Banishing the black cloud

maggiecon

Thanks Nintud, he is a lot happier now. The treatment he got at his old school made him feel pretty crappy, but I think now having the extra A has lifted him a bit. He was up from 9am yesterday morning doing homework!!!


Not much to report on the budgeting front. Hubby keeps telling me to stop scrimping on the groceries because now he is working we have plenty of money! He actually hasn't a clue, even when I spell it out to him in Black and White!! Anyway ended up spending nearly £90 on groceries this week as everyone kept asking for more and more things when I was making the list.


OH gave me £200 this weekend so I now have £425 in the emergency fund. Electrician is coming tonight to give me quote for some work around the house and then plumber coming at the weekend. So I think the Emergency fund is going to get a hammering this week. I still only have £110 in my savings pot, I have decided I am going to spend it on getting my hair done for my birthday. I haven't had my hair cut in yonks so I think I will treat myself.


I cant wait to this weekend as I am due £170 of rent from tenant nr1, this will bring my total rent up to £1730 and I can finally pay the council tax bill. It has been so stressful having this hanging over my head. I also decided to count up all my coppers on Saturday, I have £20 which I will use to make my last payment on my AMEX of £21 and then close that account. Is it sad that I get excited about paying of debt?!


I was just thinking last night about things I could sell to help pay off the debt. I have 120K of Avios miles and I noticed people sell these for about £100 per 10k. I am not sure how to go about it. I am never going to use them because to fly anywhere in Europe requires taking a connecting flight through London and its just not worth the hassle. Will maybe do a bit of research on this.

maggiecon

More good news following B's exam remark, Hubby got his exam results yesterday and he got a 2:1:j :j :j


I Cant believe it. He started the degree in 2008 and I thought he would never get this far. Now he needs to do his GCSE Science to be able to apply for his PGCE.


So I have been back to burying my hand in the sand for a while over a few things so today I will take action, Things to do:
Email Accountant over ridiculous bill
Email solicitor over ex tenants stupid claim for injuries
Phone HMRC who seem to lose every letter I send them
Text my ex who is giving daughter an awful time at the minute and tell him to get stuffed and that he will be having no more contact with her for a while.


Dreading the last one as I have had no contact with him for 5 years, but time I stood up to him, it was bad enough that he was abusive to me but now that I see him trying that head wrecking stuff on C I am having none of it.


Wish me luck

maggiecon

I should maybe add what meals I have planned for the week in case I forget.


Last night we used some of my homemade frozen meatballs with leftover potatoes and beans. Bit of hodge podge but was actually quite nice. I definitely recommend making your own meatballs there is no comparison between them and the store bought ones.


Tonight is bacon and courgette pasta with garlic bread. It is totally scrummy, cheap and easy to make
I have chicken on in the slow cooker today, and will use it for Wed/Thurs night dinner - Chicken Enchiladas and chicken and potato bake. I also cooked a sheet of puff pastry last night so going to make a lemon and raspberry tart tonight as a celebration for Hubbys results.

Nintud

Those meals sound lovely. We had 'corned beef hash' this evening. I use the name loosely because there was 3/4 of a tin of corned beef between the 4 of us that ate it. It was mainly potato, sweet potato, onion and random grated carrot and chopped green beans. I think I snuck a couple of veg in the kids before they noticed! Left overs of that for my lunch tomorrow and I've been told never to darken their plates with it again :rotfl:

DH went out to dinner with his boss so missed this particular treat and the girls arrived home too late to participate.

Great news on the 2:1 but bummer that he has to do his GCSE science before PGCE. I snuck in a year before that came into force.

