PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Hi All

Well I had a bit of an eventful weekend!

On Saturday I sat with my laptop for hours. I listed a load more books for sale on Amazon (2 sold already!) then I looked on the Boost Your Income article for details of more survey sites and cashback sites and signed up for all of the ones that I wasn’t already signed up with. Then I looked at the ebay articles and printed off a load of those for perusal and saved a load of the websites mentioned in my favourites. Also did a bit of Avon on Saturday – collected books in.

OH did precisely nothing on Saturday, apart from read, sleep, eat and help me collect a few books in.

On Sunday I didn’t wake up until midday (because I had been up so late the night before, being productive) and put a couple of loads of washing on the line and then I went out on my bike to go to our local retail park – went to Asda to get a few things for DS as he is cooking at school tomorrow, plus a few other bits and pieces. Also went to Matalan to try to find a new belt for OH – didn’t find one but found a pair of basic leggings, knee length ones for £5. I have been trying to find some of these so that I can wear them under skirts in the summer. When I got back OH was sat in the garden reading and I put yet more washing on the line then went out to do some Avon. OH was talking about waiting for DS to come back and then going out to put Betterware books out – I said I thought that was unfair on DS (he wasn’t due back until 6:30pm) so he started getting stuff ready at about 4pm to go out. It took him until about 5:50pm to get everything ready and I did offer to help him – so I did about 1/2hour and then had to get back for DS. DS and I went up to take something to him and I got DS to help him put the rest of the books out.

Why am I telling you all this? Because all weekend OH was promising that he would mow the lawn but it didn’t get done, because he ran out of time because of the other things he had to do. I pointed out that if he hadn’t wasted so much time he would have had time to do it!

Last night OH and I had a serious talk and I actually gave him the ultimatum that I have been contemplating for quite a while – I told him that if he doesn’t make a serious effort to find more work and bring more money into the household by the end of the month, I am going to take his credit card off him. I wasn’t confrontational about it (deliberately so – I didn’t want him to get defensive and refuse to listen!) but told him how upset I am about the whole situation and that I have just had enough – especially as I have done so much to help him. The problem is that he is just very poor at organising his time so this is something that needs to change – perhaps I ought to get him to fill in a timesheet! Certainly he needs to plan his time a bit better. I asked him to work out how many hours a week Betterware takes up (not counting other work as there is very little of that at the moment) and we worked out that it is probably about 10 (being generous!) – I pointed out to him that that is about a ¼ of what I work in a week, probably less (my working hours in my main job are 36 per week, plus I spend at least 10 hours a week commuting, plus doing Avon at roughly 2-3 hours per week – not counting all the other little bits I do, nor cooking meals, nor housework). I think he got the point!

And another thing – I think I need to work out how I can put a block on Facebook! He spends far too much time on there! I wonder if there is a way to do it that is easy to switch on and off so that I can (a) still get on it myself, and (b) ration how much time he spends on it.

Anyway, we will see if anything I said to him last night has actually hit home.

Bye for now!

bubbles0169

hiya could set up parental controls to kick in when his times up
you get to go on it then!:rotfl:
keep up the good work:D

PigginSkint

bubbles0169 wrote: »

hiya could set up parental controls to kick in when his times up
you get to go on it then!:rotfl:
keep up the good work:D

Hmmm! That's a good idea!

PigginSkint

Hi All

What a week I have been having! Not had much time to update my diary, but managed to update on the £10 a day challenge thread. Loads to update on today so please bear with me for what is likely to be a long post!

I was very busy on Tuesday because some exams that I have been involved in organising were held that day, so that was a very long day and I am still feeling very tired.

I have had a headache now for 3 days – it is wearing a bit thin now! – but I have still been trying to keep going with work and my other bits and pieces (surveys, comps, cashback sites etc). Free bingo tonight so I am looking forward to that – OH will be out at a rehearsal so I should actually be able to get on the laptop!

Tomorrow I have got a day off work (hoorah!) but I have still got to get up really early (booooo!) because my brother who is in the army is getting a medal – myself, my Dad, stepmother and youngest brother are going to the ceremony and I am being picked up at 6:30am. Ouch!

