The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

Dinah93

• Tidy bedroom
• Complete assignment 3
• Complete assignment 4
• Complete assignment 5
• Do any alterations from weekends coursework
  [STRIKE]
• Update website[/STRIKE]
• Add mailing list function to website
• Add online booking function to website
• Order NIM flyers
• NIM uniform tax claim
  [STRIKE]
• Draft letter to schools[/STRIKE]
• Get knee x-ray
• Refund Monday morning customerst
• Email forum/call David Lloyd/call Total Fitness
• Reply to booking survey
• Work out next course deadlines
• Do list of all charges for L&G

Builders are gone, extension is about 85% of the way but not finished. One of them is flying back for 3 days in 2 weeks time to do the final bits, but anything NIM can do in the meantime is a bonus. Unfortunately that's a weekend I'm away on training, so mum has very very kindly said she will have little and littler while I'm away and NIM is working. Very excited to be back in soon now though. Drove by the house this morning but insurers builders weren't there, hoping he is this afternoon as I'd like to know the plan for what they're doing to finish it off.

Been phone-less for a week and a bit now, as it's the LCD on the phone that broke it's around £160 to fix. I'm only 3 weeks from early renewal so I called vodafone and they let me upgrade even sooner, just went for the cheapest smartphone with enough minutes/text and data, upfront it looks like my contract has increased, however currently I pay £10 a month for spotify premium as I use the music for teaching and can't have ads, but it's not wrapped into my contract for only £5 a month so that's a saving. Also because of some term in my contract I have some sort of progressive renewal, so I should be able to get a new handset in 13 months even though it's a 2 year contract, so that'll make a bit since I can sell either the current phone or the new one in just over a year. Going to trade my S6 in as soon as I get the new one, it's a shame as I would have been happy to keep it tbh and go sim only, but this works out a cheaper deal than repairing it and keeping on paying for spotify by quite a way.

Sports day this afternoon, hope it goes better than last year when DD refused to run in case she lost and just lay there on the field and sobbed.

Had our first CAHMS appointment for her this week, looking like an ASD and sensory processing diagnosis is a matter of time. She's had at least 1 appointment a week for the last 4 weeks, hate how much school she misses when most of them nothing really gets done. Due another one on Thursday but I'm going to call see if we can put it back to in the school holidays as while it's an important respiratory one, she's not in a great place atm as another infection, and the point of this is to try her off the medication, which she's definitely not capable of doing atm as she's struggling even on it.

Don't dare work out the debt total! That's a bit inaccurate as it's more - haven't had time. All payments are being made, my income has DRAMATICALLY increased over the last 2 months, but it's going to be a !!!! off big number, which is all 0% or under 6% if it's a life of balance deal, but it's very scary to NIM, and as soon as he gets scared his mental health goes down the pan and suddenly we can't actually make any headway as we're both so focussed on keeping him surviving.

Dinah93

Urgh. Long post which 'token expired' has eaten. Did the debt total. Not putting it up because NIMs mental health has been dire and it's only in the last few days it's emerging out of the orange days to yellow ones. This would likely trigger red or at least orange again. I had it in my head that my goal was to clear £1000 a month. Now the goal is £2000. This is going to be a LONG process, so please come out of the woodwork as I need your support more than ever.

clearmydebts

Dinah93 wrote: »

Urgh. Long post which 'token expired' has eaten. Did the debt total. Not putting it up because NIMs mental health has been dire and it's only in the last few days it's emerging out of the orange days to yellow ones. This would likely trigger red or at least orange again. I had it in my head that my goal was to clear £1000 a month. Now the goal is £2000. This is going to be a LONG process, so please come out of the woodwork as I need your support more than ever.

Hi - not sure I was in the woodwork but happy to support! Glad to hear NIM is feeling a bit better. How is his job going?

So any action plan to pay back £2000 per month and how long do you think it will take?

Are ye still thinking of selling the house and using some equity towards debts?

Dinah93

And to show how serious I am, going to actually draw up a budget. Which is a little scary and to be honest will be slightly guess work as we currently get tax credits towards nursery fees, these will stop in August but we should still get some, but no real clue how much. But will try the turn2us calculator see if I can get an idea. Budgets are not an easy thing when you earn a lot different in term time to holidays though.

wendz86

I'm here for support! I know you can do this. Good luck with the budget etc, definitely a good place to start. Tax credits etc are so confusing, i finally seem to be settling with mine although had reduced payments last couple of months for an over payment last year.

How did sports day go?

Dinah93

Could have been better but much better than last year - she didn't crumple into a heap as soon as she saw us. She did however massively struggle with falling over and therefore not winning a sticker, 20 minutes of tears, and I ended up being the only parent in amongst 50 small children to help her compete. Which ended up me gritting my teeth and bouncing a bag full of sobbing child with a fake grin plastered over my face while thinking 'fml, no one is winning here'.

wendz86

Bless her! Poppy hates losing but most of their sports day is activities where they try and get points then they do one race each at the end so a bit less competitive. I'm dreading the mums race though.

Dinah93

£99.25 requested from Quidco, should arrive next week.

For the first time ever I'm going to give a little time over to reading about debt management solutions, at the moment it feels like we borrow peter to pay paul a lot of the time, and while we've never missed a payment thats only really because we take it off another card. If there is a way to get the debt frozen so no charges or interest can be added on then that's something for us to consider at least.

wendz86

That sounds worth doing. You always seem to manage somehow but would be good to not have any interest etc added.

Payday for me today. I have decided to start saving monthly for holiday and also ballet lessons as will have both girls doing them come September and Poppy wants to do tap as well :eek:. Got a few social events this month too so can see it being an expensive one.

Dinah93

Doesn't look like any of the options are going to work for us, as we're not willing to risk the house, and we haven't actually missed any payments, and we've added quite dramatically to the debt in the last 6 months (extension). Shame but understandable.

The good news however is I did our SOA and IT IS IN CREDIT! This is the first time in 4 years that has happened. This is due to me working a lot (15 classes now, so around 26 hours of face to face teaching), and little man's nursery fees dramatically dropping in the next few weeks due to the 30 hours entitlement. Bad news is I can't copy and paste out of excel. Will type it out if and when I find the time.