From debt to freedom...

lucielle

Fingers crossed the car is easily sorted.

L

Cherryfudge

This is what emergency funds are for... hope it's nothing much though.

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Cherryfudge and Lucielle. I got through to the garage and the earliest it can be fixed is Wednesday. Trying to get the children to and from school is a challenge so my lovely dad is letting me borrow his car to make life a little easier. DS's van has been great for emergency cover but only has 2 seats! A bit of spending will be incurred today to catch the train to my parents town to pick up the car.

I am becoming increasingly conscious of the need to start a pot for a replacement vehicle. There's almost 150k on the clock of my current car. It's a high mileage due to the work commute and being so rural but the cost will need to be factored in to avoid more debt in the future. Hopefully when DS passes his test, I will be able to downsize to a 7 seater .

Honeysucklelou2

On Thursday I spent the day travelling round the county in order to borrow my dad's car. I had to drive DS's van to the nearest station which is about 20 miles away, catch a train, pick up the car, drive home, pick up another driver and then go back to the station to get DS's van back! I'm very thankful I can borrow the car in order to get us out and about while we wait for my car to be seen and hopefully fixed.

On Tuesday DS2 announced that he needed a Christmas cake to ice the next day for his DT lesson :eek:. The rest of his class had made one at school the previous week but he had been out of class on an extra curricular event so had missed the baking. Thankfully I found one of my grandmother's old baking tins - a deep square 15 cm / 6" ? tin and had enough ingredients in to be able to get it made. My usual Christmas cake size is 10" square which takes a lot of ingredients so was very glad to find I could do a smaller option . I'm looking forward to seeing the completed iced form on Tuesday .

I did a small grocery shop yesterday. I'm trying to conserve every £ for the garage repair bill which I'm praying won't be too much. The menu plan will be quite inventive this week as a result. Thankfully I have flour, margarine and eggs in so can bake. Yesterday DD4 and her friend made gingerbread with DD3. I bought a set of star cutters in a sale at Lakeland a couple of years ago. You make 16 stars in gradually increasing sizes. When they are all put together it makes a stack of stars that looks like a gingerbread Christmas tree. The kitchen now looks like a mini forest of gingerbread trees:D.

There was a village carol singing event yesterday evening so I nipped out to that. I enjoyed singing along and always appreciate a decent piano accompaniment . During our travels yesterday, I discovered that DS3 ( pre-schooler) loves classic fm! We found it by accident when trying to set the radio in the borrowed car but he wanted it left on, so we had a very relaxing drive listening to a piano recital and later a string quartet. It was lovely to hear him telling me a story that fitted with the music .

It's another wild day here today. I've heard some rattling so had better go and investigate. Hoping to get some baking done today and a few work tasks that can be done from home .Christmas present wise, I need to still get some presents but I think will need to go into next week, after the repair bill, so I know what I have left to use.

Honeysucklelou2

Thankfully the rattling I could hear turned out to be scaffolders on the building site opposite putting up the next layer of scaffolding...my view of the fields that I have enjoyed for the last 10 years is disappearing rapidly . I know no one has a right to a view and that people need homes but I do find it sad when swathes of fields are covered wth houses. When we first moved here, I regularly heard owls calling to each other and foxes barking, but haven't heard either for a quite a while now

Yesterday wasn't quite as productive as I'd hoped. One of the younger DDs wanted to go Christmas shopping so I took her to H0me B@rgains which confirmed my view that I hate shopping ( unless of course it happens to be a garden centre ). DD was able to get what she wanted so she was happy, that's the main thing.

I felt really tired in the afternoon and battled to feel motivated to get anything done. At one point I almost thought getting a takeaway would be best but remembered I have a car bill to pay and there were potatoes that I could use to make oven chips and frozen fish in the freezer, so I did make tea rather than get a takeaway. That spurred me on to get another small Christmas cake made .

The ex came round to see the children yesterday and asked me if any if the older DDs had a credit card. I'm sure that neither does, so told him that. He said he'd been getting texts about a credit card that wasn't his and had been to the bank and they couldn't work it out. To my horror, I looked at the number given on the text and it was my credit card:eek:. For the last few months it would appear any text alerts for my credit card ( which has always been in my name and I've held for some years) have gone to the ex's mobile phone. This is despite the fact that we have been separated for over 3 years, I told the bank that we were separated and the only joint account we have held with this bank was a joint business account which I came out of in 2013. I can't fathom at all how or why this should happen but I am furious at the bank and will be letting them know tomorrow. It's not as if they haven't got my mobile number on record. I get text messages if I'm near to approaching my overdraft or if I set up a payment or amend a standing order, so why the bank thinks it's ok to send texts about the credit card to the ex is disturbing and puzzling.

I did get most of the work tasks done yesterday evening so am hoping I can get a walk in today and get to 9 lessons and carols .

XSpender

The bank sending those texts to your ex is a serious breach of data protection, especially with all the new GDPR rules, and I would be insisting on more than a token £25 or £50 from them in the way of compensation. Lay it on thick if you have to. It will all help towards your car bill too

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Xspender - I hadn't thought about mentioning GDPR. I'll use that when I contact them, thank you.

Honeysucklelou2

I did get to a service today albeit not the 9 lessons & carols. I came home and caught up on some baking by making a batch of Christmas gingerbread biscuits and a raspberry custard tart. It has been a case of dodging the showers today but DS1 and I got out with 3 of the dogs for a bracing walk around a field . I also got 10 minutes of bramble chopping done at the allotment .

Cherryfudge

It's appalling about the credit card - certainly sounds like a breach of data protection. I do hope they offer some decent compensation: your ex has no business getting your texts, and why didn't the bank cancel the texts when he said they weren't his?

It's sad to see fields disappearing under housing: we had similar to you about ten years ago when allotments were built over behind our house. It's affected the way the land drains as we now get water on our lawn as it can't soak in further up the slope. All the background lighting also means we can no longer see the Milky Way. I think there's more than one issue going on with building, actually. One is that we need more housing and like you I can see that is important. The other is the way it's done: bird roosts were destroyed when the new estate was built, for instance. It's not just the large-scale building projects that are guilty of environmental impact: ordinary people pave over their gardens, put up fences, add outdoor lighting or don't plant trees, for instance, and these all have an impact on the environment (says she who is doubly glad of her trees as they provide privacy). I will get off my soap box now.

Well done on the not-takeaway and extra Christmas cake - your house will do well for cake this year!

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Cherryfudge... interestingly there was flooding in my parents town today. I've never known this particular part to flood, but 4 fields worth of houses have been built in the last 18 months and it would appear that the water couldn't be absorbed by the land anymore and had run off into the town.

I've had a day off today and seem to have spent most of the day driving. The secondary age children finished today so needed picking up at lunchtime. I've spent the remainder of the time tying up loose ends at work, so I can feel that I have now reached the end of term. The car is now fixed and due to be collected tomorrow. Just praying that I have enough to meet the bill. I've emptied £60 from the EF to put towards it. I've also had a £40 refund in the post today, so if I can get that cheque paid into the bank asap, that'll be a little extra to help meet the bill.

Still got quite a bit to do for Christmas but wanting to get the garage bill out of the way first so that I know what I can spend on Christmas. I have bought some gifts using the Christmas savings pot. I remembered I had an e card from John Lewis for £40 ( given as an incentive to change broadband providers) so have been able to use that towards a gift