Chapter 2 - Pulverising the Post Office - one debt at a time

Housework*Fairy

Grocery/Petrol Fund: Was £500 – is £262.15

Cash-in-hand situation:!
Money in purse £0.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Cheque still to bank: £50.00
Money in change box (A) £40.28
Money in change box (B) £5.68
Money in bank: £125.11
Grand total: 294.81
Days left til payday: 17

Money in separate account for PO/Wembley: £71.22

Reduction since yesterday: £11.76

Where did the money go?

£6.61 on two flasks from Morrisons, a biggun and a littleun so I can pack up hot chocolate too whenever the need for a packed lunch arises. Which is often in this house.
£3.65 – cigs (although he reckons he has given up, I will believe that when I see it)
£2.50 – PAD (this is what I would usually pay out for on a Monday as DS2 used to do football after school)

Urgh Monday morning – back to the grind stone

Feeling a bit anxious because there's not that much money left in the bank, and it's still just over two weeks to pay day althoug the combined amounts of everything total £628.18 which sounds brilliant but I know there's so much that is already spoken for. I barely seem to have had much to pay out for so far this month either let alone any pulverising!

Read gas meter on Saturday night after it'd been on for most of the day and I'd used 18 units since the previous time it was read six days earlier. It was on all day yesterday too, but I turned it off at night and onto timed during the day for weekdays if I can stand it going off at 9pm

Housework*Fairy

Grocery/Petrol Fund: Was £500 – is £250.70

I'm doing my weekly shop in three now; Friday, Monday and Wednesday. Spent £11.28 in Morrisons last night which I was deeply unimpressed about although I did get 16 items for that with £1.58 in multi-saves. Also noticed M had put their cheap tins of Irish Stew up by 5p each since I last bought them, and the squash has gone up by 10p per bottle, so I had to buy two for £1.20 as it stuck in my throat to buy one at 79p (they used to be 69p)

Cash-in-hand situation:!
Money in purse £1.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Cheque still to bank: £50.00
Money in change box (A) £4.68
Money in change box (B) £38.88
Money in bank: £119.96
Grand total: 288.26
Days left til payday: 17

Money in separate account for PO/Wembley: £71.22

Reduction since yesterday: £6.55

Where did the money go?

Not sure how I'm only £6.55 down as DH's prescription that he got last week debited today and that was £7.65.

DH has sprung on me that he's going on a night out with an old colleague who is coming back just for the night. He's 'asked' for £30 but 'hopes' to bring back change. I said “as well as your new suit?” and he said “well it's not my fault he's decided to choose this weekend to come up and I've given up smoking. He did then say he 'might' not bother about a new suit. We had a bit of an argument on Saturday as he says I'm becoming obsessed about every penny. I probably am!

Housework*Fairy

Grocery/Petrol Fund: Was £500 – is £227.05

Went to Asda tonight and got enough in for four suppers, and some tea and coffee totalling £23.65. Got a lovely joint of lamb reduced from £7 to £4.68 and couldn't resist it. I can't wait to check my receipt tomorrow on the price guarantee website, from work, where I have access to black ink. My Tesco CC statement came today and I actually paid the £500 in there on 23rd December so I think I've done quite well to only spend £169 on groceries in just over three weeks.

Cash-in-hand situation:!
Money in purse £1.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £2.68
Money in change box (B) £26.30
Money in bank: £169.96
Grand total: 273.68
Days left til payday: 15

Money in separate account for PO/Wembley: £71.22

Reduction since yesterday: £14.58

Where did the money go?
£6.00 - DH
£4.00 - Athletics
£1.00 - DH today
£2.00 - bus fares
£2.58 - unaccounted for.

Good news in that both kids footy training has been called off for Thursday and Friday but I can't PAD the money into the Wembley / PO account until it's confirmed there is no games on Sunday. Although if my (League 2) team play as rubbish as they have done lately there'll be no Wembley trip!

My electric blanket which I only bought in November, and have actually only used four times, has stopped working. It actually stopped working on Saturday but we thought it might have just been a fuse, but DH changed it for me today and it's still not working. I unfortunately didn't keep the receipt so I have no comeback but I will be e-mailing the manufacturer and telling them how disappointed in their product I am.

