Life and times of a debt busting mumma

minkyr

No diary for me yet. Still in the taking stock, getting organised and pinching everyone else's good ideas phase!


Darned smilies aren't working (resists temptation to bash laptop in frustration - can't afford a replacement and don't want to be cut off from my MSE sanity savers!!)

Rollercoaster_Rach

Hello angels :A.

Your messages have put a smile on my face at the end of a tricky day.

Bless you x

RR. X

millionaire_in_training

ha ha forgot you had binged on my drivel.

Igamogam

OK. I surrender. The OH is not that bad as all your X's I will put up with the extreme sport and the worry:eek: RR glad the kids got fed:rotfl:

Rollercoaster_Rach

Wow! All the singles ladies whoo hoo! :rotfl:

Paid £40 :eek: for DS bass guitar lessons plus £10 dinner money
Paid £11 DD breakfast club.

NS for lunch

Still have car tax to budget for this month (as an extra)
Bills to come out on DD: Council tax £81, Sky £35 Voda £40 (change contact in Feb) MBNA CC £47 Talk T (broadband and phone £30- possibly renew and get a complete package?) Nat West CC (not sure yet as have transferred balance to Bar cc1 3,600 @ 0%) have about £100 left on CC.

Had no sleep again last night....:mad: I know this is anxiety. Stress of yesterday going round my head. Bed early tonight and no internet late into the night!

RR x

Ali-OK

Rach, I've just changed my TT phone and broadband package to:

£126 line rental - 12 months in advance, so it brings monthly equivalent down to £10.50, rather than the £15.40 they're now charging

£2.50 Simply broadband - unlimited use (considering I am SE and work from home and DS watches YouTube and downloads like we're running out of internet film and music :rotfl:), speed is great.

£5.50 Calls boost - gives me unlimited calls 24/7 which I need for work too. Only catch here is there's a spend limit - something like £250 I think, but I can change that bit if I find I need more.

I find TT's site difficult to work out as a package, so I get the individual bits from there, write it on paper and phone them - barraging them with their site information

Got my deal down to paying £8 a month, but have paid the line rental upfront. Could be some substantial savings there for you too?

Can you phone Sky and see if you can get a better deal for 12 months or cut anything out of the package? DS watches the one channel I can't get from anywhere else, so we're on Basic + Entertainment I think its called at £22.50 a month. You can always use the 'I'm thinking of cancelling', or 'I'm having to cut back my monthly outgoings, what can you do to help?' It's a bit random as to whether they'll offer you something, but worth trying!

Good luck with those and hope you sleep better tonight

Rollercoaster_Rach

Very very sensible advice, thanks Ali :j

Sometimes I just want someone to say : here's the best deal...do it! It can be such a chore and easy to bury head in sand :undecided

I know I don't want to give any provider money I don't need to! :money:

My DS watches film and youtube constantly. I don't have sports or film channels on Sky but might see if they can lower the bill on the off chance. Don't watch most of it tbh! Waste!

While we're at it do you know any good current car insurance deals.?Mine's up for renewal (live in the city, 13 yrs no claims) Am with e$ure
(for ages) and pay £ 60 per month. Is this average? I am just being lazy and cheeky now.....:rotfl:

RR x

Igamogam

Rollercoaster_Rach wrote: »

Very very sensible advice, thanks Ali :j

Sometimes I just want someone to say : here's the best deal...do it! It can be such a chore and easy to bury head in sand :undecided

I know I don't want to give any provider money I don't need to! :money:

My DS watches film and youtube constantly. I don't have sports or film channels on Sky but might see if they can lower the bill on the off chance. Don't watch most of it tbh! Waste!

While we're at it do you know any good current car insurance deals.?Mine's up for renewal (live in the city, 13 yrs no claims) Am with e$ure
(for ages) and pay £ 60 per month. Is this average? I am just being lazy and cheeky now.....:rotfl:

RR x

Best looking at comparison sites and just totting up that premium yes its way over - I pay about £250 a year full comp protected NCB and do 25000 miles a year:eek: And I have speed points................ Cant think who I have a policy with but I got it from compare the meerkat. Or go through a cashback site and get guess what ....cash back:rotfl: Just takes a bit trawling - just one word of advice if you go through comparison site DONT put your real phone number down because yo will be inundated with calls:eek: Just give your proper number to the company you want to sign up with

Rollercoaster_Rach

Love all the bits of advice...would have defo received millions of calls....:eek:

I thought £60 a month was really high for 13 yrs (I have a feeling it may drop suddenly if I call with a cheaper quote) My friend said it was because I park outside house in a dodgy part of London!!

Will have to add comparison sites to my ever increasing list....
Cheers xxx

Ali-OK

I know the feeling - if only the companies would OFFER us the best deal life would be so much easier

Even if you paid monthly line rental with TT, unless you can only have fibre optic broadband, you needn't be paying more than the £15.40 plus the £8 = £23.50, so still a good saving to be had. It's still perfect for the boys with all that downloading and DS does online gaming with his schoolfriends too! I can't even claim to understand it, but I do check he is safe

I wonder what package you've got with Sky. What I did, was to sit down with DS and go through with him all the channels he watched, made a list of them and then spoke to Sky to work out what we had to have package wise. I'd be moving to TT for tv included if I could! Another massive saving that grates me every month - but the agreement is DS doesn't get a raise in pocket money whilst he has it (£5 a week, that's his lot!).

I don't even use the tv that Sky is connected to :rotfl: I've got my Dad's old one with Freeview in another room (relegated to the dog-!!!-dining room most of the time ) .

:rotfl: Use one of the comparison sites for car insurance. I've got a bit of a different situation as I have 2 cars, one is business use covered. But even with both those, I paid £483 last year with over 10 years no claims protected and always take the legal cover as car accidents/claims are never straight forward it seems these days. Both of mine are with Aviva, but due for renewal in March, so I shall be shopping around in Feb (just under 30 days before the renewal date as gives plenty of time to do that).

In my experience, it never pays to stay with the same insurer - I change mine every year without fail. That's probably why I've just sorted and shredded about 10 insurance certs and policies going back years from my study yesterday :rotfl::rotfl:

For each of those 3 tasks, set aside a good hour and go from start to finish. Appreciate not easy with working and children, but I find Sunday mornings pretty good for it - cuppa one side, bits of paper another, laptop infront and phone in one hand and pen in the other

Oh and if it's a number you have to pay for that's more expensive than a landline call, look up on the 'Say No to 0870' website - it covers 0845 etc. I've ended up phoning a HQ reception and ask to be transferred (as my landline calls were FOC unlimited in my last TT package too!).

Take no prisoners in your quest :rotfl::rotfl: