The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

Cinny91

Was SO happy to see a post from you, Zig seems like you're doing well! Sounds like taking out the loan was worth it to cut ties with the ex!

Have the house to myself after 10 today, planning on giving the place a good clean because my life is that thrilling. We're off to a firework display Birdies way on tonight, so I'm looking forward to that. Making sloppy joes for tea so £0 spend hopefully.

Hope everyone else has a good weekend!

zigmeister

Aw thanks! I was chuffed to see you were still posting on here!

Definitely the right thing re paying off the ex. I got a credit card and did a money transfer at 0% for 36 months so now I just need to pay it off ASAP. Much rather be paying that off than owing him though!

I love having a good house tidy/clean, always feel better for doing it. Hope the fireworks were good; we watched them from a mates balcony so zero spend there. Although I've spent a fair bit today in B&M and £12.50 on lunch - yorkshire pud wraps from The York Roast Co. I'm a sucker for a gimmick but they were lush!

Hope everyone has a good week!

roomontheend

Cinny what are you doing to get your Amazon vouchers? I did my first spend of the month today but it was a planned spend and was less than £40 for shopping. Not to bad for four humans and two dogs. I only got essentials and hoping they last a week by eating the huge stock I have. Although the family always say we have nothing in. When I point it out the usual reply is, “Well there is only ingredients”. They need to live somewhere else for a week, then they would know about it. Nice to hear from you Zig.

Dinah93

Hi all, I've written a long post twice, and lost it, so I'm doing a shorter one and will try to update gradually.

Have had a hard few weeks, financially things are actually going better, but we had a bad check up with the cardiologist and Grace's heart surgery has been brought forward from age 10-12 to in the next 6 moths as she's in early stage heart failure with right side enlargement. Then we had the call last week so surgery is on the 28th. It seems a fairly safe surgery, but carries around a 2% risk of stroke which isn't appealing, and it's a procedure which has only been brought in within the last decade so the long term impacts aren't really clear.

In addition we're still fighting with the insurers, which I need to escalate to the ombudsman now.

The final part of the trifecta is my best friend told me her councilor had reported them to social services, I didn't know what she'd told the councilor but she was so scared of her husband's temper she planned to lie to social services and say there was nothing in what she'd said, she'd exaggerated or lied. So after much discussion NIM and I made the hard choice to also make a statement to SS as we'd seen him yelling at the children, calling them names, striking them, dragging one of them, throwing things at them, locking one of them in a room for several hours, telling them he wished they would die, a lot of things which meant we didn't allow ours near him, that we'd considered calling in for a while and probably should have but hadn't because I hadn't wanted to loose my friend. So that all came to a head, she hates me for what we did, but I'm surprised that I actually feel lighter, I know I did the only thing I could to make life better and ultimately safer for their children, and that's the most important thing. The husband is now appointing solicitors because I told 4 friends about what was going on and he is !!!!ed off we talked about them.... I'm not sure what law that comes under but I know there is some protection on right to a family life, so now I need to speak to a solicitor to find out if they have any case on us. It's a complete shambles and quite frankly my attitude right now is to wonder why my family are suffering for trying to protect children that aren't ours, that wasn't our job, it was their parents and grandparents job to keep them safe but they were too concerned about the image of a grown man.

Top it all off my car died last week. If it's mega expensive that'll be the 3rd car this year I've killed. Hoping it'll be sub £500 but the garage haven't let me know yet. NIMs is seriously on it's last legs too, and his will be terminal as there are a lot of bits that are off with it and it's done 160,000.

I'd like to have a positive to end on, I guess we've been really strong as a family lately despite all that's going on which is reassuring, and work is going well for me, to the point that I've actually been looking at my own premises as I'm limited by availability of other places to hire and some of my classes in a style which is fully booked are bringing in over £100 an hour (NIM however is still at serious and immanent risk of redundancy), and the house is progressing (so not actually really clearing any debt as still throwing thousands a month to finishing it off, but hoping to be most of the way by Christmas).

All in all posting as needing some support in life right now, rather than in money, feeling lonely and adrift with so much out of our control.

