Go on, do your worst ... I know I deserve it!

Jenna

Hey you guys,

Sorry I've not been on in a few days, it's been a bit manic round these parts what with all this new OT / cleaning lark. A quick spending update:

07.01 - NSD
08.01 - NSD
09.01 - NSD

Yey! *dances* ... although I'm having a LOT of cup a soup lol. Perhaps not the most nutritious meal. Although today I had a lovely sweet & sour rice meal so not all bad

Progress since I last posted:

~ CC # 2 DD has come out of my account, meaning that my balance is now £476.12
~ I've found a much better deal on contents ins - about 50% cheaper than we were paying last year - no cashback unfortunately (I checked Quidco & RPoints) but with that discount, who's complaining!
~ I now have £93 waiting to pay off the CC # 1 - nearly 2x the min. payment already and it's not even the end of week 2 in Jan!
~ I now have £158.31 saved towards a holiday (I know, I know ... not very DFW ... but I will work much harder if I have something to look forward to - and believe me, a holiday paid for in cash will be a new thing for me anyway! Will check out the holiday boards to see what deals are on ...)
~ I've opened an A&L direct current account ... £50 will be tracking with Quidco shortly, and I'll have a 0% overdraft for 12 months (saving between £3 and £5 per month e.g. £36 - £60 over the next year!), plus a better rate of interest on positive balances! Then my current account that I have now will be used for MB only - if I can get my head around how to do it that is! Must read up more on this ...
~ I've done 1 hour OT Monday, Tuesday & today - I intend to do 1 more hour tomorrow and then probably not on Friday to be honest!
~ Investigate cheap contact lens deals online - I've been using up my pre-bought supply from last year & they've run out, plus my glasses are quite literally falling apart (they're 3+ yrs old) - get my prescription from my opticians

Soo all very positive on the money front ... after all the comments I've had I wanted to save the money for the CC # 1 towards the sofa lol. But thought I must be practical, CC # 1's 0% runs out at the beginning of May 08 so really, really must get this down ... whereas the sofa will not suddenly start costing me umpteen % each month if I don't over-pay it just yet!

On the other note - I walk to work and back if that counts (5-15mins each way depending on how energetic I feel!), never despair girl? My health is pretty up and down to be honest (I was quite ill a few years ago and am gradually improving now) so I don't want to over-do it and make myself ill. This may sound rubbish but I honestly can't think of anything I can do (and easily rest if I need to) that's not walking & doesn't cost anything - even if in different locations! ... maybe cycling?

I will have a think though as still feeling a bit down and OH will make me go and see someone if he starts to worry about me again and I can't really afford that either. Thanks

I wanted to ask a question about energy costs as I've heard they're rising ... does anyone know? Should I budget more for them this year? Bit worried for obvious reasons ...!

Sorry for rambling on, this is probably insanely boring to you all! It's helping me with the motivation though so I hope you don't mind too much...?

Take care all xx

poppy10_2

Well done, glad things are going a bit better.

In answer to your question, yest energy prices are rising this year - nPower have already put their prices up by around 15%, and other suppliers are expected to follow suit. Don't bother changing suppliers yet until the dust settles and you can see who is the cheapest once everyone has decided on their new tariffs.

neverdespairgirl

Jenna wrote: »

On the other note - I walk to work and back if that counts (5-15mins each way depending on how energetic I feel!), never despair girl? My health is pretty up and down to be honest (I was quite ill a few years ago and am gradually improving now) so I don't want to over-do it and make myself ill. This may sound rubbish but I honestly can't think of anything I can do (and easily rest if I need to) that's not walking & doesn't cost anything - even if in different locations! ... maybe cycling?

I didn't mean to sound like the exercise Nazi! I just find that, for me, I sleep better and don't get stressed if I get some exercise. I love playing badminton with OH, but running round the park for free with my son and OH at the weekend does exactly the same trick, and fresh air to boot.

Sorry to hear that you've been ill.

Jenna

Hehe no you don't sound like that nd-girl!! It's a good suggestion, thankyou

Poppy - I had a quick look around online yday and discovered I can't change from the supplier I'm with now, as the meter is specific to them only - and I can't change the meter as it's a rented flat! Rubbish ... I've now budgeted more for leccy this year and just have to hope that they don't hike the price too far!

Spending:

10.01 - NSD
11.01 - NSD (so far, and we're staying in tonight so I don't intend to spend anything!)

Updated totals:

~ £182.53 saved towards paying off CC # 1
~ £180.62 saved towards a holiday

I don't have a penny to my name this weekend, so going to need to be inventive as to what we do ... the only thing I have organised is a brisk walk/jog in the park with my friend on Sunday afternoon. We intend to start slow and build up! But tis still exercise

Hope everyone is having a lovely Friday! xx

neverdespairgirl

Jenna wrote: »

I don't have a penny to my name this weekend, so going to need to be inventive as to what we do ... the only thing I have organised is a brisk walk/jog in the park with my friend on Sunday afternoon. We intend to start slow and build up! But tis still exercise

It is indeed! Hope the weather's OK for you, it's been pouring down all day in London.

Princess_Jane

Jenna wrote: »

Hehe no you don't sound like that nd-girl!! It's a good suggestion, thankyou

Poppy - I had a quick look around online yday and discovered I can't change from the supplier I'm with now, as the meter is specific to them only - and I can't change the meter as it's a rented flat! Rubbish ... I've now budgeted more for leccy this year and just have to hope that they don't hike the price too far!

I thought it was the electricity provider and not the supplier who owned the meters?

I.e up here in the freezing north it was NEEB or similar?

