The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

Dinah93

Sadly not in the serengeti, nice post to come back to though!

The good news first - the debt isn't higher. The bad news is we struggled for a long time, not a case of 'lets make small cuts here and there' but we literally didn't have anything like the amount of money coming in as our minimum payments came to. So half of our cards are suspended now (which tbh is a good thing as we can't spend what we've paid off) but it also meant we couldn't make a monthly payment then withdraw it to make the minimum on another card - horrendous habit to get into and if any of the debt charities had been willing to deal with us (self employed are not a popular group of people to manage it seems).So I wasn't posting on here because I felt like I was doing such an awful job of keeping us afloat that I couldn't hold my head up on the diary.

However if anyone is still here I'd like to come back to posting if you'll have me.

October we finally managed to catch up on all payments except one which was paid 4 days late. November we have paid all our payments for the month on payday (yesterday) except for Barclaycard which isn't due for another 2 weeks, and I would have paid last night except I've managed to lock myself out of the system somehow so I need to call up and reset it.

So getting back to being able to make at least minimum payments brought me back, combined with logging into quidco this morning to find I have £167 to pay out, which has taken me over the £3000 threashold since I joined 10 years ago. Around £2700 of that was in the first 4 years when I was a regular on here though. The really positive thing however is that I have no cashback due because I've hardly done any online shopping for months, which is a big thing for me. I've bought stuff for work, but rigging suppliers don't tend to be on commercial shopping sites....

The really bad bit though that everyone except CMD is going to throw things at me for - holidays are still my weakness. Mother in law has paid for us to go to South Africa for Christmas for a family reunion, which was booked nearly a year ago now, but we haven't actually hired a car yet, or booked accommodation for the 12 days we're there before we meet up with her. And we have 6 weeks to go.

I also joined Jack's Flight Club, as for Christmas last year mum offered to get us a family holiday up to £1000. No cash alternative. I got what I can only describe as a steal in getting flights to Canada for all 4 of us in peak school holidays next August for £917. But we'll need to pay accommodation and car hire for that too. However we went to Norfolk for our holiday this year, loved it, but grief staying in the UK was expensive, days out cost way more than we'd have spent going somewhere warm and playing by the pool/lake/sea for a fortnight like we usually do.

We've been struggling financially, the business is doing very well, but we're expanding quite rapidly and that's only really possible with me not taking much of a wage, so we went through about 8 months where I drew less than £2k. The plan is that from January I should be able to get paid every month. We're in the process of taking on a premises now which is an expensive business but needed, and we've also expanded into a second area, we hope to expand into another couple in the new year, but finding suitable premises on hourly rental is really hard!

Am I right in saying you have some much more exciting news Kavics?!

Okay, so totals. Lets face the music. We're now at £55,564.51. £1426 less than October 1st. NIM's wage is around £2200 after tax (he got a new job in May... probably missed that news, very long commute but £10k pay increase, only a year's contract though so may need to look for something else after new year). We get no tax credits etc just child benefit, no carers allowance as I made too much last year (stunning £11,000). So quite frankly I'm very pleased we managed to pay off that much in a month, but we're off 0% on almost all cards, so easily half of that is interest. We can't get any more 0% deals, all we can do is make more money to pay things off quicker. Which is what I'm trying to do, my only hobby now is working.

So in a nutshell, that is us now. But enough about us, how are you guys? Missed you x

kavics17

Ok Ops, busted I guess.

Welcome back Dinah, good to see you. I regularly check back to see if there are any updates so was nice to see you posting yesterday. I’m glad that you haven’t added to the debt and i can see on fb that the business grows all the time. Well done to you.

As for me, it’s been an amazing but emotional year. Met a guy last year, i think I mentioned that before. He turned out to be so nice and kind, just a very decent man, I totally fall in love with him. He moved in just before Xmas after mini Kavics approved the idea. He said from the beginning that he wanted children so we decided to try for a baby in April. I fall pregnant with twins but lost one of them at 9 weeks. I am now 27 weeks pregnant with another girl, due at the end of January. The pregnancy has been complicated so far, lots of scans and tests due to previous miscarriages and the vanishing twin and also because My OH’s niece died of CF. thankfully we now found out that he is not a carrier and baby seems fine too although she will have more tests after the birth. I still feel awful most days, low blood pressure and nausea all day long, my tummy is rock hard too. I still work but will stop at the beginning of December using annual holidays till the first week of January than will go on maternity leave.

I always felt really sad that I only had mini Kavics and wasn’t able to give her a sibling so this is truly a blessing and love this baby so much already. Our family is complete like thIs, mini Kavics adores my OH and he feels the same towards her. He has a really good example in front of him as his father raised his step sisters like his own and the girls think of him as their dad. He also proposed on Tuesday morning on my 39th birthday although we don’t plan to get married It is nice to wear a ring. It’s been mega emotional as Leo proposed 10 years earlier on the same day (he didn’t know it and I yet to tell him this). He is very respectful of Leo and talks about him with mini Kavics even though neither have met him. I will always love Leo and I love my OH too, funny how there is room for both in my heart.