I'm constantly frozen at home. My feet and legs are okay at the moment and I have on a pair of thick jeans, and underneath them a pair of velour tracksuit bottoms, an ordinary pair of socks, and a pair of fleece woolly bed socks. On my top half I have on a t-shirt, sweater, a scarf, a pair of fingerless gloves, and my nose is freezing and so are the tips of my fingers. This can't be normal? Our radiators are hot to the touch (and back up to thirty degrees) but the room just isn't warming up. I'm a 37-year-old quite chubby person, but I feel as if I'm an 85 year old woman with no meat on her bones to warm her up. If I'm like this now, what will I be like when I am a pensioner?

I had my thyroid tested a few months ago (normal) and my symptoms don't fit those of Reynaud's. I'm sick to death of being cold.

Housework*Fairy

Cash-in-hand situation:!
Money in purse £1.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £2.68
Money in change box (B) £7.00
Money in bank: £165.96
Grand total: 250.38
Days left til payday: 14

Money in separate account for PO/Wembley: £72.22

Reduction since yesterday: £23.30

Where did the money go?
£3.00 - cheque debited the bills account for an athletics competition that DS2 did last week.
£9.00 - I put bus fare away for DS1 until we next get paid.
£4.00 - Both kids have gone to Athletics
£1.00 - PAD as Athletics is £1 cheaper than football, which is where DS2 should have been tonight
£5.30 - I presume DH has had this.

Tins are looking very empty so I'll need to replenish that. Kids activity wise, until the next pay day weather permitting, I would be budgeting £19 for activities. PADS and extra payment I had budgeted £58, so as long as there is no disasters I could do it....Although the PADS are temporarily being diverted to the Wembley fund. Que sera Sera I'll know by Tuesday if we're wemb-er-lee bound. However even if we're not, it wont be going on the credit card anyway as we've got DS2 and DH birthday as well as road tax. February is going to be a lean month too.

Printed my Asda voucher off at work today and I've got 83p (woohoo) so am ridiclously excited about this. I've stapled my receipt to it and just need to remember to hand it in next time I go shopping.

Still freezing cold and still haven't e-mailed the makers of the electric blanket (Lowry) as there's no e-mail anywhere in the instructions or box. I'm seriously considering buying a fan heater although for what I'm saving on gas I'd be spending on electricity

StressedSteph

Hi Housework Fairy,

Sorry not been around, Broadband was down for ages. The joys of switching suppliers.

Had to laugh at your hubbys comment about "watching every penny", mine says exactly the same thing. He claims I have gone from overspending to totally underspending, I guess I ought to explain the joys of the Lightbulb Moment to him

Will keep up to date with your diary from now on.

Take care

fallen121

Housework*Fairy wrote: »

I'm seriously considering buying a fan heater although for what I'm saving on gas I'd be spending on electricity

DON'T buy a fan heater. I speak as someone who lives in a house with no mains gas. We use bottled gas to heat the water, but can't afford to use it to heat the house as well, as one 47kg tank costs £70 and if we used it for heating we'd use a couple of tanks a week!

We used to have fan heaters and our electricity bills were HUGE. The problem with fan heaters in bedrooms is that even with a thermostat they wake you up when they switch on and off, the room temperature starts to fall as soon as they go off and we had one that overheated and burnt a hole in our carpet.

We now use these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0006L2A2E/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00

although we only paid £90 each, the price always seems to go up when the weather is cold! We used Amazon vouchers to buy them which we saved up from cashing in Nectar points, doing surveys, gifts from relatives and awards from work.

We have 3, the house is warm and toasty and our last electric bill was a nice surprise even though we'd had them on day and night. Because we got the ones with the electric thermostat, they switch off when the room is warm and then switch on again if the temperature falls. They produce a LOT more warm air than a fan heater because they work on the principle of heating oil rather than air and the warm oil continues to give off heat even after the heating element switches off. Also the air is funelled upwards, unlike a fan heater that just blows it along the floor, so the whole room heats up very quickly.

There are cheaper ones with a manual timer, but they are noisy and you can't use them in bedrooms when you're trying to sleep as they make a dreadful racket. They come with wheels on so you can move them about.

