A debt diary with a newly-aquired Yorkshire accent!

Milly1974

Aw, Squirrel that's very sweet of you, but I'm not too worried about the SOA at the mo. I'll worry about it once i'm settled in Yorkshire and have the faintest idea what our monthly bills will be!

Only 3 weeks til I move, and I've still got loads to sort out. The broadband is being connected today, which is great as OH has been without t'internet for a good couple of weeks.

Need to start sending out change of address cards to my friends and family as well as pass some on to Chris to send out. My postage stamps expenditure is going to be horrendous this christmas!

I opened a Halifax account a few months back and used the switching service to get the £100 bonus, which still hadn't arrived about 5 months on. So last night I called them to ask why it hadn't arrived, only to be told that I already had an account with the Halifax and therefore wasn't a new customer! :mad: I checked my credit record not too long ago, and have never seen this account or had any paperwork for it.

After being passed back and forth and cut off, I managed to speak to someone who said that if I closed the other account in the branch and then called back, they could look again at paying me the £100. So I've done that today and will call them in a couple of days.

In good news, the call to the letting agent was fine, as it turned out that the washing machine and fridge have been left by a previous tenant, so the Landlady will not accept responsibility for them. This means that they are now ours to do as we please with! Think we will keep hold of the washing machine, but look to replace the fridge fairly soon as it is really skanky!

Also in good debt management practice, I think I will pay £500 off one of my cards from my savings. That should leave me enough to cover the TV licence, BT connection and my first month train ticket without having to panic.

Really ought to get back to work now!

x

cat4772

Milly - it sounds like a plan! Keep us posted with the news!

Cat.x

Milly1974

Well I've been good. :A My Quidco money just arrived, and rather than pop it into the temporary savings, I've sent it to the credit card. I'll do the same with the TopCashBack money I have on the way as well. Not sure how I feel about that, because I still feel a bit worried that something else might come up unexpectedly.

I guess I just have to cope with the idea that I could end up putting emergency stuff on the card. My car is really old and has been making funny noises the last few days. I've had it serviced recently, but it is still misfiring really badly. Think it is just a case of retirement coming closer. Really want to get through winter without having to buy a new car.

I keep looking to see if any mystery shops have come up, but there just don't seem to be many available at the moment. Just keep my fingers crossed on that front as well. :rolleyes:

Really looking forward to the weekend, when I am up to Yorkshire and can put up christmas decorations. Haven't worked out what the plan is yet on that front, as I don't have much in the way of decorations at the moment. Might see if I can raid my mum's store! Just a few sets of lights will make all the difference.

I don't know, just having an indecisive day really....

Milly1974

Phew!

Now feeling very glad that I didn't pay £500 off the card yesterday. Just spoke to HR and apparently they are deducting £300 from my final pay to cover a study course I was doing. Annoyingly, I did have a discussion with the training officer before I started the course, and she said that I wouldn't have to pay the money back if I left. Really held to that, haven't they...

:mad:

Milly1974

Well to add insult to injury, apparently my last paycheck from my current company, instead of being paid by BACS on the 20th as usual, will be by cheque on my last working day, the 24th! By the time that clears, it will be the New Year. I'm not trying to burn bridges, but it seem that HR aren't worried by that idea in the least!

Opened all the bills in Yorkshire this weekend. Need to pay £200 council tax and £70 water by January, and I've got £140 telephone and £30 broadband coming out in the next few days as well.

So glad I have an overdraft to tide me over for a few days!

pandapaws

Hi Milly, and welcome 'Oop Norf'!

Just had a read through, and a couple of little things jumped out at me that might (or probably not!) help:

The £300 for your training course - they legally can't take that off you unless they can show written proof that you agreed to and accepted the training bond and all it's terms and conditions. So if they originally told you they wouldn't take it off you, then it's unlikely that you'd have signed for it surely? In my job there are loads of training bonds for tens of thousands of pounds, and I've yet to meet anyone that's actually paid one back as the HR depts are always too useless to enforce them! I think there's also some sort of EU directive that says an employer can't make you pay for something that was required as part of your job, but CAB would be able to help with that. Tell them you want to see the signed training bond, or you want your money back!!!

