Sass' 2008 DFW ramble thread

Sassamac

YAY happy dance! :j

Two good bits of news to report this afternoon.
DH has persuaded his temp job to keep him on for 2 - 3 weeks to work on a big project. Typical of my hubby to persuade them to turn 2-3 days work into 2-3 weeks! So we're looking at about £200 bring home pay per week, which isnt far short of the average he was bringing home from the last job.

The meeting with the TC advisor was really helpful. He explained the figures in the paperwork, and then phoned them to query the back payment. He mentioned that we had got into debt as a direct result of the underpayment (I worked out that since DH got made redundant 10 months ago, our debts have risen by about 4k. The tax credit underpayment only dates back to June, because we didnt claim straight away, but according to my calculations come to 2.5 - 3k, so is pretty much proprtional.) He asked if they would be able to do an 'early release' and they said they should. So he said if it hasn't appeared in the next couple of weeks to call them and chase the payment.
Obviously because of the change of income which has occured with DH losing his job this week, its only an estimate, but the figure they quoted was £2375. Ironically thats almost exactly how OD we are atm. When it finally comes through I suspect I will have never been so glad to see £0 in my bank accounts.

I wanted to do a new SOA in view of the new TC payments, but given that our income is totally up in the air after the next 3 weeks, its a tad pointless. But on the basis of the income going down by £30 per week, but the TC's going up by £75 per week, we'll have an extra £45 per week to play with. Even if that means paying £45 off each CC (one each week) on top of the minimumum payments this month, its all good progress.

Sassamac

OK, I've updated my sig with my final grocery challenge details, and set it up for the March challenge. c&p just for the record.
Mar Grocery Challenge £0 / £120 (4 wks) (to date) Feb GC £124.45 / £125. Jan GC £148.00 / £150
Cant wait to update the rest of my sig at the end of the month, with my DFD and debt totals.

So a 25p spend on bread today, which leaves me 26p in the food budget and 29p in the non-food budget to spare. Cut it a bit fine but we survived.

Sassamac

I should probably change my profile 'location' I am now not so much 'Up !!!!!! creek without a paddle' as hmmm, I guess 'up !!!!!! creek with a paddle', which is infinitely better. Its going to be a long hard sh!tty journey, but at least we're no longer stuck.

Keeping_Positive

Wow Congratulations on your update

1) excellent news about TC and your hubbys temp job

2) Im really amazed at how you have stuck to your food budget. With the extra income you should be getting Im sure your DFD will tumble.

Sassamac

thanks Wendy.
TBH I'm good with food shopping and cooking and have been living the OS lifestyle to an extent for a long time, before I discovered this website. I was spending about £220 per month, but that included clothes and things for the kids too (they have a lot of Tesco and Sainsburys underwear, pj's, t-shirts etc.), So its just a matter of tweaking what I was doing, and setting myself a target. I feel that the food budget is the one I have the most control over, so its the one I make sure I stick to. And at the moment Im using up the freezers leftovers so it helps that I dont need to buy much meat.

Sassamac

Just contributed my aims for March to that thread, so here they are:

stick to my £120 March Grocery Challenge target,
pay off both OD's (with the TC's backpayment),
make an extra payment on both the expensive CC's,
join quidco
do comparisons on all utilities and insurances,
do a 'nearly new sale' or two, aim to make £50 from each after costs,
get DH a permanent job or at least an ongoing one with an agency,
do a new SOA with revised income from new job and new corrected TC's (which will change again when DH gets a new job)
arrange to pay council tax (when we get the new bill) and water monthly rather than over 10 and 8m respectively.

Sassamac

ooh forgot to mention, we had the water bill through this week. From memory its £269 for the year and they want £33 per month for 8 months starting from April, so if we can spread it over 12 months instead it will be around £22 per month.

lauradora

good to see that you hot OH job sorted. your doing really well. I'm not sorted for march yet off to do that now........

Sassamac

lauradora wrote: »

I'm not sorted for march yet off to do that now........

nor was I til read the aims for March thread and decided Id better find some!

Sassamac

DH had a job interview this morning. It sounded like it went really well. They have one other person to interview on Monday then will let the winner know, but thats it 2 candidates, so he stands a fair chance.
Apparently salary is dependant on experience so they are going to work it out, but during the interview they kept asking him if he had experience of this that and the other and the answer was repeatedly yes. Depends who he's up against though I guess.

As its the last of the month and a CC minimum payment has come out today, Ive updated my snowball. At first, because we are really OD on our current acc, it added a month to our DFD upto 62 months. But then I figured a way to make it more representative of our actual debt as a whole. Because the snowball doesnt account for savings, and because we have £500 in there this month, compared to about £25 last month, it doesnt show a true picture. So I offset the amount in savings against the OD and it knocked 4 months off so its down to 58 now!