Housework*Fairy

Hi Fallen121

I was only planning on getting one to take the chill off the living room. I can live with the rest of the house being cold just as long as the main living room is warm. So it'd only be for a couple of hours per night, someone posted a review on the Argos website to say that they'd monitored their electric bills and it used about 20p per hour. I want something that throws heat at me, and I know from where I used to work that this sort of heater does the job. I'm afraid I don't have £120 to spend on an oil heater or a little bit more on a gas fire so I'll see how I go on with this £20 heater

Housework*Fairy

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi Housework Fairy,

Sorry not been around, Broadband was down for ages. The joys of switching suppliers.

Had to laugh at your hubbys comment about "watching every penny", mine says exactly the same thing. He claims I have gone from overspending to totally underspending, I guess I ought to explain the joys of the Lightbulb Moment to him

Will keep up to date with your diary from now on.

Take care

Aw thank you, it's nice to know people are reading xxx

Housework*Fairy

Cash-in-hand situation:!
Money in purse £1.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £1.68
Money in change box (B) £0.00
Money in bank: £152.96
Grand total: 229.38
Days left til payday: 13

Money in separate account for PO/Wembley: £75.22

Reduction since yesterday: £21.00

Where did the money go?
£3.00 PAD (no footy practice for DS1)
£10.00 - DH has gone to the next door neighbours and taken a tenner out of the cash machine
£7.00 - DH has taken this from the change box. Some of it was for cigs and he's taken DS1's guitar for a re-string which he is currently upstairs murdering (the guitar, not DS1).

It's snowed which has stopped DH's friend from coming over for a night out (hooray) so that's £30 less that he's going to spend, although I am a tenner down as he's bought a bottle of wine and another packet of fags so best part of a tenner gone and has gone to sit round at the neighbours.

In the War against Cold I put the heating on at 18 degrees at 9am this morning and left it on all day. When I got home the house was warmer than it had been in ages so that's cheered me up no end. DH went to Argos and bought me the £20 fan heater. I'll read my meter tomorrow morning to see what impact it's had. I read both meters today and in 13 days have used 35 units of gas (around £42) and 175 units of electric (around £21) if my workings out are correct, as the electric sounds really low! I haven't used my tumble dryer since 4th January though.

Have no plans for the weekend as thanks to the snow my professional footy team game is called off, and so are both of the kids. Hope I don't go stir crazy and hit the shops.

Housework*Fairy

Grocery/Petrol Fund: Was £500 – is £201.71

Went to Tesco and spent £27.53 in total but £2.19 of this was not household food (budgie food and a birthday card) so still just over £200 in the budget. I did 'waste' £4 on two small jars of flavoured coffee for DH and I spent £3 on Aunt bessie's oven chips as they are my favourites, and I also went for the more expensive beer battered onion rings instead of the cheaper ones.

I will need some petrol probably this week as will DH. Hopefully all the kids activities will be called off next week too meaning we only have to use fuel for work, school and food shopping..

Cash-in-hand situation:
Money in purse £1.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £1.68
Money in change box (B) £0.00
Money in bank: £114.19
Grand total: £191.41
Days left til payday: 12

Money in separate account for PO/Wembley: £99.22 (unfortunately I think nearer pay-day some of this will have to make its way back into my spends account)

Reduction since yesterday: £37.97

Where did the money go?
£2.19 refund to groceries account
£20.00 – usual weekly PAD
£4.00 – No athletics today
£1.78 – Itunes (I needed One Direction in my ears)
£10.00 – Cash to put in a birthday card

Read the electric meter this morning and in 25 hours (9am-10.30am) had used 21 units. I had the new fan heater on for at least 4 hours so if you say I've been averaging 13 units per day the heater cost 8 units for 4 hours so an extra 95p per day. It really did make a difference though. So my new cold-weather heating strategy is to leave the heating on all day at 15 degrees. Whack it up to 25 when I come in from work. Turn it onto 'timed' when we go to bed so it's on at 7am when we wake up, and then turn it to 'on', and use the fan heater from 6-10pm.

Although pilot light is still blowing itself out. We've had to reset it three times today so far. I can't understand how it can do days without doing it, then do it several times in a day.