Mrs PG's Hopes & Dreams for a debt free future !

Honey_Bear

I can understand your impatience Mrs PG. You're well beyond half way, you know it's achievable and it's just boring now. I hope the guarantor thing goes smoothly which I'm sure it will as it did last year but wouldn't it be lovely not to have to even think about things like that. Hang on in there and good luck to you DD2 with her French.

PinotGrigio41

Thankyou HoneyBear, such wise words !

This debt malarkey feels as though its been going on forever and ever and ever and ever .............

The French Exam is today :eek:, last night was a stressful one, she is so tired. She had two back to back revision classes immediately after school and didn't make it home until 7, but by the time she had eaten it was so late to begin going over the french her head wasn't in the right place. Her current grade is just fine, but DD2 being DD2 wont settle for less than an A so is putting herself under so much pressure. Thankfully her teacher has her sussed and will put her at ease Im sure, but I will breath a sigh of relief when we can cross this off of the list and then move onto the next deadline. June cant come soon enough.

To try and calm her down I have promised to take her and one of her friends to try on a few Prom Dresses at the weekend, so that should be fun. Mr PG wont be around and DD1 tells me she is staying at Uni (watch this space though, she loves to pop home as often as possible )

DD1 signed contracts yesterday on the house and I have been emailed the Guarantor Paperwork, I will send it back and sit and wait. :eek:

In money news PRAT have sent me some more dubious paperwork, that put on a smile on my face and has been duly noted and will be added to my witness statement should it get that far.

Work is still ticking over, January looks set to be our best month since August last year. As much as we have been careful , we have had a fair few spends, DD2 needs bits for the upcoming Ski trip, deposits needed paying for DD1s accomodation and the rent for this quarter on her current student flat and also we had a big birthday and special present to buy in amongst other things. DD2 seems to have lots of school trips appearing at £20 a pop but we have managed to cut down and get back on track ish although the mercy call to an emergency locksmith at 7am yesterday morning didn't help the bank balance much :o. Assuming February goes well, I am hoping to build the savings back up again (just incase things go pear shaped once more on the work front )

thats my news so far today.....have a good one xxxx

Honey_Bear

Sending *posi-vibes* in French for young Miss PG and fingers crossed for her all day today.

brizzledfw

How's it going PG? Hope French went well for DD2

xx

PinotGrigio41

So.... here I am again, my 98739430s attempts to get back on these diaries and give myself a kick up the posterior with this National Debt have failed miserably over recent years.

I can safely say that my head hasn't really been in the game for a while now and I have now realised that the diaries keep me on the straight and narrow. I have tried to get back into a routine numerous times over the past couple of years and post regularly but have failed , so Im attempting to get back on track once more .........:o

Since the last update, DD2 has had her Prom and left school officially :eek:. Cant quite get my head around the fact that my baby is off to 6th Form in September, but she has plans galore and is looking forward to it.

DD1 signed on her rental accomodation for Year 2 of her Degree, and we are Guarantors ( I guess they cant do too many checks after all !:o) We moved her out of the Uni Flat and into the house a couple of weeks ago. We only had one spare day in which to do the entire move including scrubbing the old flat , so we pretty much dumped and ran. We need to find a few spare days to head back and get her organised. She has been home since the beginning of May. Its lovely to have her here, but we ended up paying the rental on her Uni flat until last Friday 29th July , but had to begin paying the rent on the new house on the 16th July. They also wanted a £500 deposit and 6 weeks rent up front, all whilst DD was actually living at home. She doesn't intend heading back until the end of September, so we have been paying for 1 and sometimes two properties to sit empty since May . Its been crippling :eek: . Its been great having her home though, and after a few weeks of languishing in bed, she got herself a full time job which she hopes she can transfer back to Uni in September and just work part time. This should help us out immensely. Hopefully her timetable this year will allow her to take on some work and therefore reduce how much we need to give her for her living expenses.

DD2 has also got herself a job in a cafe, and is enjoying having her own bit of spending money to treat herself . She spends half and saves half whilst DD1 is accumulating a nice little sum and currently has more money in the bank than we do :rotfl:

The PG National Debt is dwindling nicely but not quickly enough and if I'm honest I am sick to the back teeth of it now, hence why I think I took my eye off the ball a tad. After having a mini LBM a few weeks ago, I sat down and pulled apart our finances once more to decifer that the reason things were so difficult again, is that we are 30 % :eek::eek: down on 3 years ago, and currently 15% down on last year. There are physically no more days left in the year to work, and no more money to be made really right now. This coupled with supporting DD1 at Uni and also the clients we are mainly working for these days, no longer paying for Mr PG's accommodation whilst he works away , has meant we are pretty much back in deficit. Work is as erratic as ever, 7 days one week, two the next so planning and managing money is tough.

We have been paying the Mortgage, two lots of rent for DD1 and also accomodation for Mr PG which began as Premier Inns, then B&Bs, then Air BNB in peoples spare rooms . He is now currently camping his way around the country in a tiny tent in a bid to cut costs. Not too bad whilst the weather is warmish but he cant do that in January. :eek:

Things need to change and quickly. Once more I am threatening to sell the house , but our credit rating is still zero, so obtaining another mortgage is pretty much out of the question. We have equity, but there are three houses up for sale in our tiny street currently, including the house next door and nothing is moving.

So.....we have alot to think about and figure out over these next couple of months, combined as ever with trying to get the money together for the tax bill, money which right now has been raided to rob Peter to pay Paul, something I swore never to do again. I can see exactly where it has gone ie paying for accomodation , which if I add up the spends , amounts exactly to what we should have to one side for the Tax, but we dont. That combined with our income being down on last year made for an interesting insight into what is going on to say the least !!!

