Keeping afloat till I can get round to the debts!

jwil

Hope you get the discount!

NeverendingDMP

So after the iPad letter being pretty much what I expected and if I'm honest slightly better than expected (but still shocking) I went to the school new starters meeting and discovered the price has changed. It turns out the big fruit technology company has upped all its prices across the board this week. The tech guy at school seemed a bit embarrassed and the upshot of it is each iPad is going to be about 100 pounds more than what we were told last week if we decide to sign up to it. As we can't officially join the scheme till they start school we will all be stung by the new prices. It's still cheaper than if we bought our own but I wouldn't buy the latest model all singing and dancing version if I bought my own either 😂 it's decision time now as to whether we proceed or cope without/borrow their brother's and take turns at doing homework!!

NeverendingDMP

In a more positive mse saving money update. I got a free hot chocolate from octopus today. I don't like them but the kids do. I also got free parking for a hour to run errands then moved to a different car park for free parking for an hour to finish the errands off!!

jwil

That's ridiculous that the school seem to be forcing you into buying a particular (expensive) brand of tablet. What is their reasoning behind it? We haven't had to buy any electronics, obviously we already have tech at home, but there's been no expectation of it.

Good news about free parking and free hot choc though!

NeverendingDMP

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82058929#Comment_82058929

They go for that brand and get it preloaded with all the school stuff, homework apps, teams, parental controls, messaging to teachers etc. it's not compulsory but we would struggle to share one between them . It's a thing locally it seems. Ours is iPads the other local school is laptops. Our school used to be the cheaper option but if everything got hiked last week who knows now 😂 they did say they still do a sibling discount though !

NeverendingDMP

At least the uniform rules have changed now so only 4 items are compulsory to be branded. Ours is blazer , school tie, PE top and girls skirts. Anything else I can buy off the shelf so I've been working my way through uniform sales at Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencers and I'm hoping someone will fit in the eldest PE top as a hand me down.

jwil

It's still a bit cheeky! Ours use laptops at school, but we don't pay for them (and they don't bring them home). We just have a website/app to log into to see homework, message teachers etc. Hope they give you a decent sibling discount! At least you don't need to buy huge amounts of branded uniform.

NeverendingDMP

Adulting is sooo tiring. No financial updates as I haven't got as far as looking. I think at the moment I need a weeks sleep, a cleaner, gardener, au pair, dog walker and whatever else people have just to keep up 😂

NeverendingDMP

So after being off the forums for a while I have an update. All kids now at highschool, uniforms and iPads bought. So the update of doom is.…

Defaulted card.A £2600 payment plan of 18 a month

Defaulted card B £2065 payment plan of 18 a month

These are approximate figures but it's there or there abouts.

Current c card £2034. This has been hammered to get uniform iPads etc and is the first thing that needs to be reduced. Some of it may be paid off over the next couple of weeks when the dust settles but for now this is worst case scenario.

This puts me at about £6800. I'll fear I'll never get below the 5k barrier 😂

DH debts. Still high. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink can you!

Plan -I was due a pay rise but employer has said those who were increased in April to match living wage will not get the full 3.3 percent and will either not get it or only get back pay on the difference. I'm unclear as to if that is me or not and how it works. I'm not amused by it though. A classic case of the rich get richer etc .... If I got the full thing I'd get back pay of about £200 so here's hoping.

Read over winter to save money with my massive backlog of books from the local charity book sale I attend. I've a good 20 books I've not read yet.

Budget plan and food plan and get on the forum more regularly to be more accountable. And remember pennies make pounds!

NeverendingDMP

So I've got up to date figures. My total is 6687. Not ideal but at least I know where I'm up to now. I could have bought the iPads on tic but they would have cost extra on finance and I didn't really want the d debits hanging around for 3 years. At least this way I can juggle money and try to reduce the load sooner. It will be small payments each day at first as I've allocated most of the money already this month.