Like Railtrack manage the railway tracks not the train companies who run on them.

HTBC

Jenna

Hi Jane - I was told by Southern Electric (I called them for a quote) they couldn't take us on because of the meter? I don't know, this is the first time I've tried to change ...

Albertross - from May the interest will be the same (16.9%). The OD is about to go onto 0% with A&L. My worry with the CC # 1 is the re-payment is 3% plus interest - and on £1700 that's quite high! Just over £50 min. payment as it stands and I don't know how to calculate the interest on the amount (but if it's 16.9% of the total amount owed / 12 months then it's £25 a month as well). So £75 p/month min re-payments in total ... vs. 2% min. payments plus interest = just under £10 p/month on the CC # 2.

I don't know what to do for the best? I believe my credit record is fairly OK, I always pay my bills on time etc, so I could potentially apply for another card and BT the CC # 2 onto 0%? Or I could start paying onto the CC # 2 as you suggest, and apply for a 0% deal in April for the CC # 1? But I don't know if I'd be able to get a deal for the whole amount as I suspect my access to credit is showing as quite high even though I don't owe as much as that - the CC # 1 has a £2,500 limit, for example. I could reduce this though if it would help?

I also took out a Barclaycard last Oct for £50 free vouchers (for my free Xmas 08 challenge) - I'm waiting to be billed with £0 showing on the statement and then intend to cxl this, it has an £850 limit. Also the TV loan company refuse to send me a letter confirming my acc has been closed, so I'm worried it's still showing on my credit file as available credit. Need to follow this up - I've called 4-5 times and they always tell me no problem, I'll post one out - then it doesn't arrive. Grr.

Jenna

Just when I thought all my budgets etc for the year were settled ... we might be moving! We live in modern flats (e.g. thin walls) and the neighbours apparently don't appreciate our DFW efforts to stay in rather than going out every night.

Now I know some of you will have "nightmare neighbours" but we really aren't like that - the walls are just that thin. For example one of our neighbours works shifts / weekends, and his alarm clock wakes me up every weekend! If they argue (shout I mean) we can hear them, and as they do their washing overnight, the spin cycle aggravates me loads - it kicks in just as I'm trying to nod off! But we overlook these things, and figure it cuts both ways - they've woken us up arguing at 3.30am before (on a schoolnight I might add) so therefore they can't complain if we have friends round late on a Friday or Saturday night.

Apparently not - in the last couple of weeks we've had a rude note through the door ("you're taking the f*cking p*ss" amongst other choice phrases) and then on Friday night, one of them came round and hammered on our door - he'd even brought his gf with him! He started shouting and screaming at us and I really thought he was going to punch my OH.

Admittedly we had been singing karaoke with 2 friends (e.g. 4 of us) but it was turned down pretty low - and it was only 5 to midnight on a Friday night! Plus a few weeks before, he'd had a party til 5am on a Saturday, with loud banging music and everything! He supposedly thinks this is OK just because he warned us in advance (2 hours in advance lol not exactly enough time to make other plans!). The thing was - we have never complained to them or anyone else about the noise they make.

It just all feels very unfair as surely it has to cut both ways - either they are quiet and expect the same in return, or they make a noise on weekends and expect us to do the same?!

I just felt really intimidated by this guy coming down and shouting at us, he works as a security guard so he looked really scary. And if he'd just been reasonable and said, look mate, I'm just off to bed now, could you turn it down please? We'd have turned it right down or even off! I'm not one to be offended by language but he was calling my OH a c*nt and it was f*cking this, f*cking that, f*cking have some respect, etc - and his girlfriend was yelling right along with him!

We were really polite to them and apologised for the noise, said we had it turned down quietly anyway but obv it sounded louder from outside the flat than we realised, and we'd turn it off now. Explained we can hear their noise too and said surely it cuts both ways? Which they totally ignored!

I just feel intimidated by it all and like now we can't afford to be out, but can't stay in and have some fun either. I put on a strong front when they were shouting but when they had gone away I just sort of collapsed, I couldn't stop crying, I was really upset ... I didn't post about it yday because I was still so upset I couldn't think of what to say about it.

It's affecting me worse than my OH (who is just angry about it) because of some things that have happened in my past - lets just say I got myself into a stupid situ. I don't suppose it's appropriate to post it on here but to give you an idea of it ... I am not seeing anyone at the moment but I've seen 2 therapists before, both of whom said I have classic PTSD (post-traumatic stress) symptoms but refused to diagnose me with it - god knows why!! At least then I could get some help for it or something?? Argh anyway this has set off all my nightmares, flashbacks and things and I was having a bad week anyway with all this, that's the real reason I was feeling down...

I think we are moving just not sure when ... not just because of Friday, we thought maybe we would in the next year anyway ... but yeah. I don't really feel safe here any more but I'm worried about how much we will end up spending on rent.

We can put the holiday off til later in the year / early next year even but I really, really want to be able to make more than min payments to debt - and I'm sure a house will be more than a flat to rent - but any flat we get will have the same problem surely so it has to be a house ...

Argh I dunno what to do ...

Jenna

Just thought probably not many people read this thread so I'm going to make a new post if you don't mind ... need replies, no idea what to do for the best!

poorandindenial

Hi Jenna

What sort of area do you live in?? I live in london and have lived in flats with walls like paper and flats that were really soundproof - I thnk you can live in a flat, it is just trial and error.

If you are having symptoms of PTSD again (whether or not you were officially diagnosed) then you should see your GP so that you can try to get some support (whether drugs, therapy or whatever you and your GP decide you need) to help you through this difficult time.

Good luck with finding somewhere new.