Mini meltdown and light bulb moment

twiggy86

Yay! Pleased it's all sorted!

AleMrsT

Today so far has been an admin day at home. I have filed a load of paperwork, and called MoreTHan to change a detail on our contents inurance policy (they'd got OH as an additional policy holder but at the previous address) so thats updated. I have also sorted out the car insurance renewal.
I havent received a renewal letter or anything from current insurer and have been trying to get through all morning, so I have looked at some quotes on line and gone with Zenith insurance. Although not the cheapest, its a good fully comp policy with legal cover etc, with higher deposit and lower monthly payments. As I had money aside for the initial payment, I wanted to pay a bigger deposit now, and cheaper monthly payments, whereas the cheapest policy overall was higher APR and low deposit, so more expensive monthly payments.
So £50 deposit paid today, £29 something a month for 11 months, so £6 a month cheaper than last year :T and I still have £50 in the pot to put towards the MOT and service, despite having to use £97 of it to pay for my glasses.
General bank account looks a little low, but the cupboards fridge and freezer are fully stocked, and we have nothing planned so no unusual outgoings. Just trying to keep every penny as my wages will be significantly lower at the end of the month with two sick days and a hospital day on Friday. :eek:

I feel happy though, Vodafone is sorted, I'm on top of finances and know what is going out, and all of the 'to do list' for today is completed.

EDIT: We're also £126 in credit with Eon, which will pay the next bill. Need to remember to take some meter readings to submit before the next bill, which I thought would be 10th July, but obviously not!

Off to the hospital this afternoon, had the follow up letter from the appointment i had in London last August!! I will take this with me as it has some recommendations on, however, it is nearly a year later and I have another appointment in London next month so theres no point them putting recommendations in really. The admin is shocking there, the letters are always so behind. I think I'll ask them to email me any recommendations so that i can pass it to my regular consultant, as the medication that I should have been taking I know nothing about because the letter has been so delayed!:rotfl::rotfl::eek: Ah well.

Hope you're all having a good day. Will catch up on diaries at the hospital on Friday when I'm there for a full day.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

AleMrsT wrote: »

EDIT: We're also £126 in credit with Eon, which will pay the next bill. Need to remember to take some meter readings to submit before the next bill, which I thought would be 10th July, but obviously not!

Sorry to intrude AleMrsT but hope you don't mind me popping on with a bit of information.

The next bill date is only an indication. For quarterly customers, the bill will usually land about 14 days either side of this date. If you've registered with our website, you'll receive an email to let you know. You can pop the readings online too.

Do you pay with a Monthly Direct Debit? If you do, there's another facility on the website that lets you keep an eye on the arrangement and even make changes to the amount if you wish. It's called the 'Direct Debit Manager.' Sorry if you're already aware of this.

The ‘Direct Debit Manager’ is useful when circumstances change and you need to pay a little less/more. Provided the account is billed up to the latest meter readings, payments can be changed by up to 20 per cent up or down. By up to 5 per cent up or down without readings. Before confirming the new amount, we'll let you know by how much we anticipate the account will be in credit/debit by the time of the annual review if payments are changed but usage doesn't alter as expected.

Customers paying this way also have about £35 per fuel per year knocked off their bills.

Before I go, thought I'd mention a scheme we’ve introduced called E.ON Rewards. This lets you earn up to 1500 Reward Points each year. These can be exchanged for either Tesco Clubcard points or High Street Shopping Vouchers. It’s free but you’ll need to opt in to earn the points. You can do this online or by phoning us.

Hope this is of interest AleMrsT and have a good weekend.

Malc

AleMrsT

Hi Malc, thank you for your informative post, I will look out for the bill, I just assumed they were always on the same date. We do pay by monthly DD so being in credit isn't so bad really as it means we wont have a huge bill to pay. I do already exchange our points for the Tesco points, they come in really handy!

Updates for this week, Wednesday was £6 spent in parking at the hospital, the front desk at clinic didn't sign me in so we waited for 3 hours before the consultant realised I'd not been seen!

Then on Friday we went for my treatment on the ward, and left without it, 5 hours later, so another £6 parking, plus lunch for OH.
They couldnt access any of my veins, the phlebotomist managed to take a blood sample, but the nurses then couldnt get a cannula in to give me the transfusion. It took 3 nurses, the ward sister and a doctor, with 11 attempts between them, before it was decided that my veins are too scarred, and the blood that they were going to give me had been out of the fridges for too long and had spoiled.
I have to go back next week to see the consultant on Weds, which was booked in anyway, but they are now going to be booking me in for emergency surgery to have an IVAS (implantable venous access system) Port-A-Cath fitted, which is a permanent access point directly into the vein for them to take blood samples and give me my transfusions (apologies if any of you are squeemish).
From a medical point of view, I'm actually relieved, I requested a new port a few months ago but it hasnt been discussed since. OH wasnt keen on the idea after it going pretty seriously wrong the last time I had one in 2010/2011, but now he has seen how traumatic it is on the ward when they're trying to access a vein, he agrees its the best thing to do.
So we have three weeks at MOST to get the surgery arranged, booked in, and done with recovery time, before my need for a transfusion becomes life threatening :eek::eek: no pressure NHS!!

I am also waiting for a referral for a bone scan, as I havent had one for 5 years now and I have suffered with knee pain for the last few months. Typically, I have woken up today with a very sore hip, I just hope it is from too much walking yesterday and isnt anything untoward, otherwise I will feel like I'm falling apart! It was only a couple of weeks ago that my hearing test confirmed what I have been saying for a while that there is some hearing loss in my right ear. I think OH needs to return me as broken goods and trade me in for a better model! :rotfl:

Other than all of that, I've actually had a lovely weekend, if not a tiring one.

I think OH was feeling a bit sorry for me as he took me out for the day yesterday, we went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which as it turns out is only an hours drive from where we are. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, it was very busy, but we will definitely be going back, I loved it. We spent around £19 in total on parking, lunch and a ferry ride across the river.

Today OH is at work on the late shift, so I have met my friends in town at the new ice cream and waffle place, one of my friends is off to Europe for 3 weeks and will be away for her birthday so we decided to catch up before she goes. We usually get together one night in the week, so it was lovely to be out in the sunshine for a change.
Unfortunately I left my bank card at home, along with my phone, so I couldnt call OH to bring my card! So I owe my friend £5, which isnt too bad actually, I'd have probably spent a bit more if I'd had my card on me.

So now I'm at home, going to watch a film on Netflix and iron some clothes for work next week.

I'm not sure how many days I'll be working over the next few weeks as I can't remember how long the recovery time is from the surgery. Hopefully it wont be long as I can't really afford to have too long off work.

Hope you're all enjoying a lovely sunny weekend.

Mrs T.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

AleMrsT wrote: »

Hi Malc, thank you for your informative post, I will look out for the bill, I just assumed they were always on the same date. We do pay by monthly DD so being in credit isn't so bad really as it means we wont have a huge bill to pay. I do already exchange our points for the Tesco points, they come in really handy!

Mrs T.

Glad it was of interest MrsT. Just a quickie but, if you're still in credit come the annual review, anything over a fiver is automatically refunded. You can see when the annual review is by logging in to your online account. If you go to the Direct Debit Manager, it's at the bottom of this page.

Hope all goes well with your health MrsT.

Malc

AleMrsT

So the hospital saga continues......

I had my follow up appointment on Wednesday, the registrar was all ready to book me in for the port surgery on Friday, she called the surgeon to get it arranged but couldnt get through. In the meantime, she went to discuss my blood test results with the consultant, and mentioned she was waiting for the surgeon to call back so she could book in my port surgery, and the consultant said NO! I need to go back to the ward on Friday to attempt the transfusion again, as they need to make sure the surgery is justified, due to the risk of infections and other risks involved in having a port. :mad::mad::mad: Mum and I were absolutely fuming!!!
To be fair to the registrar, she wasnt happy either, and said that I was to tell the staff on the ward, 4 needlesticks maximum, before calling the consultant to let her know.
So another 5 hours wasted on Wednesday, with more parking costs, only to have to be back on Friday anyway for another attempt at getting last friday's transfusion.
I cannot post here what my husbands reaction was. I will get banned from MSE.
Needless to say, he was NOT happy. I was in tears I was so upset at the prospect of having to go through 11 needle sticks yet again, to not get treatment, AGAIN, with another week down the line and all the time me feeling worse and worse with more days off work.....

Anyway, Friday comes around, after two sleepless nights and constant feelings of rage and helplessness, we arrive on the ward and the first thing the ward manager says is 'oh no! Not again. Whats happened?!' I just burst into tears and explained we have to try the transfusion again before the consultant will justify the surgery for the port. So the ward manager says that they will try ONCE only, they cannot and will not put me through another episode the same as the week before.
Luckily my two favourite nurses were on, so I was quietly confident, but feeling torn, as much as I wanted the port fitting, I needed the transfusion ASAP as I was feeling terrible.
Lots of heat packs, hot water and walking up and down later, one needlestick and we are up and running! :T:T As relieved as I felt to be getting blood, I also felt sick, there was no way the consultant would approve the surgery now. I wish I'd asked the nurses to document how many needlesticks I have had on previous transfusions, as it would have strengthened my case.

The nurses assured me that they continue to agree with me, and will stand by their recommendation that I NEED a portacath.

