PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Blimey! I can't believe it has been a week since I last logged in, never mind updated my diary! Just shows how busy I have been! Having to take time off sick the week before really put me behind at work and it took me all last week to catch up and I have still got loads to do. We finish on Thursday and then we are not back in again until the following Thursday. I am working Thursday and Friday next week and then I am on annual leave for a week. There is soooo much I have got to get done this week!

Oh well, better get on with it. I will try and do a proper update when I can

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I am just waiting for my computer to do a back up before I go home so I thought I had better do an update while I am waiting.

I have been so manically busy at work just lately that I have barely had time to draw breath, never mind visit MSE. I have managed to get all the urgent stuff done so I can have a bit of break over Easter.

I have just checked my Egg card online - big mistake! I feel really depressed now! OH needs a big kick up the bum.

Ooh my back-up has finished so I can go now. Bye all!!

poppy_the_saving_cat

Hi pigginskint, where are you? xxxxxxxxxxx

PigginSkint

Hi All

Sorry I have been a bit quiet just lately. I have just got back to work today after having a week off. We decided to go on a camping trip so we hired a car (50% off spring special – bargain) and spent a few days in York. Well, actually we stayed on a campsite just outside York. We were really lucky with the weather apart from the day we arrived – it was blowing a howling gale when we got to the camp site which made putting up the tent rather interesting! It was a bit of an expensive trip as we ate out mostly but as we were only there a few days I think can live with that.

Before my week off I only worked 2 days of the Easter week – we get an extended break where I work – which I spent madly trying to do as much as possible because of having a week off. The week before that we only worked 4 days as Friday was Good Friday and I was still trying to catch up because of being ill.

So all in all I have not had a lot of time to get a fix of MSE!

OH has finally finished his application for his teaching course – I was really starting to pull my hair out because he was taking so long to get around to doing it. It has now gone to his referee and once it comes back from her he can actually submit it.

The other thing that OH has finally done is set up his internet banking! He did it once before but then lost his log-in details and couldn’t remember them – shows how much he used it eh? So when he finally came round to doing it again I sat him down, gave him the phone and said ‘phone them’! So he did and they sent out his details again. Then I had to sit him down and talk him through it. As he readily admits, complete technophobe! However, it helps if you do actually read the instructions – grrr! Anyway we got him set up and set up his payees ready for him to pay bills. Then I showed him what he would need to do to actually pay a bill. His response? ‘But that’s really easy’! Like I haven’t been trying to tell him that for months! :mad: I might stand a chance of him actually using it now – I have got his log-in details written in the back of my notebook just in case!!

Time to work on him to do something else now! I suppose the next thing on the list is for him to sort out what he is going to do about his maths for his teaching course – he doesn’t actually have GCSE maths so will either have to get that or pass an equivalency exam. He needs to find out the details for that.

One other little thing – not so little really! He needs to earn some more money! My emergency fund is slowly disappearing – the fact that his has lasted until the end of the tax year is something of a miracle but there is not much left now, especially as some of it will go towards paying back what we spent on our trip to York. Knowing him, it won’t be until there is actually none of it left that he will actually do something!

Oh well, better do some work now I suppose. Got loads to do again.

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

poppy_the_saving_cat wrote: »

Hi pigginskint, where are you? xxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Poppy

As you will have noticed - I am back now! Thanks for noticing I had disappeared for a while!

dawnybabes

Glad you had a good time, was getting worried about you

PigginSkint

dawnybabes wrote: »

Glad you had a good time, was getting worried about you

Aww! Thanks!

It was just so nice to get away, if you know what I mean! And we really love York!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Didn’t get round to updating yesterday as it was a bit of mad day – having to leave early to go to the dentist didn’t help.

Walking home yesterday evening with OH and DS I was talking about what we could do for our holiday in the summer – another camping trip – and asking (again) what OH was going to do about earning some more money. I made light of it by throwing the usual swear words at him – bar work, shelf stacking etc etc. However, he decided to get uppity about it – ‘it’s funny for the first 5 minutes’ he said. Anyway you know the saying ‘many a true word spoken in jest’? Well this is what I have been trying to get across to him. I am getting really fed up about the fact that he makes all these promises and is full of good intentions but he never actually does anything about them.

So yesterday evening we had yet another heart to heart about the fact that my emergency fund of cash is getting very low and once that has gone we will be stuffed unless he finds another way of earning reasonable regular money. I must sound like a broken record but when is any of this going to hit home so he actually does something about it?! :mad:

Over the past few days I have been picking apart the most recent Egg statements as I had got a little behind in paying back what I have been spending on the card – this is something I have been fairly good at doing. I have been doing it gradually so that when I look back at the payments I have made and the notes I have made on the spreadsheet (I copy and paste the statements into my finances spreadsheet so that I can play about with them) I can work out what I have paid back and what I haven’t. I made a rather unpleasant discovery this morning – though not entirely unexpected. I have just paid back what I spent in March but I can’t afford to do April (mainly the holiday we have just been on) because it would leave my emergency fund too depleted to do it – I have a shortfall every month which I have to use some of my emergency fund to cover. So there we are, I can no longer cover all of my own expenses – I say my own, but a holiday is really joint expenses. Very depressing.

So much as he hates me doing it (tough!) I shall have to sit OH down again tonight and tell him these glad tidings and also tell him the best bit – unless he earns some decent money fast there will be no holiday this summer at all! Do you think that might be the kick up the bum he needs? God, I hope so!

I suppose the good news is that I have still got options! My credit card companies seem to be falling over themselves to offer me balance transfer deals. Halifax have offered my 6.95%APR for the life of the balance and Tesco have offered my 7.9% APR for life of balance. Not great I know but much better than the APR on the Egg card. So I will transfer as much as possible off the Egg card to the Halifax card and whatever is left over can go on the Tesco card. Virgin have also offered me 4.9% but that is only for about 6 months so not really worth using. Needless to say I can’t really afford to pay back my balance transfer fees from my emergency fund any more, which is a shame.

I did most of my Avon order online last night – just need to put the finishing touches and submit it tonight. I needed to pay some more money in today (got rid of my last delivery this morning) and also I know there is one more return to do – I need to go and see the customer concerned this evening. It is a good size order again – over £200 worth of sales again. Having all these extra customers at works really helps, plus I have been given another one as well by Avon – it is actually quite a trek to walk to her house so I really do without it actually, but I can’t turn down an additional customer, can I?

DS gave us his school report yesterday – he is doing really well and is well on course for his end of year targets and has actually achieved some of them already. How proud am I?

Oh well, I think that is all for now. Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

To say I am p****d off would be putting it mildly!

Yesterday evening I was talking to OH about when he should arrange for the 2 bills that he needs to pay to actually be paid, using his internet banking (a new concept for OH). He mentioned that he hoped that the payment he is waiting for for an advert he filmed in January would come soon. I turned this over in my head and the conclusion I came to was not a happy one. OH noticed that I was not happy but I said we would talk about it later. He followed me into the kitchen so we could talk (DS was watching telly) and I said to him that I am going to have to pay those 2 bills myself aren’t I? Typically OH hadn’t realised but I had – the 2 bills need to paid early next week so that they are paid on time (one needs to reach the relevant company by the 21st and the other by the 22nd). So even if the cheque he is waiting for comes today (which it won’t) it won’t even clear in time in order for those bills to be paid on time. And what money am I going to have to use to pay them? The emergency money of course! So that is another £200 taken care of! Given the size of my monthly shortfall I shall have enough money to tide us over for another 2months at the very most.

OH’s reply was the one I expected – that the payment he was expecting is late coming. But that is not the point. The payment is expecting is only £650 (which on my salary is probably only about 2 weeks worth before tax), he knows how precarious his profession is as far as regular earnings go and I have been telling him for months that he needs to find other sources income. I said all this to him and I also told him how upset I am about it, mainly caused by the fact that I have no control over this because it is down to him to earn enough to cover the shortfall and so far he has done absolutely nothing about it.

I think I have finally got through to him because as I was going upstairs to have a bath, he was on the internet looking a jobs pages – about bl**dy time!

I have decided that tomorrow we will have a brainstorming session – he doesn’t know it yet. It is a good time to do because DS will be at his Dad’s this weekend. I plan to do a mind map with OH to look at all the different ways we can increase our income. The most important one of course is for him to get another job (or jobs) but there are other ways as well of course. I am prepared to do my bit (selling stuff will be my job I think!) but I think I do enough all ready – a full time job and a part time one as well, plus I have being doing lots to save as much money on our outgoings as possible.

We are approaching crunch time now when the money I have been using to tide us over for the last couple of years finally runs out and if OH doesn’t do something about it we will be up a certain creek without a paddle. Watch this space everyone!

Anyway, thank goodness it’s Friday – I have had enough this week!

Have a good weekend everyone!

poppy_the_saving_cat

Hi piggy!! nice to have you back!!! i thought you had gone belly up :rotfl:

I love york too, been there twice, once in a caravan just outside york and last year we stopped in a lovely bed and breakfast just outside the main town.

Sorry to hear about your OH not getting a regular job, cudnt he take over the bulk of your avon orders and maybe then canvass for more orders further afield, and even if acting jobs came along he could still do this with your help too on days he was away. Hope he sorts himself out anyway,

Have a good day piggy xxxxxx