My SOA and debt diary

tigtag02

Yeah - I thought it was a bit high too. basically we're looking at just over £6 per week per kid plus additions for an afternoon fruit snack and a morning glass of juice - I think I need to refine this a bit more, may be a high estimate. Taking pack lunches is a great idea in theory. In fact I take sandwiches to work most days. - key is most. It's not unusual for us to run out of fillings, and we can't just send them with cash to buy lunch on a one-off like I can. Overall I think they get better fed this way

You know I used to think like this too - I was a real *At least they have a warm meal in them* kinda mum - however, since I took the step to send them with pack ups not only do I put exactly what I/they want in but I can also monitor what they are eating.
Big pots of pasta do wonders for pack ups and providing that you meal plan right you shouldn't run out of stuff - I (and my sproggs) have discovered that there really is more to pack ups that butties

Going to discuss this with the family. Phone deal I think we benefit from. I could go down to 2Mb broadband (Currently 4) and save a fiver. Swapping the TV to a lighter package would mean losing most of the kids' and the wife's favorite channels - not going to be popular. I'll try to compare with the lighter sky packages and use it as a lever to force a better deal out of the Virgin retentions department. After all, if I moved my phone to a BT package I'd eventually be able to migrate to free sky broadband

Right, we pay £63.50 a month to sky and £11 to BT for:
16Mb Braodband
Free evening and weekend calls.
Full (EVERY channel) Sky+
Multi Room
As much as that sounds expensive my point is that by switching you can almost certainly save money on your home entertainment

As well as 82Ask there is AQA and the, ahem, saucy texting services
Mystery Shopping/Dining is another good way to either bring some extra cash in or pay for those meals out that you said you liked

Sorry if some of these have already been mentioned and welcome to DFW :hello:

Ignatius_A

tigtag02 wrote: »

Right, we pay £63.50 a month to sky and £11 to BT for:
16Mb Braodband
Free evening and weekend calls.
Full (EVERY channel) Sky+
Multi Room
As much as that sounds expensive my point is that by switching you can almost certainly save money on your home entertainment

I can see your point. I've followed the budgeting golden rule for variable bills (overestimate them) for this one. The bill is typically around 78 INCLUDING line rental. For this i get

4MB broadband (not dependent upon distance from exchange - maximum we would get from ADSL is 3MB)
Free ALL-DAY calls (Wife is in during the day)
XL pack TV (everything but movies & sport)

which I don't think is TOO bad value

I could get V+ (like sky+ only it will record 2 channels at once whilst watching a 3rd) included too, if I wanted to pay the £150 install fee. Multiroom would cost me an extra £5

I'm not sure there's TOO much to gain in swapping. The biggest problem in swapping is that i'd have to swap to a BT line, which means I'd have to have a BT contract and couldn't move directly to sky talk for several months. - likely to be expensive in the short term.

Add that to the fact that the OH doesn't want a dish attached to the side of the house......

tigtag02 wrote: »

As well as 82Ask there is AQA and the, ahem, saucy texting services
Mystery Shopping/Dining is another good way to either bring some extra cash in or pay for those meals out that you said you liked

Sorry if some of these have already been mentioned and welcome to DFW :hello:

I don't have the free time for AQA/82ASK.

However, I have my first mystery shopping assignment tomorrow

tigtag02

I totally see your point on the phone/tv package

£150 instalation :eek: are Virgin 'aving a giraffe!!! Cheeky b_ggers!!

Enjoy your mystery shop - you should try the mystery dining site too - I am under a city about 30miles from me as mines a *saturated region* so have never done one yet but I check daily to try and get to where I want to be

Ignatius_A

tigtag02 wrote: »

you should try the mystery dining site too -

Have you got a link? This sounds like exactly my thing :j

Thanks

tigtag02

www.mysterydining.co.uk

Ignatius_A

Damn that was quick :T

Looking into it

Thanks

Ignatius_A

shame. The closest place to me that they're recruiting is an 80 mile round trip away

definitely worth keeping an eye on though:D

tigtag02

Ignatius_A wrote: »

shame. The closest place to me that they're recruiting is an 80 mile round trip away

definitely worth keeping an eye on though:D

Same with me Ignatious - register anyway though - it should make it easier when your toen becomes available to switch