Good luck communicating with the ex. Needs must if he's being intolerable.

maggiecon

Update on my list of things to do;

[STRIKE]Email Accountant over ridiculous bill[/STRIKE]
He has come back with a long winded email saying how much work was involved blah blah blah and he didn't charge me for half of it, so obviously I have to pay the bill. Lesson learnt - don't mix business and friends.
Email solicitor over ex tenants stupid claim for injuries
Not Done - going to do this now
[STRIKE]Phone HMRC who seem to lose every letter I send them[/STRIKE]
Spent half an hour on hold only to be told post received on the week of the 5th August will be responded to by the 26th September!! I wish HMRC give me this much time to respond to them when they write to me.
Text my ex who is giving daughter an awful time at the minute and tell him to get stuffed and that he will be having no more contact with her for a while.
Doing this tonight.

maggiecon

Took all my coppers to the bank this afternoon and got £20 also got my expenses cheque today £129.70 so that's lodged as well.

Went on to make last payment to Amex of £21 and discovered that they have charged me £10 of interest this month as I didn't clear my balance in full when I did a balance transfer to Lloyds cc :mad::mad: Anyhow balance paid now so I just have to close my account

I now have £119 left to put towards the oil heating, I also have a £90 surplus from the electricity and petrol fund as well to put towards this. Will start ringing around to check prices with suppliers.

maggiecon

Was going through some paperwork last night when I noticed the 0% on my Argos card ends this week. I owe them £210 for a hoover I bought six months ago. I decided to take the money from the emergency pot to pay it off so I won't have to pay any interest. Another bill ticked off the list. Still annoyed over accountants bill as it has undone all the hard work I have put in this last two months.

A guy at work has put me in contact with a friend who needs some work done. He owns a small business and needs help with his H&S paperwork so I might do that for a bit of extra cash. I don't really like doing homers as I am never sure what to charge people. I got asked by a big consultancy firm to do some work last year producing a brochure for them and they never came back to me after I had nearly three quarters of it finished for them.

Nintud

I'm with you on not knowing what to charge for my services. I home tutor occasionally but never know what I should charge. I'm always too grateful just to be bringing in some extra cash regardless of whether it's enough for my services.

Well done on clearing the Argos card. It certainly makes sense to pay it off and avoid interest if you have the money available to do so.

maggiecon

I was quoted £25 per hour for tutoring for my son. So you should be asking for something similar.

maggiecon

I am trying to find the motivation at the minute to keep debt busting. I have been scrimping and saving for the last 6 years, as hubby spent nearly 4 years with no work and then 2 years in full time education. The duration of this time I was the main/only bread winner.

We have just moved home after spending 5 years living with my mother in her converted garage :eek:, there is now 2 steady wages coming into the house and I am struggling so hard to stay motivated at the minute. A part of me just wants to say, to hell with it, I am going shopping!! I cant remember the last time I went away for the day or done anything.

I have decided that I need to approach these debts a bit differently. I think I will pick one debt per month and work on it. At the minute I am looking at all the debts and stressing about paying them all. This is frying my head slightly LOL. So from now on its one debt at time, except for the debts which need a minimum payment.

Plan of attack then will be in the following order

1. September - Amex / Council Tax / Argos (These have all now been paid)
2. October -HMRC (£836 - I have wrote to them to tell them that this is not correct as I put the wrong figures on my tax return, hoping it will go down by about £400, I will hopefully know what I owe them in the next couple of weeks.)
3. November - Accountant - (£384 - I am loathed to pay this money and I think I will make him wait a couple of months before he gets it :mad::mad:)
4. December - Solicitor (£450)

In addition to this I will keep making the minimum payments on my credit card and next accounts. I will also keep overpaying £11 per week into the joint account to bring down the overdraft. And Hubby is paying £15 per week towards the credit union loan.

That means after Christmas I will tackle the credit card, currently at £1600 at 0% for another 15 months and the loan to my BIL, who said we can pay him back anytime.

I hope that by breaking the debts down into more manageable chunks will help make it seem more achievable and not such an uphill struggle. It will also mean that I am not putting every spare penny into debt repayments and maybe my family and I can start to have a life again. Starting with taking C shopping on Sunday, she wants to go raid Primark.:rotfl: