SAH Mum on a Mission

too_much_debt

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Paying only minimums when the interest rates are so high means it unlikely the debts will ever be paid off or will take decades. The Lloyds one for example presumably has around £68 interest paid on every month so the debt is decreasing by around £10 per month.

Now your children are older are you looking for work as the best way to address this is to pay considerably more each month by upping your income? If going out to work is not an option then increasing income by ebaying (as you already do), surveys and mystery shopping may help.

Thanks enthusiasticsaver!

I know it is going to take a long time but I have no other option. I do YouGov surveys mainly, haven't found anything else good that will give surveys and not throw me off after answering some questions. I do Ebay as well.

I need to find a weekend job really, cannot work during the week due to childcare issues, my eldest two walk to school and back but last school year they had a lot of time off sick (the school were ringing once every two weeks at least) plus time off due to injuries, both had fractured fingers, one had to keep going to the hand clinic at a different hospital to our local one which was two buses away so this meant time off school. One hurt her ankle in PE and was on crutches for two weeks which meant myself and DD3 having to get the bus with her to her school and then walk from there to DD3 school, then go and meet her after school. There is no way if I had a job during the week an employer would be happy with the amount of time I would have to take off and OH would not take time off, he's very selfish when it comes to doing anything or going out for anything unless he wants something himself (but that's a whole other story).

I don't have family nearby to help out, I have no car. Also last year after a call from the school about DD1 she felt sick and had a headache and it was 45 minutes to the end of school and she felt unable to wait until home time so I asked if she was able to come home by herself on the bus (thinking they would say no) but they said yes (she was 12 then). So she walked from the main entrance (they go to school the back entrance normally) to the bus stop, just missed the bus so decided to walk to the next stop where it tells you how long until the next bus comes. To cut a long story short she was followed by a guy who stood in front of her and then as she went to get away from him he grabbed her arm and kissed her hand. Luckily two guys in a car got out and told him to get lost.

We reported the incident to the police who found the guy and he was an asylum seeker awaiting deportation.

The only problem I have with looking for a job is how am I going to find something when I've not worked for 13 years, what would I put on a CV to cover that time, we live in Greater London so lots of competition for jobs.

Sorry this has got long!

too_much_debt

On a positive note:

1.58 to Lloyds credit card
£32 to Barclaycard
£27 to Asda

Put a couple of pound in my sealed pot as I do the sealed pot challenge, I've already cashed in £76.80 so far this year and paid it off a credit card, my tin is quite heavy so am trying to use cash and put any small change I get in the tin.

TMD

jwil

Good luck.

Can you snowball your cards? Pay minimums on all of them, and then throw all extra payments to the card with highest interest rate.

Prolific Academic and Pinecone are good for surveys where you don't get booted out.

too_much_debt

jwil wrote: »

Good luck.

Can you snowball your cards? Pay minimums on all of them, and then throw all extra payments to the card with highest interest rate.

Prolific Academic and Pinecone are good for surveys where you don't get booted out.

Thanks jwil!

Yes I have done the snowball thing, I was torn between paying the Lloyds at 29.9% or the Capital One as it only has £970. I am paying small amounts to both at the moment.

Just made some small payments:

£2.42 to Lloyds
£2.69 to Barclaycard

Also 52p to Sealed Tin towards Xmas.

I used to do Pinecone many years ago but must have not done it for a while and got booted off or something. I used to get paid out in luncheon vouchers (do they still do those?). I would love to do Pinecone again but keep getting a message that they have enough people at the moment.

I do go through Topcashback to buy stuff as well, think I've had a couple of hundred pounds back since I started doing it.

Got a Yougov survey to do, think I am near 3,000 points on there.

Must go, doing dinner, managed to pick up some reduced mince this morning in Iceland so am doing a Shepherds Pie, two double packs of mince for £2.25 each (normally £4.50 each).

I also got a half price small beef joint for £3 instead of £6.

TMD

too_much_debt

£5.58 to Lloyds.

Kids off to dentist this morning for a check up and to register at new dentist.

Nothing sold on Ebay yet, need to get a few more listings done, only got 12 on at the minute. One item has a watcher.

