PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

dawnybabes wrote: »

Can't see the smiley ??

Oh that's a shame! It was so appropriate as well!

We short paid our Halifax by £2.40 the day we went on hols and they cancelled our special rate and it was back to stupid APR - good luck !

:eek: :eek: :eek:

PigginSkint

Progress on today's to-do list:

PigginSkint wrote: »

· [strike]Collect Avon books in[/strike] and get them ready to go back out again tomorrow Still need to do this last part
· [strike]Put shopping away (when Sainsburys delivery arrives)[/strike] Done!
·[strike]Do daily clicks through Quidco (really must do this more often, so I think I should make this a regular feature on my to-do list)[/strike] Done!
· Find one new thing to do through Quidco Had a look but couldn't find anything.
· [strike]Do surveys (must do this today as they are really starting to pile up!)[/strike] Done! £5 Boots voucher ordered from Lightspeed - woohoo!
· Put clean washing away Oops! Still not done this!
·[strike]Run another load in the washing machine[/strike]Done!
· Unload and reload dishwasher In progress!
· Do a bit of ironing (at least clothes for tomorrow) Not yet but will do shortly!
· Have a long soak in the bath! Will be doing very soon!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I have actually been doing some work today, which is why I haven’t posted until now! I confess, though, that I have also been playing around with my beloved spreadsheet (is it really sad to love spreadsheets?!). I have added an extra page to which totals all the interest I have paid on all my credit cards up to now and also gives me a total for each month. Very interesting!

I have also been working on a new SOA which will use the figures from 1st September – I always update my figures on the 1st of the month anyway. For the first time I have actually left Avon earnings out of the equation – because they are variable. I wanted to know what the situation was based purely on my normal income. If OH plays the game and pays the Halifax credit card bill and the Littlewoods bill, it isn’t actually too bad – a shortfall of only about £13, which can easily be made up from Avon or other earnings (Amazon sales etc). The problems arise, of course, if OH doesn’t pay what he is meant to! Grrrr!!!! :mad:

In putting together my new SOA I looked at some of my old ones. I notice that on the one I did back in August 2006 I have got ‘Partner’s contribution = £500 (variable)’. Whatever happened to that???!!!!!!

OH is in London today for an audition. Don’t quite know what he will do if he gets the part!! I am more worried about him getting back in time to go to work this evening – he is going to be cutting it very fine! If everything goes to plan he should be home by 5pm and he is due at work at 5:30pm. I am not sure I would have risked it myself – not on the 3rd day in a new job!

I was going to work late today to make up some hours, but I am feeling very tired today (again!) so I don’t know whether I will bother. I think I might just go home at 4pm as usual. It means I will be just under 2 hours down at the end of this week and at the end of the current 4 week flexi period. However I have checked the rules and I can carry a debit of up to 5 hours into the next 4 week period, so I am not going to worry too much – I can easily make it up next week, especially as I won’t have as much Avon to do and I won’t have to rush home for any deliveries. An added factor in this decision is that they are doing some building and refurbishment work down our corridor and there is a very strong smell of paint in our nostrils this afternoon!

Think that’s all for now. I will put together a small to-do list and put it in a separate post.

Bye for now!

PigginSkint

Today’s to-do list:

· Get Avon books ready and put them back out
· Do surveys
· Do daily clicks on Quidco and Pigsback
· Put washing away (I really really will try to do this today!)
· Unload and reload dishwasher

I think that’s plenty for today!

peb

PigginSkint wrote: »

Today’s to-do list:

· Get Avon books ready and put them back out
· Do surveys
· Do daily clicks on Quidco and Pigsback
· Put washing away (I really really will try to do this today!)
· Unload and reload dishwasher

I think that’s plenty for today!

Bearing in mind you are also working full time I agree that is plenty for today!

DO you know when OH will be paid from his new job so that you can reinstate his contribution?

PigginSkint

peb wrote: »

Bearing in mind you are also working full time I agree that is plenty for today! Thanks!

DO you know when OH will be paid from his new job so that you can reinstate his contribution?

He is going to be paid weekly, a week in hand, in cash! This means he should be paid at the end of next week though I am not sure of the exact day.