Anyway, later on, I was on the phone to my sister and the consultant came in onto the ward, then walked over to where OH and I were sitting. OH had asked the nurses to call her down as he wanted to confront her about how the whole thing had been handled. (I wasnt aware he'd asked to speak to her).
The first thing she said was 'I understand you want to speak to me about getting the line? You still want to proceed don't you? I spoke with the surgeon about it this morning, he's agreed to proceed....?' She made out as if I she had it in hand to arrange all along and I'd completely misunderstood!!
So, surgery IS happening, before my next transfusion, the surgeon wanted assurances that I was a 'valid candidate', and the consultant wanted me to get transfused before surgery to alleviate the risks during surgery......
Why this wasnt explained properly on Wednesday I will never know!! So, at the moment, I am have had my transfusion a week late, and am waiting for a date for the port to be fitted, but I know that it is DEFINITELY going ahead within the next month. :T:T:T I never thought I'd get excited about hearing I need surgery!!

OH took me out for a treat on Friday after the hospital as I'd been so upset and stressed about the whole thing. We went to wagamama's and to the cinema, we saw ant man, it was awesome! I'm trying to do slimming world, but do it frugally and just use the books at home, so I picked what i thought was the healthiest most SW friendly dish, rice, carrot, watercress and teriyaki beef, turns out it was 1010 calories!!:eek::eek: Ah well, I enjoyed it and it could have been a lot worse. ( I had no treats at the cinema and had diet coke... hubby had a big bag of pick and mix and a coke :T)

So not really very frugal or MSE so far. I have to go back to hospital AGAIN on Wednesday next week, I hope its not going to be a weekly thing now, its so mind numbing sitting waiting around to be seen (and expensive)

OH is at work today, and I've been trying to sort everything out for yet another hospital visit, this time in London, which is always stupidly expensive.

I have managed to find a cheap hotel (easyhotel) for £128 for two nights (massive bargain in the centre of London across the road from the hospital) and have spent the morning researching the cheapest means of transport. Parking was £5.30 a day, but meant getting the tube from zone 8, and a full tank of fuel in the car, so didnt actually work out to be that cheap.

After three hours searching, I opted for the train. I bought a two together railcard which is £30 and lasts all year, and this reduced the train fare to £56 for the both of us return. OH is then going to get visitor oyster cards each with £15 on. :T:T The best part is I booked the train tickets going through Top cash back and have added 57p to my TCB balance :rotfl:.

So although the total cost with the railcard is £3 more than the train tickets on their own, the fact that we can use this again next time we go to London (November) along with the oyster card, we will have saved ourselves a lot of money by the end of the year (I hope!!!)

So after all of the expenditure over the last couple of weeks, I am down to £9.03 in my bank account, and was having slight palpitations looking at it earlier. However, it is payday on Friday, I have lots of journeys left on my regular bus ticket, and doing SW means I take lunch into work anyway now. I will just HAVE to get by with NO spending whatsoever.

Phew, this is turning into a very long post, I'm sorry about that!!

Off to spend the rest of my sunday cleaning washing and ironing, before getting dinner ready for later once OH finishes work.

MrsT.

AleMrsT

On a positive note, my next DMP payment will take my loan down to the 1400's and my NCC will go down to 2200's, and my overall debt will be 6600's not 6700's... :rotfl::rotfl: small things and all that!!

Digging_2

Brill diary. I've subscribed.

AleMrsT wrote: »

I've also transferred £8.03 to my car insurance savings.

I do this. I have little separate savings accounts. Car fund. Emergency fund. Dentist/Optician fund. Christmas fund.

AleMrsT wrote: »

From spending two evenings website hopping, musicmagpie do pay out slightly more on CD's, but still compare the three sites, and webuybooks don't take many items, but they do pay out a lot more than the other two sites on the items they do accept.

Which websites do you compare everything on? I didn't realise you could make much more doing this. I'll have to do this next time.

AleMrsT wrote: »

I want to try and get my wedding dress sold, I've tried a few times with no joy, not sure what else to try.

There are websites that sell wedding dresses. You use it like ebay but it's purely for wedding dresses. My friend used 'sell my wedding dress dot co dot uk' (sorry it won't let me post a link) but if you google 'sell wedding dress', lots of sites come up. I didn't use it myself so not sure how they all work exactly but maybe worth a look into.


Anyway... I look forward to your next post. Keep going.:j

AleMrsT

Hi Digging. Thank you for your reply, it's lovely to hear that people read my ramblings. Good luck with your debt free journey, I'm going to head over to find your diary if you have one and subscribe.

Digging_2

AleMrsT wrote: »

Hi Digging. Thank you for your reply, it's lovely to hear that people read my ramblings. Good luck with your debt free journey, I'm going to head over to find your diary if you have one and subscribe.

Your ramblings are motivating. You are getting on with things and reducing your debt, even with the odd blip of unplanned spending. It's nice to know others are out there doing the same as me. I always feel guilty with unplanned spending on things I didn't need.


I haven't started a diary yet. I've been lurking for years but only officially signed up to MSE last week. I'm thinking about writing one. I'm not sure yet. But it appears from a lot of diaries on here that it helps to stay on track. I owe a lot of money (as my signature says), but am fortunate enough to meet the minimum payments and also pay quite a bit extra. I might start a diary tomorrow... see if it keeps me accountable.