Three choices in life; Give up, Give in or Give all you've got!!

please-let-me-be-lucky

satchmo1 wrote: »

Alternatively, does DH have a mobile, did his have power? Annoying though the power outage was, it has usefully highlighted the importance of ensuring your phone is charged. Do you have an in-car charger? That would have worked in an emergency. Forward planning - perhaps ask for a solar powered or wind up charger as a Christmas gift.


You are doing brilliantly well, Lucky, and it looks like you'll clear your debts completely by next year and can then start a fund for a holiday!

DH does have a mobile Satchmo, but his ran out of battery too . We had a car phone charger and I went out to use it, only to find it wasn't there?? I have no clue at all what has happened to it.

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Lucky you don't need to charge your phone insanely all day just in case. I paid £10 for an anker portable charger. It is a battery you plug the USB end of a charger into, and plug your phone as normal. Press the little button and off it goes. It has 8 hours full charge on it so lasts a few times. I hook mine up to the computer at work to charge it to save me charging that :rotfl: and have now graduated to a much bigger one that can charge an iPad and a phone at the same time and has about 15 full charges of life on it. Again I cheap out and charge the actual battery at work. And plug my phone in there too :rotfl:
There are loads you could find. They work great when you're out shopping and the phone dies, or stuck at the hospital for hours... I've had all these scenarios with my terrible battery on my phone and it has saved me multiple times!! xx

But the non plug-in phone for home sounds a plan. I am pretty sure you could freecycle that though!

Love satchmo's idea about a HOLIDAY fund next year!!

Much love, super skinny lady xxx

Pfft, skinny my @r$3!! (Which is the size of a small country btw).

DH has been researching charging 'aparatus' for me/us. I shall pass on your recommendations, thank you. All of those scenarios you mentionned apply to us too!

please-let-me-be-lucky

Glorious sunny day here today :j. Finances not quite so hot though .

We have £30 to last us a week :eek::eek:.

Family Fun Friday was a trip to the beach :j. Good times (and FREE :money:).

please-let-me-be-lucky

Just dropped my phone and smashed the screen :(. Couldn't have happened at a worse time. We have zero cash til Friday :mad:. Gutted.

Went to DS2's school fair today. Gave the boys £5 each and said when it's gone it's gone. Luckily FGN and MiL came along and gave them a few £'s more to spend as they wanted to go on EVERYTHING!

Work was depressing last night. Everyone is miserable at the moment .

Listed a couple more things on eb@y. Hopefully a few pounds into the new screen fund.

Sick as a chip!

*Robin*

Oh Lucky - what a bummer to drop your 'phone!

Why didn't the boys use their own pocket-money / savings for fair spends?
Help them to learn cash doesn't magically grow in Mum's purse!

Giving them a third of the money you had to last all week - well, I wouldn't have done it.. I'd probably have held back on sending extra to the CC in favour of keeping a decent emergency float too (you are already doing sooo well bashing down your debt, you can afford to give yourself a little leeway; the difference on the interest between £370 and £400 won't make much difference in the long term - but not having that other £30 could make life very difficult if something goes wrong..

Sorry, that reads like a telling-off. It's not meant to be. I can well remember being in a similar position I]for years[/I (ok, due to lifestyle choices - but things like emergency trips to hospital with DS3 often meant fuel was put on the CC - didn't help in the long run ).

ps. "Sick as a chip" - never heard that one before! ..You mean the kind of chips from bad take-aways which resemble little bags of pus? Yuk.

ETA: Good luck with DH's appointment tomorrow!

beanielou

Boo to phone

please-let-me-be-lucky

Really Robin, you never heard sick as a chip before??!! Must be a Geordie thing, everybody says it here! I never actually thought about what on earth it means. It makes no sense does it :rotfl:.

You are so right about the small savings pot though, and is something I had resolved to do. I seem to have failed dramatically at money recently :(.

beanielou

You have NOT failed dramatically at money at all

liltdiddylilt

Hey you, chin up.

The phone screen, you couldn't have avoided that. It is unfortunate but it was an accident. Don't kick yourself.

As for the money.. I know why you are throwing everything you can at the debt, and it is admirable. As daft as it sounds, I can see the sense in paying it off the card instead of stashing it for emergencies. Say you had that emergency £30 stashed away... and then the school fair came up. I know you, woman. You're soft as a marshmallow and out would have come £20 from the fund.. to be put back/scraped from next months money. And that wouldn't have gone off the card next month.

Now say you paid it off the card, avoided the extra £10 on the school fair spending, but then something really disastrous cropped up *touches much wood* and needed fixing. There is 52 days interest free on all purchases on a credit card from the day you spend. So maybe the toaster goes and you can't afford it with this months money, you shove it on the card and it isn't interest bearing for 52 days anyway. The banks have been forced to reduce the balance based on the highest interest bearing debt on the card now anyway. So in reality although you've spent the same £30, you've paid less interest.

Robin is right, it is probably pence here. But then aren't we the ones scratting around for shiny roadkill on shop floors?

You HAVE NOT FAILED even a tiny bit, let alone dramatically. You are teaching your family (tattoo obsessed husband child included) the VALUE of money. Yes, you have a purse, but it is not an everlasting fountain of coins. Your boys are learning from your own thrifty ways.

And.. despite my mum turning a pack of mince into 5 meals for a family of 5, and dispensing the 'you'll have no more this WEEK' speech when giving me the princely sum of 50p a week pocket money, I went out, spent it on sweets (penny sweets so I got 50 at least) and usually ate them all the same day. I never went back asking for more. never saved any either. :rotfl:

Big love Supermum with a skinny bum. Country sized.. Pfft! xxx

*Robin*

please-let-me-be-lucky wrote: »

Really Robin, you never heard sick as a chip before??!! Must be a Geordie thing, everybody says it here! I never actually thought about what on earth it means. It makes no sense does it :rotfl:

Nope, never heard that saying, not when I lived among all you lovely Geordies nor from any of m' Geordie mates over the years..
Sick as a dog - yup, sure.
Sick as a parrot - believable, although have never seen a parrot do any such thing.
Sick as a chip - eh? As you say, it's hard to see any sense in that one! :rotfl:

please-let-me-be-lucky wrote: »

You are so right about the small savings pot though, and is something I had resolved to do. I seem to have failed dramatically at money recently :(.

Rubbish. Trying too hard, if anything. And being soft with your boys (I mean, what are Grandmas / elderly relatives and friends for if not to subsidise any kids in their vicinity? ..You wouldn't want to deprive the old 'uns of a little pleasure, would you really? ).
But I meant m' earlier comment; if there aren't any grannies around, let the boys use their own funds for fripperies. In ten* years' time they'll thank you for the life-lesson.
* Maybe fifteen or twenty - your lads are still pretty young..

Nicky_Noo_Na

Well done Lucky, the debt is coming down!! Yey to potential holiday fund!

Couldn't agree more with Lilt, no failures here and credit card can be used in emergencies and paid off the following month. You made a sterling effort with getting the Bcard paid off before the interest kicked in and it will be gone in no time!

Hope you have a lovely week and a bit more sun!