Mini meltdown and light bulb moment

AleMrsT

It's been my day off today, I haven't done much apart from see my sister and niece, we nipped into town and I bought my sister her birthday present, so only £9.49 spent for today.
Had a letter from nationwide confirming they've accepted the payment plan on my loan for 12 months, and it also confirms that no new interest will be accrued. Hopefully I can get really into the budgeting and saving after Christmas and my sister's wedding so that I have a chunk of money aside in case I can then make lump sum settlement payments.
OH scoffed at me when I mentioned I'd like us to save so we can go away on holiday in the next year or so, he said we cant pay the bills now, how are we going to save. I didn't even bother pointing out the ridiculous amount of money he spent on STUFF (that we didn't need) earlier this week! Well I'll enjoy my well deserved, paid in full, saved for holiday!!! Haha.
Back at work tomorrow and not heard from my manager about getting a lift so will have to find £2.50 bus fare money. Will ask OH to take out of the car parking pot in the car before he goes to work.

AleMrsT

Oh, I need to update my signature with revised balances and do a new meal plan for this week, will do tomorrow.

misstara

Hi AleMrsT, sounds like OH hasn't quite had his LBM yet. It will hopefully come but in the meantime you can only do what you can. My OH is rarely 'allowed' to go to the supermarket alone as he usually does not stick to the list and actually I have to admit I prefer going by myself as its just easier to stay in budget that way.

Great news about N-wide!

twiggy86

misstara wrote: »

My OH is rarely 'allowed' to go to the supermarket alone as he usually does not stick to the list

My OH is BANNED from going shopping! He gets lulled into "offers" particularly on chocolatey goods! Before we moved in we'd go shopping for dinner for one evening and quite easily spend £50 because "it was only a pound!" - he didn't seem to realise that 20 x £1 equals £20! So since we got our own house he hasn't been allowed to come shopping with me at all!

Great news about Nwide!

Getmeoutofdebt

Mrs T your hubby sounds so much like mine!! ha ha!!
He never comes shopping with me as I do it on way home from work on purpose so he cant, but the other week I was off work and he came along. I only had a small list of fruit and veg that I thought would cost about £20. He filled the trolley with half the store & every time I protesed he said "its ok, I'll give you some money!" when we checked out it was £80!! He gave me £40 and then made a really big deal about how he has "saved" me £40!!! He couldn't understand that he had Cost me money as I'd only planned on spending £20! :rotfl:
Gmood xx

AleMrsT

Not posted for a while, I've not had chance. Will do a full post tomorrow, but just quickly checking in before I get ready to go out. We're meeting our friends in town for a few drinks, OH has work in the morning so we won't be out late and won't be drinking either. Not really looking forward to it to be honest, it's really cold , we've both been at work all day and my ex will be out too as it's a joint group thing. :eek: The joys. Ah well at least we're showing our faces.

AleMrsT

So I finally got round to updating the signature, I find it quite difficult to navigate how its all coded, but it's done. I have checked my cash account and I have rounded it down and made a small payment to the savings account. My Nationwide credit card balance is now higher than it was when I started :eek: this is because of the added interest and the missed payment charge that I had when I made the £10 token payment, but now the interest is frozen, the balance should go down. The interest on my loan has also been frozen, not sure about my overdraft, but Nationwide seem to have been really good so far. Its just Halifax. I had another letter from them telling me that the minimum payment has not been made and there is no direct debit set up, with a DD form enclosed. 'Please make the payment as soon as possible to restore your account to order, however if you are experiencing difficulties please contact one of my colleagues on XXPREMIUM RATE NUMBERXX to discuss your concerns further'. Going to write back to them advising that the credit card is now part of the Stepchange DMP so I will be passing future correspondence on to them and that I am not in a position to set up an additional payment, nor am I able to call a Premium Rate telephone number! I'm not sure whether I need to do this though.
The fact that they've not frozen interest or accepted the payment plan makes me think 'screw you, I won't pay you anything then, if you're going to default me anyway, I may as well pay you nothing', but I know that's not really the right attitude!!

I'm so happy that it is mid month and I still have money in my bank! We have ample amount of food (see previous posts about OH's ridiculous overspending habit) and I have already told people that I cant afford anything other than token gifts for Christmas, which I am making (honeycomb and shortbread), so that money is just there in my bank, until payday before Christmas! I'm not sure what to do with it, whether to leave it in my account and include it in next months budget, or whether to transfer it to savings. My head says leave it in my bank account for any unexpected spending over Christmas, sisters wedding and new year etc, and as a buffer for the LONG wait to January payday, but I really want to see my savings amount go up!!
We'll see.

The night out last night was actually really enjoyable, we didn't spend a lot, had two hot chocolates each and two cokes, and that was it. I withdrew £20, came home with £13, not sure how much cash OH withdrew, but at least I have bus fare for next week.
I am only in work 2 and a half days next week, then I'm off until 5th January!! Really looking forward to the break.
With the change of hours at work, I still had 1.5 days holiday to take as I now don't have to book Christmas eve and new years eve because they fall on my days off, so I used one day to book tomorrow off as I have a hospital appointment and it means I will still get paid holiday pay instead of unpaid, and I used the half day to book Friday afternoon off before the work christmas party. OH is driving me there and picking me up, which will use petrol up but will still be cheaper than taxi fare.

Done the cleaning this morning whilst OH has been at work, then watched a film and visited an elderly aunt with my sister and niece. Going to cook steak and home made potato wedges for tea as a treat, OH finishes work shortly.

I have totally gone off the rails with tracking my spending and logging onto YNAB, I went to the panto with my friend on Friday so that was £13, then £7.83 spent in Costa on an overpriced HORRIBLE fajita wrap, and an overpriced packet of 'luxury crisps' and an overpriced hot chocolate. I was so disappointed and annoyed at how much it cost. Then yesterdays spends including above drinks and £2.50 bus fare. NSD today :j because I've been at home on my own, but prior to Friday, I have completely lost track!
Must get back on it next week keeping a log.

misstara

Hi AleMrsT

Just catching up with your diary. Sounds like you had a lovely night out and very cheap as well.

Fab news about still having money in the bank mid month - it's a great feeling

Good luck keeping track of your spends.

AleMrsT

So, it's my day off again today, the weeks are flying by!

Spends so far this week:
MONDAY.
Parking at hospital £2.50
Toiletries, Christmas crackers and christmas candle in Wilk0 £11.20
Weekly food shop including rest of Christmas food in Al*i £32.16

TUESDAY.
£2.50 bus fare (from the left over money from Saturday night)

WEDNESDAY
£30.50 :eek: scale and polish at the dentist.

So a spendy week so far, but I should still have £48.97 in my account until pay day next week, and I have cash for Christmas party on Friday and bus fare for the rest of the week, I'm so impressed with myself! Just need to get sisters wedding present, but I can get this after payday if needs be, as wedding not until 28th.
Only went slightly over the £30 budget for weekly food shop, would have been worse if I hadn't put my foot down and let OH buy steak, I made him put them back because they weren't on the list. He looked mortified, but as I pointed out, we don't have the budget to have steak every week. Result!:T
The dentist visit today was in preparation for my sister's wedding. I had a tooth gem removed that I've had for over 10 years, it's nice to look more like a married woman than a teenager with gems in my teeth! They offer a payment plan at the dentist, £11.75 per month, I thought 'that sounds good' but when I did the maths it's not worth it, it's £50 a year more than paying for the separate appointments, and £80 a year more than I pay now, as I have 2 check ups and one hygienist appointment per year, which is around £77 per year.

Also, our fridge is broken. It's not getting cool, so I threw away 6 pints of congealed milk on Sunday. My sister has a spare fridge freezer because there is one already in their current rented house, so we're borrowing that (until they move house on 3rd Jan!)
I've spoken to the appliance repair company at work and she's told me to defrost it, as frost free !!!!!! have only one motor, so the pipes are probably just frozen so the cold air isn't getting from the freezer to the fridge. If that doesn't work, it may need a new motor, which she can order and fit. Sometimes I'm so glad that I work where I do, I know some people would have paid a fortune for a company to come out to look at the fridge, and then maybe just gone with the first price, or even just bought a replacement. I always pull in favours with contractors at work!! Saves us a fortune. :money:

In other MSE news, I sent my letter off to Halifax, and I sent it back in the prepaid envelope they sent me to return the DD form in. HA!

In unrelated news, because this diary is a bit of a release for me, I'm just going to put it out there that I'm not really sure how I feel about the results of the hospital appointment on Monday.
It was a cardiology appointment, which I have every 18 months or so since my bone marrow failure diagnosis. I had open heart surgery as a child, and they want to continue monitoring this as the regular blood transfusions I now have can have an impact on the heart etc.
So, regular follow up appointment on Monday. The consultant said previously that he'd noticed that the right side of my heart is slightly enlarged, so he ordered another MRI scan to see why this was. He confirmed it is not iron overload from the transfusions (excellent news), however, I have a vein going into the right side of my heart that should be going in to the left side, which is causing it to be enlarged, he's not sure if it is getting bigger, or if it is causing any long term issues, but he didn't know why this wasn't corrected when my previous heart surgery was carried out. He isn't sure if they already knew about this or not. (I've since spoken to my mum, and she seems to think they did know about it, but doesn't know why nothing was done about it).
So, they now have to measure the right side of the heart from the scans and compare the two results, and continue monitoring to see if it does change in size or function, and it MAY mean that I require surgery again in the future. I was really not too concerned, its obviously been like this for ages and hasn't caused me any problems. BUT
He then asked how I receive my blood transfusions, and said that my vascular system would probably benefit from a more 'fixed' point of access rather than cannulating each time (sorry if anyone is squeamish). Ugh. I had one failed 'fixed' point of access, and OH is really not keen on me getting another (it all went wrong and could have been dangerous), but if they do insist on another 'line', and I need the heart thing fixing, AND the ongoing problem with my ears, this means a potential 3 surgeries for the future. FML.
I can only laugh at my life sometimes because if it wasn't happening to me, and someone was telling me 'this is your life', I would assume they're making it up. :rotfl: Honestly. I'm not!!

Getmeoutofdebt

Hi Mrs T!

Just popped in for a catch up!! You seem to be doing really well with the old budgeting and keeping the reins on the hubby with the steak! ha ha! Good on you!! Owch to the dentist!! I really begrudge paying for the dentist! I'm only in there about three seconds normally. Once they have emptied my purse it's like they can't be bothered really checking you out! It's like "open wide, yes you are ok, come back in 6 months and we will rob you again" lol
Bad news re the heart etc.... sounds like you are going through a lot of grief health wise... but you seem to have it in your stride..... I hope that the hospital can sort it out for you without you having to go through anything too horrible....
Gmood xx