Money wise: We decided to add another bedroom to my flat and open up the kitchen and sitting room so moved out in September and only moved back in yesterday. We took out a loan of £7000 but I have savings of £4000 that mature next May so we pay that straight towards the loan. We have the rest on a saving account but I need to change my car before the baby is born and not sure how much we will have left so the loan was the most sensible option.i hate owning money and will try to raise £1000 while on maternity leave by selling things we don’t need anymore. Maternity pay is good here, 70% of my salary for 6 months and 60 % for 18 months after. I am planning to stay at home for about 18 months but we will see how it goes later.

So this is my story, I guess a happy ending after all. How is everyone else doing?

ruby_eskimo

Huge congratulations to you Kavics, it sounds like you've definitely found an amazing man to have in your life. Fingers crossed that everything goes well for the rest of your pregnancy.

Glad to have you back Dinah, it sounds like things have been both difficult with all the money issues and good at the same time with the business expanding. Here's hoping that the new year leads to more profit and you can start to take a proper wage to help pay down the debts.

I think 2018 has been a bit of a bad year all round for people I know; we've gotten off lightly I think with the only major issues being around my job getting rather stressful to the point where I had a mental breakdown in April and have been slowly trying to claw my way back ever since. I recently got a temporary promotion (in name, still waiting to see the extra cash...) but I think I might have to start looking for a new job which is petrifying me. On the money front, while I've stayed debt free, I need to reign the spending in a bit as we have an unexpected trip to pay for next year; friend's are getting married in South Korea in June and we kind of want to go to Japan while we're over that way. Thinking about resurrecting the MFW diary as well just to keep myself accountable with things as I'd like to make some overpayments to that too if we can.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

the_end_of_the_rainbow

Huge congratulations Kavics - although I never posted, I followed your diary for many years.

So pleased that you have found love and are happy at last x

Cinny91

Was excited to see people coming back and then.. you've all gone again :rotfl:

Such lovely news about your ever growing family, Kavics So sorry to hear about the loss of one of the twins, wishing you all the luck for the rest of your pregnancy x

Hope you manage to find a new job easily, Ruby. Never a stress you need, a holiday in Japan sounds fun though!

Are you thinking of starting a new thread for a fresh slate? Would love it if we got back to posting as we've started properly tackling our debts again. We were so close to being DF, just a few pay days away, and then DH's work situation changed and we were back to square one with bells on. We're going to get stuck in a constant cycle of car loans if we don't do something soon, and I want to pay the darn mortgage off :rotfl: Our none mortgage debt is currently £15953.42 (paid off £3499.89 since the 23rd) but I'm cutting my work hours in half next Summer to job share with my Sister (who's got a little girl due in a few weeks!) so we have to make headway while we can.

Sad news our way is Oscar refuses to stay little and is off to nursery in 5 months. We got his acceptance letter in the post the day we got back from our holiday and I still get upset when I think about it :o Considering he's currently adamant that dogs are pigs, black is pink and the colour blue is summed up by the word Gordon.. I don't think I'm cut out for the home ed life :rotfl:

Dinah93

Still here Cinny

Made a bit of a money blunder this week. We had a letter 2 weeks ago to say NIM was due nearly £4000 in tax rebate as he'd over paid in 2015 and 2016. If we didn't get the cheque within 2 weeks to call. So we did, they cancelled it as it had been sent on the 24th October, so actually before the letter telling us we were getting it. Said it will be 6 weeks to reissue. Within 10 minutes I found the unopened envelope in a stack of double glazing and takeaway leaflets that our cleaner always puts in the bowl on the coffee table when the post arrives on his day in the house and I leave until they overflow then bin them all. Really annoyed, we could really use that right now as haven't booked a hire car in south africa yet, or some of the accomodation, and I'd LOVE to get one of the smaller credit cards paid off this year or at least know all the bills are covered to the end of the year without me having to take a salary out the business.

Planning application is in, should know by 4th January if it is granted. I think it is unlikely we'll be in for our January term unfortunately, it's just too tight a timetable to do all the work to make it suit our needs. Right now my co-tenant seems to have cold feet so I might take it on on my own, which in many ways would suit me better and I could hire out the extra space when I'm not using it. One of my teachers may be leaving, which I'm gutted about, I'm meeting her tonight to discuss. She's trying to decide between taking my offer of a contract, or seeing if she can start her own classes near to where she lives, as she currently commutes an hour each way to work for us. I do have a few more people who are interested in training as a teacher however, as always venues continue to be an issue.

We have precisely nothing in the bank at the moment, and are late on a payment this week (REALLY wish we hadn't cancelled the cheque!) but debt should still be about £2k less than last month just off the minimums we pay each month.

New thread is a consideration, what do you think?

tootallulah

Lovely to hear of your good news Kavics. I would start a new thread Dinah - time for a new start?

Dinah93

Thrilled to report my teacher is not only staying but offered to do extra hours for us in January, our busiest time, while I train up other teachers

kavics17

New thread would be awesome.
Great news on the teacher, glad all is working out well.

Dinah93

And this morning she's unsure again because her hourly will be less than she earns now as self employed. ARGH. All self employed people earn more hourly for the same job as an employed person, they have no rights, no security, no holidays/sick pay/pension/pay their own taxes etc