PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Hi All

Just a quickie as I have to leave to go on a course shortly.

I ordered a free ink cartridge through Quidco the other day (just had to pay the postage) to earn £9 cashback. Discovered last night that the damn thing doesn't work (despite numerous goes with the 'head cleaner' and 'nozzle check') so I had to take it out - oh well, still about £6 better off. Luckily I had just ordered some more from another company - very cheap, more cashback from Quidco, they arrived the day after I ordered them and, more importantly, they work.

Started doing some work on swapping my buildings and contents insurance. Got my renewal letter from Halifax the other day - something like £435:eek: . Now I know what I have got to beat. I have also worked out the rough value of all my contents (though haven't totalled it up yet) so I can make sure I have sufficient cover. The other thing I have done is to read through my policy booklet which has raised a few questions, the most important one being - what is my rebuild cost? So next job is to phone up the Halifax to ask them. Then it will be straight on with shopping around.

Anyway, must go. Catch you all later!

PigginSkint

Back again! I'm just killing time before leaving to catch the train home.

My Avon delivery came this morning so this evening's job will be to bag it up ready to deliver tomorrow. If I am feeling energetic I will probably get my books ready to go out as well.

I have just remembered that I ordered a Representive only deal on a bargain box so I have got that to look forward to when I get back (£50 worth of stuff for £25) - hopefully there will be some good stuff for Christmas presents. If it is no good I can just send it back at no cost to me!!!

We are getting towards the Christmas books now so hopefully the sales will increase markedly very soon, they usually do! Woohoo!!!

Anyway, better go! Tara!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Well I did manage to bag up my Avon delivery last night so that’s one job done – it means I can go out and deliver them this evening. I will not be staying at work late today – I shall be on that 4pm train if it kills me!! I didn’t manage to do my books – I’ll do them this evening.

However, I did have a look at my bargain box – lots of goodies! It was nearly all useful for either our personal use or Christmas presents. There was quite a lot of costume jewellery – good for presents – and most of the rest was toiletries or makeup. By a stroke of luck nearly all of it was stuff that we will definitely use and were running low on, e.g. face cream for me, deodorant and hair gel for OH. So definitely not a waste of money!

There were one or two random items that we can’t use – an eyeshadow compact in green shades (no good for me – I have brown hair so this would look awful – think I shall probably give to OH’s mother as her hair is ginger and blonde so would probably suit her) and an initial ring in silver with the letter D on (I don’t know anyone with an name beginning with D). If anyone would like this please PM me – I shan’t charge anything for it as I shall only give it away anyway!

I have finally got round to grabbing some statements from home, though I think I have probably missed a couple – it was literally a 2-minute grab before I went out the door this morning. This means I will be able to update my spreadsheet and I might actually be able to update my signature!

Ooh and the other good news is that I have sold a book on Amazon! Woohoo! It’s the first time it has happened in a while. My listings ended a couple of weeks ago but it took me until the weekend just gone to relist them – I adjusted the prices slightly, including matching the lowest price for the one I have just sold. Woopee! It won’t be a lot but at least it all helps! I really must get on and list some more.

Oh darn! :doh: I have just realised I have forgotten to do something – we had a charity bag for Help the Aged come through the door at the weekend which they will be collecting today. I was going to put in some of DS’s clothes that no longer fit him (he has had a good sort-out in his bedroom).

I am sure there was one other bit of news but I have now forgotten it – I shall probably have to do that later when I remember what it is!

PigginSkint

Well I have just been having a look at the statements that I brought with me to work and inserted the relevant figures into my spreadsheet. I have been putting the figures in as they were on 1st September – the result of this is that it doesn’t look as good as it could, but as this is the method of measurement I have been using for months (using the figures as they are on the 1st of the month), I don’t really want to change it. As I suspected I am still missing the figures from 3 credit card statements so I need those before I am sure of the total.

I have now put my GE money balances onto my total debts spreadsheet so I can finally see my total non-mortgage, non-student loan debt and it is very pleasing to see how it has fallen since my light bulb moment. However, it does seem to have suffered a bit of blip for the last month. I am trying not to get too upset about it because I know that there are a number of reasons for this:

• We had 2 holidays in August so there was some spending on credit cards for that – though most of it has been paid off from savings.
• I did a lot of credit card shuffling so incurred some charges (some of which I have paid and some I haven’t yet)
• The shuffling also meant that I made no payments as such to those cards because the balances were moving between cards.
• The shuffling means that OH has not paid anything towards the credit cards, as he would normally have done.
• The shuffling has, I think, led to some amounts being counted twice. I have done my best to rectify this but it did get very confusing!!
• I made quite a few payments on 3rd September – so after the cut-off point for this measurement.

I am hoping that it all will even out and look a lot better for the 1st October measurement!

The other question I have been asking myself is whether my total mortgage debt is more or less than my total non-mortgage non-student loan debt (I don’t even count my student loans at the moment because I do not earn anywhere near enough to start paying them off - I will cross that bridge if and when I come to it!). Anyway, as I suspected, the difference between these 2 amounts is quite small. Even when you consider that my total non-mortgage debt is an estimate because I haven’t got all the figures yet, the difference between the 2 is only about £500 at the moment.

Anyway, cue drumroll…… my total mortgage debt is lower than my total non-mortgage and non-student-loan debt.

I think I might start calling the latter just ‘non-mortgage debt’ just cos it flows better! Anyway, just to clarify what the 2 different amounts consist of:

Non-mortgage debt = total credit cards, LTSB loan, catalogues and overdraft
(the retrospective figures will also now include the windows finance which I have now transferred to a credit card)
Mortgage debt = mortgage and 2nd mortgage (homeowner loan to buy the Ex out of the house)

The approx totals are as follows:

Non-mortgage debt = £38.5K
Mortgage debt = £38K

To be honest I think that by next month the non-mortgage debt will be lower than the mortgage debt because on 1st August the non-mortgage debt was about £37.75K. I will do another post with the exact figures soon but this will definitely be something to celebrate because at my light bulb moment my total non-mortgage debt was quite a bit more than my total mortgage debt.

Lucy1982_2

Congratulations on Mortgage debt being lower than non-mortgage debt!!! you sound like you have been doing really well.

We all have the odd bad month (Mine has seen lloyds OD go from around £300 to probably nearly £600!!) Their not good but are to be expected sometimes.

Keep up the good work!

PigginSkint

Lucy1982 wrote: »

Congratulations on Mortgage debt being lower than non-mortgage debt!!! you sound like you have been doing really well.

We all have the odd bad month (Mine has seen lloyds OD go from around £300 to probably nearly £600!!) Their not good but are to be expected sometimes.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks!

To be honest I don't know whether to be pleased or horrified that my non-mortgage debt is bigger than my mortgage debt! Oh well, it is likely to be the other way around next month!:rotfl:

Lucy1982_2

At least they are both going down! That is something to be pleased about.

PigginSkint

Lucy1982 wrote: »

At least they are both going down! That is something to be pleased about.

Very true and of course I am pleased!

You have just reminded me of a very interesting snippet of information I found out today. I went onto my Halifax internet banking to see what my mortgage balance was (first time I have had a look at that account online) it said that I am eligible for a repayment holiday. It said 6 months but I am not quite sure what that means - does it means I can have a repayment holiday of 6 months, or 6 individual months or does it mean that I have to make at least 6 months payments before taking a repayment holiday (like with my LTSB loan)? Not that it matters at the moment but it is interesting (and reassuring) to know that if things get really desperate I have another helping hand!

Oh and apparently I have approx £77K worth of equity in my house - not to be sniffed at, is it?!

Lucy1982_2

It's not. I would have thought you'd need to make 6 months worth of payments. I never tried the holiday with Lloyds, I'm trying not to, although it is tempting to try it for one month and pay a lump off my OD.

But I guess you just end up paying the loan over longer, which I'm not sure i want to do.

PigginSkint

Lucy1982 wrote: »

It's not. I would have thought you'd need to make 6 months worth of payments. I never tried the holiday with Lloyds, I'm trying not to, although it is tempting to try it for one month and pay a lump off my OD.

But I guess you just end up paying the loan over longer, which I'm not sure i want to do.

That's true but if you have a lean month where it might be a struggle to meet the repayments it does help!