Dinah93

Ongoing to do list

• Email yoga voucher to nikki baker
• do aerial poster
• do yoga renew workshop poster
• Get renew workshop on reservie and advertise to the hilt
• set up printer
• work out January timetable
• register on yoga near me type websites
• update bwy site
• do lesson plan for assesment
• do lesson plan for monday
• do power yoga lesson plan
• do 10 week course plan for assessment
• Do aerial lesson plan
• call british gas
• call car garage
• sort out unsold nearly new sale stuff
• list nearly new sale stuff of good value on ebay
• find funding sources for mum
• do business plan for mum
  [STRIKE]
• Call Middlesbrough [/STRIKE]
• Order 2 more strops
  [STRIKE]
• Check I have enough hammocks [/STRIKE]
• Speak to solicitor
• Post all books traded in
• Finish Amazon fulfilment printing set up
• Label and send items to amazon
  [STRIKE]
• Email pregnancy course [/STRIKE]
• Do remortgage forms
• Sent out a random ppi query (very unlikely)
• Book hotel or return train tickets for manchester
• Take complaint to ombudsman/L&G
• Plan lessons for new term - saucha, santosha, tapas, svadhyaya, isvara pranidhana, strength workshop, christmas workshop, renew and restore workshop
• Complete assignment 5
• Order updated flyers
• NIM uniform tax claim
• 2016-2017 Tax Return
• Find somewhere for phone and computer repairs
  [STRIKE]
• Pay Next [/STRIKE]
• Set up Tesco minimum payment
• Shpock wardrobe
• Schpock mirror table
• Write a bit for A gym on yoga as a unity practice not a physical practice
• Update mailing list
• Pay Monday night room hire
• Check I've paid Friday night room hire
• Chase up why the holy hell my vodafone bill is £93
• Chase up why NIM is being charged twice for his 3
• Get NIM to work out M&S login
• See if we qualify for different water tariff
• Investigate printful

wendz86

What a nightmare few weeks Dinah.

So sorry to hear about Grace, must be really scary for you all.

Sounds like you did the best thing with your friend and social services, at the end of the day those kids are the most important thing. I hope they haven't got anything on you with the talking, seems ridiculous.

With all that's going on you are right not to be worrying about money. I hope things start to turn a corner for you soon. Glad things work wise and family wise are better xx

archersluck

Oh Dinah, what a lot going on, he sounds a grade A word-that-mse-doesnt-allow. Not sure how he could have any legal come back against you but maybe worth a solicitors letter telling him to back off. Sorry to hear about Grace too, I'm sure it will all go smoothly but what a worry for you.

Glad you've been having some good family time, always looks like the kids are having great fun.

Welcome back Zig! I must go get one of those wraps, the queue was huuuuuge when I last went past

kavics17

So sorry to hear about Grace's surgery. I'm sure it will be fine but I understand how you must feel.

I don't think that you can have anything legal coming back against you, you did the right thing. It is better to have it investigated than children suffering unnecessary. Well done for doing so.

The car is a pita, sorry to hear about that too. But so glad that you are going strong as a family.

All good here, still dating, feeling rather in love I guess. Started selling things again, so hoping I can raise some money for Xmas.

Cinny91

I'm so sorry to hear about Grace's surgery, I'd be worried sick in your shoes. This alone is enough to deal with, let alone everything else piled on top. You did, however, 100% do the right thing for those kids. He sounds like a very angry and very pathetic bully trying, if he has a leg to stand on I'd be shocked. Absolute scum. Lovely to hear you and NIM are doing better despite all this happening.

Might building a studio in your garden be an option? Like a summer house type situation?

RoTE - It's just quidco cashback, it seems to flit between 1-2% uplift to take your balance out that way. Only have so much tracking from when we moved, although we earned £38 cashback for switching our gas and electric over the weekend so that'll be a big help through February when we have birthdays basically every day!

roomontheend

Dinah, I totally agree with everyone’s comments. You have so done the right thing here. Imagine if something happened and you hadn’t said anything. At the end of to day it is all about the Children and their wellbeing.
Sorry to hear that Grace has to undergo surgery but she has always been a little fighter and I am positive she well continue to fight. You all have so much on your plate at the moment, do try and take a step back from it all so that it doesn’t overwhelm you.