Teetering on the brink

EatingBeans

Well the tails food arrived and I must say I am delighted at just paying £2 for it. I am just mixing it in with my dog’s regular food to pad it out a bit but I am sure it will save me a few quid this month. 👍

And look, new green shoots are emerging in amongst all the dead leaves! 🎉 

I am so pleased as I would have been pretty gutted had I lost all the plants that I have been tending for years. 

dd2’s apple tree is probably in the worst state and still very much touch and go. I decided not to take any branches off it and instead top dressed it to try and keep as much of the moisture in as possible. I just desperately hope it recovers enough to get it through to next spring and if it manages that I suspect it will perk right up again. Sadly, most of its leaves currently look even more dead than those in the photo above. 😬

EatingBeans

Work has just gone insane at this point. I spent almost the entire day just booking in all the meetings I have for one piece of work I am doing over the next month - how I am going to find time to actually do anything is beyond me. And tomorrow I am being handed another super important piece of work which has lots of dependancies on it. I would love to think that it is because they are gearing me up for the promotion but actually it just makes it more important that they leave me where I am. 😞 

To make matters worse a colleague came to me for advice today, not about work but about how she feels she needs to leave her husband and she knew I’d been through a similar situation. The worst bit in all of it is she mentioned that she also went for the same promotion and had her interview last Friday. I felt awful because she clearly doesn’t know I’ve also gone for it (she didn’t ask so I didn’t bring it up), and she was going on about how she really needed the money. Just a year ago I was matrix managing her and she took over from me on that project as they moved me to what I am doing now. It’s just a mess. If she gets the job over me I’ll get very annoyed as I am way more experienced but because she took over from me and I was basically moved to a role less aligned with the promotion, she might have an easier time answering the questions! And if I get it over her, she will probably never speak to me again. 🤷‍♀️ 

I really do wonder why I repeatedly put myself through this process… ah yes, that pesky little thing called debt! 😞

Sunshine_girl2

Just coming out of lurkdom , is there any reason why you haven't defaulted on your non priority debts yet ? £400  in interest a month is an awful lot of money .

EatingBeans

@Sunshine_girl2
Yes, the reason is tied to the house I am living in and the prospect of needing to sell and remortgage. If I default, my credit record will tank for years and getting a new mortgage will be out of the question any time soon. 

It is not a ‘want’ to sell my house, it is a ‘need’ as I suspect my house is subsiding. As it stands, as soon as dd2 goes off to uni I plan to sell up and move, hopefully before subsidence is confirmed or the value will plummet and I will likely be in negative equity and facing the prospect of paying to fix it. (That will no doubt cost more than the many £400pm interest payments I pay for all the months combined) By not defaulting I am leaving the door open to getting a new mortgage, (albeit I have to make a dent in the debt first), and if the house is still sold without the subsidence label then if necessary I will be able to clear the debt with the equity from the house and walk away with a credit record intact so I can effect start again. There are no guarantees other than if I default I know I will be stuck with a house that is high risk and has real potential to cost me a fortune that I don’t have.  

And before anyone says it is awful for me to try and sell a house with subsidence without declaring it, I should point out that I am no expert and the surveyor I paid to check the house said it is just settlement, everything else is here-say. I have my reasons for suspecting  subsidence over settlement and buyers will get their own surveys and make their own decisions on the house at the point of sale. All I know is I want out at the first opportunity and once dd2 has gone to uni I have no reason to even stay in the area so selling makes sense then regardless.

I can’t sell now because if subsidence is picked up on a survey I would have to claim on house insurance to fix it. Going through the house insurance isn’t currently an option as my house insurance company are conveniently no longer able to provide me cover at my renewal so claiming now would mean I would be completely uninsured going forward - no insurance company will insure me if I have literally just started a subsidence claim! No insurance is not an option when I have a mortgage (or I risk being repossessed!), so I am doing the best I can given the situation I find myself in, and I am trusting that I will find a way through it. 

In the meantime I just keep paying the interest and trying to not break under all the stress! 🫣

EatingBeans

Oh and I should point out that the majority of the money I currently owe comes from fixing parts of the house that have I have found to be broken since I moved in. The previous owner rented it out and bodged everything. When I moved in just a few years ago, I had zero debt. 😞

EatingBeans

Another no spend day done! I really fancied a chippy tonight but I resisted. It may be a little thing but at least it is a little thing in the right direction. 🙂

themadvix

Well done for resisting!

EatingBeans

Couldn’t make it a NSD today as I needed to sign up to a new prescription prepayment certificate. Whilst the money hasn’t technically left the account, it still feels like I spent money as I’ve just signed up to pay by direct debit. 

I did seriously consider skipping my medication for a while, but then I remembered how bad the TN was just yesterday when I took dd2 shopping (I literally walked around ALDI as close to the walls/isles as possible just to avoid the air conditioning 🤦‍♀️), and I decided the few quid was worth it for even slightly reduced pain and to be able to sleep. 

I did at least set up the direct debit to my roaming current account ready for when I next try for a switching bonus. I have a few more months yet before I can switch as my regular saver account is currently tied to it but once that period is over it will be bye bye First Direct and on to whoever is willing to pay me to switch. 😁

badmemory

I do my DS's prepayment cert for him.  I do an annual one though.  It is amazing how many lots of 28 days you can manage to get in one certificates time.  Fortunately our doctors don't seem to notice the gap between orders.  I've had mine free for over 40 years but DS has to pay.  Perhaps we should move to Wales or Scotland!

EatingBeans

Woke up this morning and thought I’d just check if my suit still fits me ready for my interview on Tuesday. Er, no, no it does not. 

I then spent over an hour going through all the clothes I have in the house (including hundreds of items in storage) and I have literally nothing that is even close to being decent let alone acceptable for interview. I knew I had put on weight but I had no idea just how much. The suit I wore to my interview prior to my current job (i.e. 3 years ago), is a 12! No way in hell I am squeezing this, now clearly, size 18 body into that. The only time in my life where I was previously an 18 was when I was full on pregnant and about to pop. I recall sitting in the loft nearly 15years ago going through the stored clothes and removing everything that was an 18 because, you know, I will never be that size again. 🤦‍♀️ 

so, the immediate concern is I have nothing to wear for the interview. The bigger concern is I also have nothing I can even squeeze into for when I have to start working in the office again!