PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Hi All

I am feeling deeply, deeply fed up today. I need to have serious words with OH (again!). I love him but I just can’t cope. I feel like saying to him ‘get a grip or get out’, but of course I won’t. I think he seriously needs to understand the seriousness of the situation. I am completely exhausted and not a little depressed – I spent a large part of yesterday in tears (OH was in London all day yesterday). Not only am I getting very little financial input from him (the latest saga over the Halifax bill is a case in point) but I get absolutely no help at all with running the household. I seem to be doing absolutely everything and he is doing nothing.

I haven’t slept well all weekend and I have virtually no voice (I tend to lose my voice when I’m stressed). I have hardly done a thing all weekend – just what I needed to do. Also my asthma seems to be playing up as well, but I think that is because I am stressed.

On Saturday night I took myself off to bed earlier than I planned to because I wasn’t feeling well (my asthma and hayfever were playing up and I felt quite short of breath) and as I went upstairs I said to OH ‘don’t forget to lock up will you’, because I would normally lock both the front and back door before going to bed (because otherwise it wouldn’t get done). On Sunday morning I was up at the crack of dawn to make OH his flask of coffee to take with him to London (because otherwise he wouldn’t bother doing it) and I discovered that the front door was unlocked. I’m sorry but it drives me bl**dy mad!!! :mad:

I am seriously considering going on strike – refusing to cook him meals and do his washing for him (he hasn’t a clue how to use the washing machine and all the words and numbers are rubbed off anyway, so this would be a real challenge!). But first I will sit him down (again), read him the riot act (again) and threaten him with the consequences if he doesn’t buck his ideas up (again).

I have left him a number of things attached to the fridge that I want him to do today, so we will see if he actually manages to get any of them done.

Sorry for the gloomy post! Bye all!

Seaxwyn

Hi Pigginskint - just wanted to send heartfelt sympathies re the useless OH. Mine is just the same and I have often thought of issuing the 'get a grip or get out' ultimatum too. Its hard, isn't it? I have to remind myself that my OH does have lots of good qualities - I hope yours does too. Take care and don't let it get you down.

PigginSkint

Seaxwyn wrote: »

Hi Pigginskint - just wanted to send heartfelt sympathies re the useless OH. Mine is just the same and I have often thought of issuing the 'get a grip or get out' ultimatum too. Its hard, isn't it? I have to remind myself that my OH does have lots of good qualities - I hope yours does too. Take care and don't let it get you down.

Thanks for your post. I am just getting really fed up at his selfishness. I know he has many good qualities and I know life would be horrible without him. Also, my DS has had enough disruption in his life (when me and his Dad split up) and although because of the way we handled it, the negative impact was minimised, I don't want to put him through any more. Also DS and I would be devastated at losing the cat (he is really OH's)!

I have realised that I am going to find it very difficult to read him the riot act if I have no voice! I think I am going to have to write it down - might not be a bad idea actually, I always forget half of what I wanted to say!

PigginSkint

If things weren’t annoying enough today...... I realised this morning that I had missed one of my minimum payments. Arrgggghhhh!!! I don’t know how I have managed it – I was convinced that I had done it. I suppose it is the fact that it is the one credit card that is not on my Egg Money Manager. Oh well, it is only one of the littlies and if they do land me with a late payment charge I will just phone them up and ask them very nicely to refund it! I might just set up a DD for that one. I don’t like doing DDs as a rule because I like to decide when I am going to pay something and how much. But if it runs the risk of being overlooked then perhaps it might be better if I did set up a DD.

Seaxwyn

AAAARGH!!!! How infuriating. I did the exact same thing this month - my first ever late payment too! I decided just to swallow the late fee and learn from it. I was really gutted though.

PigginSkint

Seaxwyn wrote: »

AAAARGH!!!! How infuriating. I did the exact same thing this month - my first ever late payment too! I decided just to swallow the late fee and learn from it. I was really gutted though.

If it is just a late fee (the payment will be a week late) I might just decide to live with it. The main worry is whether I might lose my promotional APR - the card in question is Intelligent Finance which, if memory serves, is another Halifax one!

Seaxwyn

I was terrified of losing my 0% promotional APR - it runs til July 09, and I've got nearly 8 grand on that card. Luckily one phone call was all it took and they've reinstated the 0%. I was so relieved I didn't even think to question the late fee.

Good luck with yours - I hope they are similarly understanding!

PigginSkint

Seaxwyn wrote: »

I was terrified of losing my 0% promotional APR - it runs til July 09, and I've got nearly 8 grand on that card. Luckily one phone call was all it took and they've reinstated the 0%. I was so relieved I didn't even think to question the late fee.

Good luck with yours - I hope they are similarly understanding!

Halifax did reinstate my low rate life of balance APR on my other card, with no quibble, so I should be O.K. The trouble is that was very recent and I worry about how often I will get away with it! Oh well, there is only about £1600 on the IF card so it's not the end of the world if I have any problems with it - I can easily move that somewhere else.

PigginSkint

Hi All

Not really had much time to update today – very busy day mainly spent trying to finish off an exam paper (yawn!).

My voice seems to have returned (albeit still a little bit croaky) and don’t feel as tired as yesterday (though still quite tired). Had an early night last night but still didn’t sleep particularly well – kept falling asleep, then waking up, then falling asleep, then waking up, etc etc.

I wrote a great long letter to OH but didn’t give it to him – some things are hard to take back aren’t they? But as a therapeutic exercise it was very useful (I am sure I have heard Denise Robertson – you know, the agony aunt – suggesting just such a thing). I shall just have to work the content of that letter into my conversation gradually.

One thing I did do this morning was to say to OH that I tend to lose my voice when I am exhausted and stressed so I would leave it up to him to work out why! If he does ask why I shall say ‘because I am doing too much’ and then I will ask him why he thinks I am doing too much and the answer will be that he is doing too little.

Anyway, I don’t think I have got any Avon to do tonight so I should get time to a proper update later. Though I still plan to have a lovely long soak in the bath and another early night! Also I am planning to leave work soon - too tired to do much more today.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Not much to report really, except another busy day today.

On the way home last night I bought toothpaste and cheapo coffee from Aldi as OH had completely run out. I could have said ‘tough – make do without’ but if he hasn’t got any coffee he will just drink his way through my supply of teabags instead! Anyway he did thank me for buying it and when I said that it was only cheap stuff his reply was just what I had thought to myself – cheap coffee is better than no coffee!

I was a bit annoyed at OH when I got home because I noticed that he had put the dishwasher on to run just before he had gone out to work. What’s annoying about that, you might ask. Well, weirdly and annoyingly the dishwasher is plumbed into the hot water supply and OH had put it on to run after the water can come on to heat for the evening. That meant, I thought, that there would be no hot water for me to have a bath later on. Grrrrr! Anyway, luckily (for him anyway – he would have been in big trouble otherwise) the water was just hot enough and there was enough of it for me to have a bath.

Going home soon (I have been gradually adding to this update offline all day!) and will do a to-do list in a separate post.

Bye for now!