Last night I did my Avon order online – I haven’t written all the orders in my notebook yet, but it should be a sizeable sales total again. Hooray! A bonus was that I didn’t have to pay as much as I thought I was going to have to for my last order because of a number of credits to my account – a couple of returns and I also discovered that some lipsticks that I had had as a money maker (Avon do these quite often – packs of new goods to sell at increased profit, delayed charging for them, return what you don’t sell) that I hadn’t sold, I had been charged for and I hadn’t yet claimed credit for. One extra bit of good news is that my customer who left me an incorrect cheque when she went on holiday has now returned – I went round to see her on Tuesday evening so that she could change it for me and I paid it into my account yesterday. So good news all round on the Avon front. :j

I think the talk that OH and I had the other night has hit home a little – though we shall have to wait and see. On Monday he mowed the lawn, updated his CV and started looking at jobs on the websites that I had found for him. On Tuesday he was busy with Betterware, prepared for some work he is doing at the weekend, put some washing on the line for me, paid some money into his bank account and posted my first batch of Amazon parcels. Yesterday he was at his agency all day doing his office duty day so was out from 7am until 9pm – so I let him off having to do anything yesterday! This morning he is going to be doing Betterware stuff all morning as he has books to collect, deliveries to do and his Coordinator is coming to see him (it is normally a Friday afternoon). The fact that he is having a visitor today means that he will probably do some tidying and hoovering as well (about the only time he does do it!!). I am hoping he might do some job-hunting related stuff this afternoon – I shall ask him when I get back.

I have been trying to find him a ‘To-Do List’ pad – I know they exist because I used to use them. I thought this might help him organise his time a bit better. At work I use a combination of a notebook, my Outlook diary and a spreadsheet but I am looking for something simpler for OH!

My £100 from cashing in my premium bonds has hit my bank account so I have updated my sig accordingly.

Since listing a load more books for sale on Amazon at the weekend, I have now sold 7! Woohoo! I shall update my sig when the money hits my bank account (less the cost of the postage of course).

This weekend OH will be away working (rehearsing for a theatre project) so I think I shall attempt to do something with ebay, even if it is only research. DS desperately needs new trousers (growing like a weed!!) so I think I might try to see if I can get some for him so I can get a handle on how the process actually works.

I decided to pay an extra £1 off one of my Amex credit cards because once that goes through it will bring the balance down to below £1500 – a much needed psychological boost! It will go back up again once the interest for this month has gone in, but of course it will go down again once the next regular payment goes out.

The payment off the Littlewoods catalogue has gone through now so I have just sent an email requesting the cashback earned to date to be deducted from my account. I wonder if I should count that in my make £10 a day challenge. It is cashback earned so I suppose I should – I think I will ask on the thread to be sure.

I did some more surveys last night and a few piggy clicks so I am hoping to bring my balance up on some of them to a level where I can actually earn a voucher. Where I can I think I will get Boots vouchers because they are always handy – I use T-gel shampoo once a week to keep my eczema under control and it ain’t cheap!

I am seriously concerned that OH is not going to have enough money to pay the Halifax credit card bill – the payment is due by 23rd June which means it really needs paying on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. If I end up paying it I am not going to be best pleased! It means I shall have to use some of the small amount of money remaining in my emergency funds account.

I think from now on I shall include in my diary updates a countdown of how much is left in that account so we can see how much progress OH is making with actually getting enough money to pay his way! There are a couple of things I want to pay for out of it – a couple of payments I made on the Egg card that need reimbursing – so it is likely to go down soon anyway. But I object to having to use that money to pay bills that OH should be paying. The account I am actually using for this now is my LTSB ISA as I can now manage this with internet banking. So here is the first entry for this countdown:

Money remaining in ISA: £400

For the benefit of any newcomers to my diary who may not understand the significance of this, let me explain. Because of the amount of debt I have got, I have a shortfall every month between my income and outgoings (of about £250) – I pretty much pay for everything. The money in this separate account is used to cover this shortfall as necessary and any other additional expenses – e.g. holidays (only cheap camping holidays I might add!) and new lawnmowers when the old ones go up in smoke). The balance was originally much higher than this (it was money I was left in my Grandad’s will) but it has been gradually whittled away. The reason for this is the pitifully small amount that my OH earns, together with the fact that he keeps adding to my debts rather than helping me to reduce them. OH is earning very little at the moment and I have been stressing to him how important it is that he does something (anything!) to earn some more money so that he can contribute financially to the household. At the moment what he earns does not even cover his own expenses (travel expenses for his office days and auditions etc). If he can pay the bills that he is supposed to be paying (my Halifax card – nearly all his debt, my Egg card – ditto, my Littlewoods catalogue account – ditto) we might just about struggle through. However, if he does not earn enough to make even the minimum payments then we are stuffed! Once the money in my ISA runs out and if OH doesn’t earn enough to cover the shortfall then we are in something of a predicament to say the least!

Anyway I think that is all the news for now.

Bye all!

embarrassed_about_my_debt

Hey Piggin, :hello:

All i can say is you must have the patience of a saint. I know i've said it before but your other half really needs to wake up and start helping. Does he honestly think what he does at the minute is enough?

I think the only way you are going to do this is get the debt into his name and leave him to sort them out himself.

You've been on at him for so long and nothing has changed. If his earnings arent even covering his expenses incurred in going for the additions then i think he seriously needs to look at calling it a day or does he want to end up living on the street?

Sorry if this sounds harsh but needs must. Your emergency fund is getting so low going by your calculations it wont last two more months, then what does he expect to happen?

dawnybabes

I agree - you've far more patience than I would have had.

How does he expect food on the table in 2 months time ? Is he making any money at the Betterware stuff ?

PigginSkint

embarrassed_about_my_debt wrote: »

Hey Piggin, :hello:

All i can say is you must have the patience of a saint. I know i've said it before but your other half really needs to wake up and start helping. Does he honestly think what he does at the minute is enough?

I think the only way you are going to do this is get the debt into his name and leave him to sort them out himself.

You've been on at him for so long and nothing has changed. If his earnings arent even covering his expenses incurred in going for the additions then i think he seriously needs to look at calling it a day or does he want to end up living on the street?

Sorry if this sounds harsh but needs must. Your emergency fund is getting so low going by your calculations it wont last two more months, then what does he expect to happen?

You've hit the nail on the head! I really appreciate your comments - really I do! Because it makes me realise that it's not just me that thinks these things!

Moving the debt into his name would be the ideal solution (as far as I am concerned) but unfortunately not possible - he can't get credit. I let him have additional cards on my credit card accounts in order to help him - to give him a means of payment when booking travel and accommodation. I feel really resentful that he seems to be, I hate to use the word, abusing it.

I suppose the fact of the matter is that once this money does run out that will be crunch time! So I suppose all I can say is - watch this space!

PigginSkint

dawnybabes wrote: »

I agree - you've far more patience than I would have had.

How does he expect food on the table in 2 months time ? Is he making any money at the Betterware stuff ?

Thanks! As I said in my previous post, I really appreciate your comments because I realise that it is not just me - I am not being unreasonable!

I posted a request about blocking Facebook on the techies board and got accused of being a control freak! To be fair, they probably haven't ready this diary!

He is making a little bit of money from Betterware - approx £40-£50 per week. It's not great but it helps!

bubbles0169

PigginSkint wrote: »

Thanks! As I said in my previous post, I really appreciate your comments because I realise that it is not just me - I am not being unreasonable!

I posted a request about blocking Facebook on the techies board and got accused of being a control freak! To be fair, they probably haven't ready this diary!

He is making a little bit of money from Betterware - approx £40-£50 per week. It's not great but it helps!

hay just wanted to add you are definately not on your own thinking what you do re your OH
i dont say what i think as i didnt think youd appreciate me telling you off every time you post about him!
and you aint a control freak either!
<to the techies
and
xx< to you!
xx

embarrassed_about_my_debt

Can i ask why he cant get credit? Poor past or because he doesnt have regular income?

In that case i would say you need to take the card off him, after all it is in your name not his. Then get him to pay you for the bills until they are cleared. He obviously cant work out that if he spends on it he needs to be earning enough to pay it back, otherwise its falling on your shoulders!!

It looks like the only way he will be able to live is on cash/pocket money.

As i said before i read your diary everytime i login just dont always post as dont want to keep going on about the your oh.:o