Postage: Every time we move it's at this time of the year, so I always just send out my Xmas cards early with a big note in them saying 'from xx Dec, our new address is...'. Means everyone rather than just closest family get the message and halves the postage!

Lastly - I did the Halifax £100 account switch thingy, and it was the worst move ever - I'm now safely back with HSBC! They charged me £40 for going a few pence overdrawn, even though it was their fault on 2 occasions in the first place for not cancelling DDs etc, which cost me £120 and more than swallowed up the £100 bonus! They also had the most unhelpful staff I've ever encountered in a bank. Hopefully I was just unlucky, but at least you know to look out for them!

Anyway, good luck with the new home and getting moved in with your other half.

MissEyre

Hi Milly,
Just wanted to sympathise-moving and new houses is an expensive time, and it's hard trying to calculate what your bills may or may not be-I moved last month and saw my water bill jump from about £10 a month with a meter to £40 without one :eek: Looking forward to getting my meter installed next week :rotfl:
Would also really push your HR department to show you something in writing that says you owe them money-prob just trying their luck...

Milly1974

Sorry for not updating, I've been a bit busy this last week.

Feeling a little bit down as I have ended up in my overdraft for a few days for the first time ever in the last couple of days. I kind of knew that money would be a bit tight while everything settles down, but I just feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I know that it will sort itself out, but I dislike not knowing quite when.

I've got us up-to-date now with all but the water and the TV licence. The TV licence is waiting to come out on direct debit, and the water I just need to set up the payment.

Will be buying christmas food at the weekend, but then will start sorting out a proper meal plan way of eating for the new year. I don't want to be too strict about it, but I hate wanting to try a recipe and not having the ingredients, so a bit of planning will be great.

Have paid my last month's rent to my parents, so I don't have to worry about that again, and have finalised the account for the flat with one month's mortgage payment in it, so that is sorted until the end of January. With the rent going in to that this month and next month, I could probably even get away with not putting any money in there until the end of February, but I will see how that goes over the next month.

I did steal your idea PANDAPAWS, and put a little note in most of my christmas cards about our change of address. Had to put our surnames on the cards as well, as none of my family have met him, and some of his family don't know me!

Only a week to go now!

Milly1974

Only 2 more work days left now!

Have got my leaving lunch tomorrow, which should be a good laugh. Feel quite sad to be going. Saw the last of my friends that I needed to say goodbye to last night and it was quite sad to think of the next time we would see each other at my parent's house!

Had a little mystery shopping payment arrive today, which I have dutifully thrown at the credit card. Also had one of my Quidco queries be sent to the merchant, which is good. Maybe it is just me, but Quidco doesn't seem to be anywhere near as good as it was only a couple of months ago. I much prefer to use TopCashBack these days.

Otherwise, my monthly payment to my 0% card has gone out in the last couple of days which drops my total down to under £1000 on that, YAY!

Next step over the holidays I guess is to get my OH to sit down and work out what he owes and the best way to get it paid back. I think he has managed to get pretty safely out of his overdraft in the last month, so I will see if I can encourage him to cancel it. He shouldn't really need it anymore as hopefully for both of us the worst is over financially now.

I think I may minimise the amount of money I put towards my flat for the next couple of months, in order to maximise the amount I can put towards the credit cards. I really want to hammer the cards in the new year. Maybe I should challenge myself to clear off card 2 by the end of February. I think that should be do-able. Hhhhmmmm.....

Milly1974

Today's the Day!!!!!

My last morning at work today, then I drive up to Yorkshire tonight. Got to get a few bits done at work today, but then I'm gone! I'm so excited!

I've got all the Christmas food in the garage, including a couple of camembert cheeses which are really stinking the place out! So a few days of fun and excess, followed by a concerted debt-busting effort.

So, the credit card stands at £781.29. The challenge is, that the card MUST be at zero for the end of February. So I need a plan, which is difficult, as I am not sure how much my wages will be in my new job. But, as I will be able to leave the mortgage to run without me touching it until the end of March, I am sure I can muster up £400 a month.

(goes away to do some maths...)

Oh p*o, I just want it all gone!