TMD

too_much_debt

No debt busting today. I have a £5 pay monthly sim for my daughters phone, took it out nearly 3 months ago. Today checked my bank and £12.59 had come out, apparently she has sent 19 picture messages at 40p a picture so it has cost me £7.49 extra, I hasten to add it is now capped at £5.

Real pain when I think I could have paid that £7.49 off one of my cards, never mind, lesson learned!!!!

TMD

too_much_debt

No money saving yesterday, £13.30 in Wilko on lunch boxes for eldest two and a bit of stationery for school. Paid out of my bank account and not on a credit card.

Waiting for M&S statement to come. I pay all my credit card bills when they are generated/when I get the statement.

Today I am going through all my paperwork (I have a big bag of statements to sort out), I want to find the letter that said my Lloyds interest rate was going up, it was 17.9% when I took it out and I know I have a letter saying it was going up to 27.9% but my statements say 29.95% so I want to see if I have any other letters. I've no idea why I didn't decline the interest rate increase as I did on a few of my other cards, was so long ago I cannot remember.

Happy Sunday!

TMD

Fireflyaway

This question is an honest question - not meant as a criticism. Its hard to tell that on a post so wanted to make it clear.
Do you actually want to work? You say your kids had broken fingers and a bad ankle etc but that's not ongoing, that was just bad luck. If we all worked on the basis that something might go wrong, nobody would get a job ' just in case'.
The only way to change your situation is to make a change. Either lower the payments or increase your income. Your kids are school age so you could find work just during school hours. Devils advocate but are you really a 'stay at home mum'? Not an unemployed person?
Call centres and retail usually have roles that for around school hours. I worked 9:30- 2:30 ever day so to my child it was like I wasn't gone but I earned £900 a month by doing it. Other colleagues negotiated term time only so holidays were not an issue either. You could look to see what the local authority has going or what about schools? They have admin roles, cleaning, lunch time supervisor etc. Or train as a teaching assistant. Right now there are loots of temp Christmas jobs being advertised. Go be an elf! Joke... You could do retail or hospitality etc.
I might be wrong but you seem a bit unwilling to work and if you don't, you will be in the same position for a long time.
Good luck.

too_much_debt

Fireflyaway wrote: »

This question is an honest question - not meant as a criticism. Its hard to tell that on a post so wanted to make it clear.
Do you actually want to work? You say your kids had broken fingers and a bad ankle etc but that's not ongoing, that was just bad luck. If we all worked on the basis that something might go wrong, nobody would get a job ' just in case'.
The only way to change your situation is to make a change. Either lower the payments or increase your income. Your kids are school age so you could find work just during school hours. Devils advocate but are you really a 'stay at home mum'? Not an unemployed person?
Call centres and retail usually have roles that for around school hours. I worked 9:30- 2:30 ever day so to my child it was like I wasn't gone but I earned £900 a month by doing it. Other colleagues negotiated term time only so holidays were not an issue either. You could look to see what the local authority has going or what about schools? They have admin roles, cleaning, lunch time supervisor etc. Or train as a teaching assistant. Right now there are loots of temp Christmas jobs being advertised. Go be an elf! Joke... You could do retail or hospitality etc.
I might be wrong but you seem a bit unwilling to work and if you don't, you will be in the same position for a long time.
Good luck.

Hi. I have applied for jobs in the past but never hear back. I have thought about lunch time school jobs to hopefully have more chance of getting a school admin job eventually as admin and typing is what I was doing before (I can type 100 words a minute).

I did also ask on a previous comment about what do I put on a CV for the last 13 years. I did see two weekend job adverts in shop windows but they wanted a CV.

I will update my CV but as I say don't know what to put for the last 13 years, maybe you might have some suggestions!!

Hiddenidenity

You will find a lot of employers are reasonable about you being the main carer for the children and should an emergency arrive then you will be needed to sort it.

Mine are 3, 6 and 8. I start back at work on Tuesday in a school so I won't have to consider the child care in the school holidays bar the odd days my school is different to theirs. Before taking this I was looking at supermarket jobs as I could have done evenings and weekends etc.

Hardly dream jobs but it pays the bills and keeps food on the table Good luck x