think) so I suspect what they are doing is continuing to take the regular amount until that is paid off. However, I think a phone call is needed to check – will do that tonight (if I remember!! )

PigginSkint

Arghhh!!!! My mortgage went out a day earlier than I was expecting, along with my gas and electric direct debits! This meant I went over my overdraft limit. :mad: I speedily transferred some money from my savings account to cover the shortfall – luckily the transfer happens immediately and also luckily, because I did it on the same day as I went over my limit then the bank shouldn’t charge me!

How annoying though!!

Tried to phone Southern Electric but their phone lines were closed – so emailed them instead. However, I did find the ‘sorry your leaving us letter’ which stated that the direct debit payments would continue until I get the final bill – so I have asked them when I am likely to receive the final bill and how much they think it will be for.

Did one other job last night which was to install the new modem – I have upgraded my broadband, with the same company but for less money! Not bad! I couldn't get over the size of the modem - so small compared to the other monstrosity! And it doesn't intefere with the phone line - if you left the other one plugged in and used the phone the line was all crackly and if people left messages on the answer phone you couldn't hear anything at all because the crackling was so bad!

Had my Avon delivery today so I shall be bagging that up later to deliver tomorrow – so from Thursday there will be more money in my account for a while! Phew!

That's all for now!

PigginSkint

Well the grocery challenge is not going too well – we only have £15 left of the budget for the rest of the month! It doesn’t help that OH keeps buying coffee and sandwiches etc when he is out. Grrr! :mad: Oh well, I expected this first month to be a learning experience and if it means that OH has a mini light bulb moment of his own about how much he is actually spending on the odd cup of coffee here and the odd sandwich there, plus the newspapers he keeps buying, then that is no bad thing IMO.

We did go to the chippy last night but I appear to have managed to beat OH down from 1 takeaway every week to once a fortnight so that’s an improvement. Plus it’s cheaper than having an Indian. Plus we didn’t have DS with us so that made it cheaper still. Also we were very late getting home yesterday so that meant we could eat quickly. (See – I’ve got all my excuses ready!!;) )

Didn’t bag Avon up last night so will have to do it tonight, which means I won’t be able to start delivering until tomorrow night. Never mind – my tax credits and maintenance have gone in today so that makes life easier!:j

PigginSkint

Feeling a bit down today actually – I suppose working late the past couple of days hasn’t helped. Plus I always feel at a bit of a loose end when DS is at his Dad’s – as he has been for the past 2 nights (this is the routine every week).

The other thing that struck me is that OH has been spending a lot on travel expenses lately and it has all been going on the ‘spending’ credit card because he has had no money in his bank account. I know this is unavoidable as he has been going for auditions and will be worth it if he gets even just 1 job of those that he has gone for. But if he doesn’t get any that’s a lot of money spent – and added to the credit card debt – with nothing to show for it!

Still, there is some money about to be available to him – he is just waiting for a cheque to clear – so if he gets any more auditions he will have the money to pay for the travel out of that rather than put it on the credit card. Plus he will be able to pay a big chunk the balance once this cheque clears so I suppose there is that to consider as well.

I’m just a born worrier!!

PigginSkint

Grrr! Have just spoken to OH. He is going out to buy new glasses! :mad:

O.K. I know he could do with a new pair – he has only one pair of rather flimsy ones since some nasty person decided to stamp on his good ones. And O.K. he is going to use money from his bank account rather than put it on the credit card. But he has no idea how this sort of thing stresses me out – spending money when there is no real need to!

Am I being unreasonable?

PigginSkint

OK so I’m eating humble pie now! OH actually did need new glasses! We didn’t realise that it had been over 3 years since his last sight test so his prescription had expired. He had a sight test yesterday and his prescription has changed. So he had to have new glasses. And he paid by cheque so didn’t put it on the credit card. Boy do I feel guilty now!:o

Well the shopping budget is looking precarious – we finished a bottle of gin last night so OH is going to buy a new one (a cheap one I might add!). We don’t go out so we drink cheap Sainsburys lager, gin & tonic and the occasional bottle of wine (occasional as in about 1 a month, if that!) :beer:

Got a busy day at work today so hopefully it will go fast and then…it’s the weekend! Hurrah! :j :T It hasn’t come soon enough – I am sooooo tired today!

PigginSkint

Oops! I knew I would miss something - you can tell I'm not awake yet!

Phoned Virgin last night about my credit card with the 0% deal that is just about to expire. First I asked them what the APR would be now - 15.9%. This is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I had a letter from them recently informing me of APR changes for various things but didn't include information about what it would be for 0% BT promotions coming to the end. They were quoting 24.9% (or something like that) for (I think) new purchases, so I thought that is what I would be paying from now on.

Anyway then I said that I was planning to transfer my balance to a card with an APR of 12.94% and would they be prepared to match it to save me having to do that. The answer was no!

They did offer to consolidate it onto a loan instead. I said I would have to think about that - but I was thinking 'no b*****y way!!' So a balance transfer to the other card it is! But first I think I will phone them and see if they will give me a better APR than 12.94% - you never know!

PigginSkint

Well the grocery budget has well and truly gone out of the window! OH decided he ‘needed some meat’ yesterday. Never mind that we have a freezer full at the moment! But of course that is not proper meat is it? Just burgers etc.

Oh well, at the end of the month I shall just have to review how much we actually did spend on groceries in the month and perhaps set a more realistic budget for next month. I suppose it is quite enlightening (and a bit of a shock!) to see how much we actually do spend on food. I thought £150 was a perfectly reasonable monthly sum for 3 people plus 2 cats – shows how wrong I can be!

One moneysaving thing we did do yesterday – I bought OH a thermos flask for £9.99 from Argos. This is to try and reduce the amount he spends on coffee when he is out.

PigginSkint

Hi All!

I’ve been for an MRI scan on my poorly knee this morning. Feeling a bit odd actually – got a headache and feeling a bit dizzy (wonder if this is normal!)

Good news on the credit card front! I thought I was going to have to transfer my balance from my Virgin card (0% about to expire – due to go up to 15.9%) to my Amazon card (12.94%). However, yesterday in the post there was a letter from LTSB (another of my credit cards) offering me 0% for balance transfers for 6 months (+ fee of course, but hey, you can’t have everything!). Woopee!! This is obviously not ideal but it is a whole lot better than the alternative! Plus my LTSB card has a very large credit limit (£15000 I think) so I have more than enough spare to transfer the £4700 ish that’s on my Virgin card!:j

OH has had loads of auditions just lately and yesterday he had a call to say that he has got a recall for one (an advert) and they will pay his expenses. Hooray!:j

PigginSkint

DS has decided that he is doing a sponsored silence for Comic Relief on Friday – how we laughed! :rotfl: Anyway, despite the fact that he decided this a couple of weeks ago he has done precious little to get sponsors – the ones he has got I have pushed him into asking! I have told him that he really must ask some of his friends and perhaps some teachers – so far he has only got a handful of family members. His Dad told me last night that they went to a big family party for his Great-Grandma’s (DS’s Great-Grandma) at the weekend, which would have been a perfect opportunity to get some sponsorship. And what did he do about it? Precisely nothing! Kids!

OH and I are sceptical that he will manage 8 hours of silence on Friday (8am-4pm) so we have sponsored him per hour rather than a fixed amount (because we know him!! :rotfl: ) and we are going to get him bake some cakes to sell, so that he won’t feel that he has failed if he doesn’t manage the 8 hours.

Blimey! I can remember the days when we were worried that he would never talk (he has high-functioning autism so his speech development was severely delayed) – how things have changed!