PigginSkint

Update on yesterday's to-do list:

PigginSkint wrote: »

· [strike]Get Avon books ready and put them back out[/strike] Done!
· Do surveys Did not do as did free bingo instead (computer would have crashed if I had tried to have both running at the same time)
· [strike]Do daily clicks on Quidco and Pigsback[/strike] Done!
· Put washing away (I really really will try to do this today!) In progress!
· [strike]Unload and reload dishwasher[/strike] Done!

I am quite busy at the moment and I want to go home at a reasonable time today, so I will do a proper update later.

PigginSkint

Hi All

Sorry I have been a bit quiet for the last few days. I had a migraine on Saturday which just wouldn’t go away – the tablets just took the edge off it, without actually getting rid of it. I had to lie down, very still all day, because as soon as I moved the pounding started again and it was just unbearable. On Sunday the pain had mostly gone but I felt completely washed out – not well at all. I didn’t really feel well until yesterday – thank goodness I had the day off work otherwise nothing would have got done.

DS came back from his Dad’s on Sunday night and yesterday we went shopping because he really needed new school shirts and trousers because he is growing like a weed. That little lot came to about £37 which of course I had to put on the Egg card – I am going make a payment of £1 a day until it is paid off. Currently I am paying £1 a day to the Tesco card, which is the one that I am aiming to pay off by Christmas if I can, and £1 a day to the LTSB card – this is the one I did a balance transfer to at 0% APR for 9 months. If I pay a £1 a day in addition to my minimum payment it will be paid off before the 0% expires.

I am very glad that I paid the Halifax bill last week. On Friday when I got home I got an automated phone call from them asking me when I planned to make a payment. I was able to reply that I had already paid it. I think the payment has gone through because I can actually get into my online account now – on Friday and Saturday it wouldn’t let me into the page for that card because it just said ‘Your account is in arrears’. Now I can get in to it and although I can’t actually see the payment at the moment, the balance suggests that it has gone through.

I have been well and truly stung though - £12 unpaid cheque fee, £12 over limit fee, £12 late fee. Arrgghhh!!!:mad: :eek:

That’s not the worst though- it looks like what I was dreading has happened – on my current balance page it shows what estimated interest is for next month. It is £140something instead of £40something. So it looks like I have lost my promotional APR interest rates. So instead of 5.95% and 6.95% APR (different rates for different balance transfers) it looks like it has gone up to the standard APR of about 20%. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Not happy. Not happy at all!! :mad:

I showed the online stuff to OH and he was subdued to say the least. (Good! :mad: ) As I said to him last night, I warned him this might happen. All my hard work getting all my credit card debt onto low rate APRs has been stuffed up by one bounced cheque! Grrrrr! :mad: So I have told him, much as I want him to contribute to the household bills, his priority has got to be paying this debt off. In the meantime I am going to look into maybe finding some more deals to at least reduce the APR on some of it – unfortunately at over £9000 this is going to be tricky. (Incidentally, this debt is 2nd only to my mortgage in size – even my 2nd mortgage/homeowner loan isn’t as big!).

So the plan is as follows:

· Apply for a new credit card with a low rate life of balance APR or 0% deal (don’t hold out much hope of getting accepted given the size of my debts and the recent missed payment). I will go through Quidco and see if I can earn some cashback at the same time.
· See if I can get a deal on one of my existing credit cards. My Virgin card currently has a £0 balance so I will see what I can do with that one. Also Tesco have just sent me a deal – 7.95% APR on balance transfers for the life of the balance. My existing balance on that card is at 6.05% APR> I haven’t got a lot of time to decide on that one as it expires at the end of the month. I told OH I am not going to transfer anything to cards that have already got a balance on – I am not jeopardising the good APRs I have already got on those cards. However, a small part of the balance on the Halifax card is actually mine (payment for my double glazing) so I am considering transferring that part of it. Hmmm decisions decisions!
· OH will throw as much money as possible at the debt to get it paid off as quick as possible.

Need to do a to-do list for today but I think I will do that on separate post.

Bye all!

peb

Oh rhubarb - is it worth appealing? If not as you say try and find another LOB card. At least OH appears to see what his head in the sand approach has resulted in.

Anything you can do for the migraines? You seem to haveing more recently; I suppose they can be stress related.

embarrassed_about_my_debt

hey piggin, def worth a phone call to the cc company and ask as it was an error if they could re-instate the offer, worse thing they can say is no and they could say yes.

Hope you manage to get this sorted