Teetering on the brink

EatingBeans

Hi all,

Super thanks to @badmemory for the note about the difference between taking the PILON in March vs April! I knew I had done a lot of thinking before I decided to take the option of working the 3months notice but couldn’t remember why I chose that option and this reminded me that the difference in timing is crucial. The extra tax is obviously a big thing but it would also make a substantial difference to dd1’s student loan and I’d completely forgotten about it.

The official letter came through yesterday and it says my leaving date would be 31st May and I get the payout within 30days of leaving. The thought of trying to scrape by until the end of June is currently unthinkable. But, I am just going to sign and return the letter (so I don’t miss the deadline) and worry about that later - I have bigger things on my plate right now.

What could be more stressful? Well, dd1 had been off college in bed for three days at the start of the week with pain from her ovarian cyst. After the last A&E trip for it she had been very reluctant to go back but during a shower on Thursday evening the pain hit a whole new level and she agreed hospital was a good idea. We chose a different hospital this time and she was admitted in the early hours of Friday morning. Many scans and tests later, they have agreed that at some point she will need surgery but emergencies keep coming in and bumping her down the queue. The poor girl then got to the point that they had starved her so long in anticipation of surgery that they had to push it back further just so she could eat! (She somehow managed to get a Subway at 11pm! 🤣) She is still in a lot of pain and we are all super sleep deprived as this has been an on/off process throughout the nights as well as the days, but it will all be worth it if she finally gets it sorted. To say I am tired would be a massive understatement.

One good thing that can out of this is I managed to ‘fix’ my phone! After days of walking around with two semi broken phones - an old one to make and receive calls and my actual phone to do everything else - I tried to make a call and got ‘call failed’ on the old phone too! Having your child in hospital and not having a working phone is a step too far for me! Thankfully, earlier in the week, I had ordered a new SIM from a new provider on a different network as a last ditch attempt to be sure it was really the phone and that SIM arrived yesterday. So, in the middle of everything, I popped the SIM in and it has only gone and fixed the problem! 🎉 The phone is not actually broken, it has been the connection to Lebara all along. It does mean I suddenly have a new telephone number (not great timing), and I am currently paying for an extra line at the moment but hey, I am now contactable.

One lesson I am learning from this complete lack of money to fix things when they break, is don’t rush! It is amazing what you can live without if you try - we still have no lights downstairs for instance - but if I look for workarounds rather than instantly try and fix things then it is just possible that a ‘fix’ can be found much cheaper than if I rush! I mean, can you imagine if I had actually gone and purchased a new phone at this time, only to find out later that it was actually the provider that was the issue! 😬 Patience is definitely paying off. 😁

Cherryfudge

That must all be incredibly stressful. Sending hugs for you and your DDs, and cheering with you for having a workable phone.

It's good you have a leaving date to work towards and as you say, you can work out the details once the very urgent stuff is finished. The lesson about waiting is a useful one: it's amazing what we assume needs to be fixed 'now' but we can actually find workarounds for.

I hope you can all get some restorative sleep.

stymied

I hope DD had her op and it went well x

Question about Olio as our resident expert - when you request an item and there’s multiple of it in the photo, do you tend to get allocated one or all? I just accidentally got 5 bags of Caesar salad and 5 bags of stir fry veg when I was just after one of each. Thanks

BestnamesRgone

hi stymied, re Olio, if you requested just one of each then that’s what your food waste volunteer should allocate to you. The salad bags and stir fry’s are notoriously hard to shift, so possibly the FWV has offloaded them on to you.

joedenise

@stymied - I would just freeze the stir fry veg as they freeze really well and you can use them when it suits you.

With the Caesar salad could you use some of the salad bits and make a kind of pesto with it a la Jack Monroe - https://oursouthend.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/salad-bag-pesto-9p-vg-v-df-gf/. . It's a very old recipe from her website.

You can also do a side dish with the salad leaves by braising them in a bit of stock with some spring onions and frozen peas.

Hope those ideas are of use.

