Journey to happy skinflintedness

in_need_of_direction

Surely this is some kind of government funded scheme. If so, try your local mp for some help.

saraih

It is a government scheme, they've been criticised a lot for not publicizing it and been told to double the numbers using it. We'd never have heard of it if it wasn't for the PHI contact telling us on the side.

They've been in the news for a while about their organisation skills, everybody loves the scheme but not the administration of it. Six weeks is unusual and July is ridiculous though.

They did say they hoped to be caught up again by the end of November, if they aren't I'll have to do something like contact an MP because even the emergency fund will have mostly disappeared by then.

saraih

Well I calmed down eventually and crunched some numbers, if worst comes to worst I'll just be back where I started with no emergency fund for a while until they catch up somewhat. I'll try to slowly add to the travel float and by this time next year will have a bigger float to start with. Waste of money but hey ho.

It's not a great time to be cutting back with son & heir's birthday and Christmas coming up, but no worse than it's been for the last few years. He only wants a DS3 and one game so it's less than £150 anyway including a cake and card. He needs a couple of jumpers but he has a super warm coat that will have to do this month.

I do want to get some thermals for everyone but will look around for a cheap deal instead of investing in the good stuff.

Today got a water bill in someone else's name at this address, saying they moved here on the 4th of November. Tried to phone but of course they're closed. Hope it isn't some sort of fraud thing that will affect the CRA files now they report to them.

In good(ish) news, son & heir lost his £205 bus pass which caused a panic, they didn't have it in lost property and with the monthly ones they won't replace them, but I phoned and paid £10 and they sent it right out, arriving this morning when I only phoned yesterday lunchtime. He walked to college on Friday and OH met him on the way home from work in his taxi so that's all it cost.

Better than a poke in the eye! :rotfl: At least I'm remotivated to cut back on groceries as much as possible and get back to basics with the cooking.

saraih

The water bill turned out to be a letting agent with the wrong postcode and house number, they said it wouldn't affect the billing but I'll keep an eye on it. They report to the CRAs now

Nothing else is happening at the moment, I'm not spending anything until OHs payday to make sure we can manage this Access to Work disaster.

I'm spring cleaning instead, it'll take at least all week and that's if I don't get any work. The filth the electrical work made is so bad I'm not even annoyed, just impressed. Lumps of plaster in places so bizarre you'd think they did it on purpose. Everything is covered in a layer of dust and grime anyway so it might as well get deep cleaned while I'm at it.

The curtains upstairs can fit in the washer, when I get round to downstairs they'll need a launderette. Hopefully I'll pick up some cleaning or something to pay for that.

I generally like spring cleaning so it's free entertainment for the most part :rotfl:

black_cat

Spring?!

Amylea123

Hi im new to this but cant find how to post my own topic. My problem is with seperation. My now EX boyfriend of 6 years had just passed his driving test, he had previous drink driving ban and no insurance where entertaining him. I have my own car (only a 2 seater) but for his sake we both put to and bought a second car just a cheap runaround, i insured this in my name and put him as the second driver, we both used the car due to it being bigger and cheaper to run and kept mine for weekend use. Anyway cut a long story short, 4 months into the policy he cheats on me we break up, i want nothing more to do with him. I sign the cheapo car over to him and tell him to sort his own insurance out. Leaving me with a problem with the insurance. Now im a push over, and its pathetic but i offered him to keep paying the monthly car insurance installments if he wanted to in order to still be able to use the car, he agreed and didnt pay up, no money in my account as i dont get the best wage (am also running my own car and have a debt management plan in place which is almost finished) so what did i do? Cancelled the direct debit...... bearing in mind this was around 6 months ago now, i moved back to my mums house and told him to contact if any letters came re the insurance as i was expecting them... no contact came from him whatsoever so im thinking,,, there musnt have been a cancellation fee or somthing as surely they would have been in touch or even called my mobile by now..... anyway last week i get an email from collections insurance bureau saying they have not recieved a response from any letters (which i havent been made aware of! Ex has my number and address) and i now owe...wait for it....1200 for the remainder of the policy... now... im in a heck of a mess, i cannot pay this or the 6 monthly installments of 200 they asked for, i am also due to go on maternity leave soon and i will be on basic 140 a week.... if i cannot pay this where will it come from? surely if he was a named driver he has some kind of liability also? i am making an appointment at the citezens advice bureau because surely if he would have gave me my letters earlier then the cost wouldnt be so high? Or is this just my bad luck as im the policy holder and il have to pay it all. I have worked out my finances and if i pay it along with my other bills i will be left with £10.00 a week, not enough to buy food. Im trying to save for a baby that im going to be supporting on my own, i havent got my own place yet and am still at my mums, surely there must be something that can be done. He gets 3 times my wage it just doesnt seem fair.

Any advice is good advice at the minute, thanks for taking time to read this and i really apologise for any spell errors, im typing this in a huff

saraih

black_cat wrote: »

Spring?!

:rotfl: well maybe not!

Amylea123 I'm sorry about your insurance nightmare! If you go to the bottom of the page in debt free wannabe there's a button that says 'new thread', click on that and copy your post into it.

Not many people will read it here I'm afraid.

in_need_of_direction

It's generally the run up to Christmas that finally gets my deferred spring cleaning done

saraih

I don't mind the big spring clean, it's the little picking up after everyone else that irritates me

The cleaning is picking up again, there was a lull but she said it will only pick up from now till the holidays, especially the private house jobs. Definitely needed!

No money news again, except I did see some super cheap thermals and got them for son & heir. If they last the winter they'll still be pretty cheap and I'll try to plan better next year.

In not very exciting except to me news, the heating is costing just over half what it did last year. I have no idea why but the electric is also a heck of a lot cheaper. Prices have gone down but not by that much, although I have been on top of unplugging things recently. The heating can be explained by the new draught excluding stuff and carpet on the stairs, plus a very mild cold snap so far. Anyway it's more than welcome :beer: I pay over the odds for a prepayment meter as it is.

Tomorrow the float runs out for OH's travel money. From Monday on it's going into the emergency fund, hopefully they'll have caught up before that runs out or I'll have to contact an MP and that means involving OH. Really would like to not have to tell him about this.

Well, back to the cleaning! Upstairs is perfect now, except for the decorating obviously. Kitchen is half done. I found some missing socks behind the dryer, score :rotfl:

saraih

Well now, a big thank you! goes to In Need Of Direction, who said we should apply for a DLA review :A

They're back-paying a lump sum, enough so I won't need to go into the emergency fund at all for OH's travel money for nearly five weeks.

Then when Access to Work catches up with itself we'll have a nice extra thousand pounds to split between the credit union emergency fund and have a buffer in the bank for his travel and anything else MS related.

:beer:

The weekly money goes up by a lot as well, he will be on high mobility and medium care, that's a huge jump. It'll cover all his taxis to the doctors and whatever else he could do with that we could never afford for him. Also it doesn't have an end date, although presumably when PIP comes in that will change.

My emergency fund is safe for now, I will never tell it how close it came to being killed in the name of taxi fares

Everything else is scraping along, the bank hasn't bounced a direct debit in seven years but the way I get close to it can be too exciting sometimes. Cleaning is picking up and I'm still not spending money, babysat and got my fruit & veg again.

Things are looking up again! it's been a rollercoaster lately but the important thing is that OH doesn't know a thing about it.

So massive thanks again, INOD! I must admit to being very intimidated by the system but it went really smoothly and we hardly did a thing :T