Batting this curveball in a positive direction...

MeandO

Good to hear you should be better off next month and thereafter mumoffourkids. Are you able to pay the difference your ex gives you off of the credit card debt or are you going to have to keep it back in reserve?
Fingers crossed your old attic provides lots of gems for ebay when you get round to clearing it! Our attic is empty, so I know there's no source of income up there!

Good luck with stretching the budget this week too.
x

MeandO

Yesterday wasn't a good day, but I did get loads of work done for my home business last night that I had been putting off for way too long. Another evening like that and it will be completed.

I also have to pay £200 off my tax bill before the end of the month.
I've paid £600 of it already, but the last £200 is proving tricky to find, I guess I'll have to wait until payday, even though that's not been budgeted in to next month's expenditure.

We're playing a bit of a waiting game until the remortgage has gone through, after which time, we should both be in a much better position and will be able to clear some debts. Once that has happened, my last remaining credit card is being cut up and the account closed as soon as it is cleared. I have one other card with no balance on it which I wanted to close down, but the bank advised me to leave it until after the mortgage is sorted as it can affect credit ratings apparently.

No more sales on ebay, but I joined a local selling page on FB last night, so will list the other bulky items on there too. I could do with the money and the space cleared in the garage!

Breakfast and lunch has been brought into work again today and there's plenty of food in the house to last. It's a shame the ex can't grasp the concept of 'we have no money' though. He is not a big spender by any means and is very generous with his money, but he doesn't seem to 'get' that lots of little spends here and there still have a big impact on the bank balance. A £3 coffee here, a £5 DVD there, 'treats' in the supermarket to make dinner more exciting - it all adds up to A LOT! I hate to keep saying the same thing to him and I also feel awful as he works hard and does put most of his money towards the house/bills/etc., and he would do anything for us, but it does get so frustrating.

MeandO

What a long week it's proving to be already.
I'm really struggling with motivation this week and feeling quite miserable, need to shake myself out of it.

No more sales on ebay yet, but one item is up to £21 and there's a few watchers on the other 3 buy it now items.

Spent £21 in Mr T last night on fresh fruit, cereal, meat etc.
Only another 8 days left to get through until payday!

MeandO

Fingers crossed I've now sold one of the bulky items locally for £40. That will clear some space and bring in much-needed extra funds!

MeandO

I have been crunching some numbers tonight and my ex and I have worked out that there will be some credit card debt left once he has thrown in what he has left over from the money he will be receiving from me for his house purchase. He has already been incredibly generous and is only taking a third of what he is entitled to from this house, and then he is paying the debt off with some of it, so there is no question of unreasonable behaviour here.

I earn a lot more than him due to my home business, so will be helping him to repay his help to buy' loan with proceeds from the business over a few years. This is also why I am willing to be left with the £2k - £3k credit card debt that we have calculated, as it should hopefully be paid off within a few months once the business picks up again in the late summer/autumn (its very seasonal).

In the meantime, it will be very tight, but it should be do-able. It's likely to change slightly, as I'm due a 2% payrise from January 1st (woo), so I'm not sure what that will make my monthly take home pay. I should also rise up an increment from 1st April, so things will be slightly better from April's pay onwards.

Will do my SOA now and paste it in shortly...

MeandO

Ok, so I'm not going to use the SOA calculator this time, just tried it and several don't apply, need explanations etc, so I'm just going to do it myself here for now as it makes more sense to me and my situation.

Home business earnings - I'm not including this because my business is very seasonal, earning 0 for several months of the year, then upto a few thousand a month in the Winter! This money is then used to pay tax bill, insurances for the year (car, house etc, car tax etc,), and obviously pay off CC debt. I also intend to try and save an emergency fund of 3 or 4 months times my salary, just in case anything happens to my job.

So:

MONEY IN
1605 Salary
80.20 CB
400 From Ex for childcare and other bits etc.

MONEY OUT
500 - Mortgage (rounded up)
100 - Bank of M&D (helped me with original house purchase)
25.50 - Water (this may go down though as ex leaving)
141.75 - Council tax (with single person discount)
75.00 - Gas & elec (although I need to look at switching now)
12.50 - Life insurance (again, may alter as that was for both of us)
50.00 - Sky (phone, internet, calls & basic TV, but hoping to ditch the TV part when ex moves!)
460 - Childcare
15.50 - Boiler/central heater cover
33.00 - gym (more than I'd like to pay, but only viable option locally and important for me and my mental/physical health!)

200 - groceries (complete guess presently, although will try to reduce this a lot!)
150 - petrol

TOTAL LEFT

£202.83 - which needs to include the credit card payment, of around £60 - £80 a month until I can pay it off from the business earnings.
I don't drink or smoke or go out, other than to the gym, my friend cuts my hair for free, so this is really quite do-able, it's just going to take some meal planning and being strict with myself with making lunch for work etc.

Well, it has to work, I have no choice! :rotfl:

MeandO

Oh, and I've just realised I won't be paying council tax Feb or March, so that's just under £400 saved for us which can go towards the credit card debt, or solicitors fees too. Actually, £200 of it will cover the outstanding amount on my tax bill, so that's perfect!

£15 has gone into the account tonight from selling some items locally, and I'll pick up another £40 tomorrow. I'm due a £100 payout from Quidco, but unfortunately that won't be coming for a few months yet.

Tomorrow I need to look at switching energy deals to try and save some money there as my current deal is up next month. I may also ring sky about cancelling the TV package, I never watch TV anyway. Really, once in a blue moon and then for only half an hour or so before getting bored. I'm only keeping it for DS and he's 4, so he'll be fine with cbeebies and dvd's.

MeandO

Just typed a long update and lost it :mad:

To sum up, quite a productive morning:

1. Have sorted an energy switch which will hopefully save me a few pennies, and claimed a meerkat which will be going straight on ebay.:cool: DS intercepted the first one and seems rather taken with the (strange looking) little thing!

2. Rapped bank's knuckles for trying to charge me £2.5K early repayment fees on a mortgage I'm porting. :mad: They have promised they will get this sorted asap. I'll wait and see.

Am really sick of having to mop up the incompetence of companies we're paying to deal with though, the ex has also had lots of trouble with his house purchase, first the bank's surveyor used completely the wrong information and they turned him down, until he pointed out the error. The second time the surveyor didn't show up. He's supposed to be going back today..... we're fighting to get the surveyor's fee back here as it's caused no end of troubles.

3. Just need to book a boiler service (incuded in my central heating care package) and then my list for today is done

MeandO

Just phoned sky to cancel our basic TV package monthly (£21.50) and got £22 off a month instead for 10 months

DS will be pleased he gets to keep the kid's channels lol.

MeandO

£40 now in my purse and quite a large space cleared in my garage. win win!