EatingBeans

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81904191#Comment_81904191

As others have said, they should just give you one bag if that is what you have requested but yes, I often do end up with multiples and just get creative with how to use things up. One tip to limit the offloading is to be sure to specify that you only want one in a message, rather than just requesting an item. 😁

EatingBeans

As it stands, dd1 has still not had her op yet. 😞 Yesterday they got her as far as removing all her jewellery/nail polish and putting her in a gown so she was ready to go at a moments notice but then she got trumped again. At least they told her earlier this time and they actually managed to provide her with a dinner this time. Poor girl is on a new form of starvation diet at the moment as she cannot eat past 2am until they are sure she wont be going for surgery that day. They have at least started giving her stronger painkillers so she is not in so much pain whilst she waits.

As for me, I’ve been so tired I don’t even remember a lot of yesterday. According to dd2 she came downstairs at one point and found me asleep on the sofa with both labradors lying on top of me licking my face and I still didn’t wake up! Poor dogs were probably quite concerned about me because they didn’t even get off to go and great dd2 apparently (until she told them to get off me). 😬

Despite everything I have still had one eye on my finances especially since it is the start of a new month and so many of my direct debits go out in the first few days. I knew I still hadn’t even logged into my new Santander account but direct debits had been moved to it as part of the switch so that became a priority yesterday. So, even in my super tired state I gathered up the paperwork jumped on my laptop and got logged in. Yay, I thought, that went well… My celebration was short lived! To be sure I could still move money around on the go if I had to (always ready to leave for hospital at a moments notice), I thought first things first was to check I could move money in and out from my old current accounts to my new current account. So, I sent £10 in and back out of Santander to each of my other accounts. All good. Then I started working out how much money needed to be in each account at the start of the month. Not having much time I have just gone off last month amounts for now and I am hoping for the best. It should at least give me a few days grace to look at it properly. 🤞 Money needed for Santander was actually on £100 so that went in ok. Then I remembered that a condition of the switch is that I have to pay in £1500. Since it had all worked so well I though I would put £1500 into that account and then move it to where it really needs to be, hopefully ticking that box. Well, moving the money in went fine. Trying to move it out triggered a fraud detection issue and my account was instantly locked with my money now stuck in the wrong account. 😞 So I call the fraud line but that requires you to call from the number which is associated with your account - I can’t do that because that’s the mobile number which gives me ‘Call Failed’ every time I try and dial out! 🤦‍♀️ Cue a rather lengthy conversation with the fraud team trying to convince them I am who I say I am, and I finally get my account unlocked and all sorted. 🎉

Note to self - I REALLY need to sort the phone situation out! I daren’t mess with it at the moment because I’ve already given the hospital two alternative numbers to call to get me and right now that matters most, but as soon as she is out, I have to resolve this bizarre situation where I have one mobile for calls and one for everything else. 🤪

itsthelittlethings

Your debts are nearly all going down so that’s amazing. Holding a thought for your daughter and I hope she has her op and it goes smoothly with an easy recovery.

MayDogsandCoffee

@EatingBeans I am sure there is someone more techie than me to help but I do think you can keep your old number, I change a 'pay as you go sim' for contact sim last year and had a text (if I remember right) to get my old number transposed. Might be worth looking into.

daisy_1571

from the main site

Can I keep my old mobile number if switching provider?

You can easily keep your phone number when switching. Simply text 'PAC' for free to 65075 on any network and you'll be sent your 'porting authorisation code' (PAC) immediately. You give this to your new provider so you can keep your number.

You need to give the switching code to your new provider within 30 days. You'll then be switched within one working day. You won't need to contact your old provider again. If you're still in contract, you could be charged early termination fees for leaving — check how much you'd be charged by sending a text with the word 'INFO' to 85075.

Though the process varies by provider and you may be able to do it on the phone, once you've got your new (temporary) number from your new network, you'll usually then need to fill in an online form which can be found on the provider's site. The number switch takes place the next working day after you give your PAC to the new provider.

If you don't want to keep your number, you still easily switch providers if you don't want to keep you number. It's the same process as the above, but you need to instead text 'STAC' to 75075. You’ll be sent your service termination authorisation code (STAC), which you give to your new provider.