I am hoping by coming back on here, I can get my head in the right place, for meal planning ( the bane of my life ) NSDs etc etc

I have some plans, and things I have sorted this morning, so I intend to be back later and update ....

In the meantime , if anyone spots this ( mammoth ) update and can understand my random burbling, I hope that you are all well and happy.

If you make it to the end, I salute you ! :rotfl::rotfl:

Love Mrs PG xxxx

pennywisepoundstupid

Hi PG.

Great to hear from you, can't believe how old your girls are now, I've got 4 yrs until DD is off to Uni and i'm not looking forward to the expense.

I'm still slogging away at the debt, I totally get where your coming from about needing a diary to keep you focused, feels like a real slog some days.

Keep going mrs,you are doing great and you have come so far.x.

Puzzcat

Hi PG,

Glad to read your update...

I can empathise with the whole uni cost thing....although lucky for me, OH doesn't need additional accommodation needs. I had no idea it was going to be so expensive.. I am sort of wishing the next 3 years away so I can have some money to spend/pay debts with..!!!

I paid out just short of £1400 for the rent/deposit bit and also had the scary will I pass the rental guarantor worry.. luckily like you nothing appears to have come up....

Glad your girls are both working and seem very happy, mine is currently sitting in the garden.. no thoughts of getting a job that one..!!!

Hope you get to enjoy some r & r with your family this summer.

Love Puzz. x

please-let-me-be-lucky

Awesome to have you back, and it sounds like you've been doing an amazing job at juggling everything - would expect nothing less! Xx

PinotGrigio41

Its so lovely to see you all, thankyou for dropping by !

So today I have -

Transferred my TTs ( a whole £1.37 ! ) to the bank loan . It has 3 years left to run, but with my Tilly Tidying and small over payments - we have currently reduced this by 2 months, will keep plodding with that one , as it is not in our DMP and we need to get shot of it as fast as we can. Once its gone we will have an additional £500 per month to play with and throw at something else.

Set up an arrangement to pay our Accountant as we have an outstanding bill and they aren't too happy .

Paid our NI liabilities, so for the first time in goodness knows how many years we are not behind with those !

Set up Account to put away the Tax money, we had to restructure things a few months ago and the original account was closed and I hadn't got around to opening another. £250 towards tax transferred into that.

Began to get on top of all paperwork for the business, again I was sadly falling behind.

Arranged Mr PG somewhere to stay for this week with a 30 % Discount and he seems happy with it.

Most importantly of all, I have finished our Witness Statement. Currently heading for court with PRAT once more. I am quietly confident on another win, but I wont be holding my breath. I will read through it again later , just to be sure there are no errors and will file tomorrow.

Played nurse to both the girls who are both a tad poorly. DD1 finished a 12 hour shift yesterday whilst full of cold and temperatures and DD2 is just generally under the weather. They have brightened up now, DD1 is counting her money :rotfl: and DD2 is now at the stables but has just rung to say she has picked up another shift at work this week , so is very pleased with herself !

I have just managed to fill another 5 days this month of work, which was concerning us slightly, as jobs we had were cancelled, so we had some gaps in the diary. August is not nicely full. Hopefully when these additional days are paid I can put them straight towards the tax assuming nothing comes and bites us on the backside in the meantime.

Plan for later is to dig out some old paperwork , as I think we could be in line for some compensation re the Mortgage, so I will investigate that.

Thats it for now, back to work for me

Hope you have all had a good day xxxx

Honey_Bear

I had a prune of my Subscriptions the other day and realised I hadn't seen anything from your thread for quite a while, Pinot, so it's lovely to see you posting again even if it does all feel a bit uphill at the moment. Well done for getting stuck right back in again.

This suggestion may or may not help. I provide theatre digs, it's a niche market, but it's short term lets at affordable prices for people who are touring with theatre productions. All over the country there is a network of people like me, and the accommodation ranges from five star hotels to flats, b&bs, a room or rooms in a house, which is what I do. Anyone who has spare capacity can ring up their local theatre and ask to be put on the Digs List and some theatres check them out (the RSC came and inspected when they did a three year residency here!) but most just bung a short description of the accommodation, distance from the theatre, whether parking is availbale, the price and whether people can use the kitchen and washing machine.

It's often cheaper than Air BnB which I did for a few years when it was called Crashpadders but don't any more. Last minute bookings to take up available accommodation that wouldn't otherwise be let can be very welcome - and you've lost nothing but the price of a phone call. The two online listing sites that you might want to check out are http://theatredigs.co.uk/ and http://www.showdigs.co.uk There are probably more but those are the only two I happen to use. If Mr MP is anywhere near a city or large town with a (receiving house) theatre, they will have a digs list and you can phone up and ask for a link to it, or a copy of it.

It's fine Mr PG camping when the weather's dry but it's not going to be condusive to happy working if it rains for a week or, as you say, it's cold. Be honest if you do phone - I've taken workmen in the past but I'd be unhappy if someone phoned and didn't say they weren't theatre. (The hours are obviously very different and that's one of the reasons people who do theatre digs do them. I've put a TV in both letting rooms because that's what most people expect these days. For information, I charge £100 a week with no extra bills and that's about right for the standard of the accommodation I let - most people come back.) Don't be too worried if he's going somewhere without a theatre; the local digs list stretches at least 20 miles in each direction around this city.