My 2016 Diary of impulse control and staying on a strict budget.

chanie

I love getting lots of chores completed, it makes me feel really productive.

Good to read that argos exchanged your purchase. I recently had some unsuccessful exchanges in sainsburys!!!! We were given some items of clothing for Christmas that were the wrong sizes and two stores wouldn't let me exchange them without a receipt. Very annoying.

fern44

Hi Happy New Year
said it before but will say it again. you under value the WORK you do at home .How much would it cost to pay someone else to do it .would your husband be able to work the long hour he does if you did not do what you do to help him . what you have done to reduce debt is brilliant and you will get there soon .
how did the wreath sales go only 10 months and it will all start again ! x

cat1978

chanie wrote: »

I love getting lots of chores completed, it makes me feel really productive.

Good to read that argos exchanged your purchase. I recently had some unsuccessful exchanges in sainsburys!!!! We were given some items of clothing for Christmas that were the wrong sizes and two stores wouldn't let me exchange them without a receipt. Very annoying.

Sorry to jump in Steph, but just had to comment on this. Chanie, could you try again at a different store? I had to take my daughter's watch that she got from Santa back, so we had no receipt and she had taken it out of packaging and thrown it away and yet Sainsburys still exchanged it - seems bad they're not consistent, or maybe it depends on the member of staff and what time of day????

lhead123

Hi Steph!
I came to finally catch up with your old diary and found your new one!

I got hold of a copy of the new ynab about 6 weeks ago, and I absolutely LOVE it! I've found that most of the people complaining about it are people who don't seem to want to change their mindset around certain new ideas in the new version and then are having a moan because something has changed...

I've signed up for the subscription now that my trial has run out

I hope that 2016 is a better debt busting year for you. We didn't get much paid off at all last year. I need to get out of the mindset of bigger paycheque = money for new shiny things...

Happy New Year to you all
xx

StressedSteph

Morning Diary.

Wow the amount of money juggling I am doing at the moment is scary. I managed to pay the first payment to the mortgage company this morning of £262. This is the first mid month extra payment to try to get us up to date.

Got a little frustrated with Dh this morning. As you probably know he is a self-employed builder/electrician. We put in a quote for a job where the labour cost was £2100. Well he seems to be getting the job done quicker than he thought as will probably finish mid next week.

We put in a invoice today for £670 which leaves £1430 labour left to pay. I made him aware of of this, this morning and he says that he can't charge that next week!!. I explained to him that we quoted for the job, the customer accepted it, that is the bill. Surely???.

There are plenty of times where Dh has accidentally under quoted and he has ended up work all hours and has lost money on a job, why can't it work the other way round and we actually MAKE some money for once? Am I being unreasonable?.

Also we really bloomin need that money. He has had two weeks off work over Christmas, We have a Heating oil bill of £221 owing, I have had to find this extra £262 for the mortgage and still have to find the normal mortgage payment on Feb 1st of £760 which will be a struggle. This un-expected extra bit of money would really get us straight and sorted for the start of 2016.

I really hope it works out that way otherwise we will be struggling as to who is more important to pay first as per usual

I have completed my YNAB budget for them month and as long as I do not make any unexpected payments or purchases then we should make it fine. Going to be one holy struggle if Dh does not get paid as expected.

Got to tidy the house today and I REALLY do not feel like it. Going to finish my coffee and pretend I have been employed to do it and it isn't my house :rotfl: Thinking that might get me working better

cat1978

Got to tidy the house today and I REALLY do not feel like it. Going to finish my coffee and pretend I have been employed to do it and it isn't my house :rotfl: Thinking that might get me working better [/QUOTE]


What a fantastic idea. I think I may try that myself. I work school hours, whilst doing an OU course and time is always short, hence I live in a hovel. But the idea of pretending to be paid for it may stop me getting side tracked and faffing -love it, thank you

abba1772

I agree with you in the amount quoted.......my hubby is a mechanic and regularly takes on homers so that he can earn some extra pennies most of the time he does undercharge as rust on cars are brutal and fling up all sorts of problems xx

He needs to realise that's he's got a verbal agreement for his quote ........I would understand if he was asking for more money but he's not he's only asking for what was agreed xx

Puzzcat

Hi Steph,
Happy New Year and Happy New Diary!
My OH is the same as yours, if he underquotes he takes the knock and if it's over he readjusts it in the customers favour, just the way he is. Hope it gets sorted.
Puzz.x

Muser1

If I had agreed to pay a price and the job was finished to my satisfaction I would be pleased it was finished early! I wouldn't expect to pay less.

Bless him though it's very honest of him.

hiddenshadow

Muser1 wrote: »

If I had agreed to pay a price and the job was finished to my satisfaction I would be pleased it was finished early! I wouldn't expect to pay less.

Bless him though it's very honest of him.

Me too! If materials are bought and there's savings there, I would expect that to be passed on to me, but labour is for the work done. Unless there's some circumstance that means there's lower costs involved (quoted for situation X and it turned out to be situation Y), I would expect to pay what was quoted. Finishing early just means that your hourly pay goes up because you were working more efficiently.

Does he have anything lined up for immediately after this job? It's one thing if he can jump on to the next quote quicker, but if he planned on being on this job for X days and thus will have the extra time free - he definitely should charge what he quoted for labour as he won't be able to make up the difference with another job to take advantage of the free time. (I still think he should charge what he quoted, assuming it's reasonable for the work he did, but perhaps that argument will help convince him. )