ANY help would be gratefully received. Desperate times

angelavdavis

jue3107 wrote: »

Some good news at last. Have arranged payment holiday on the mortgage for next month so that''s £876 off my credit card and have changed to interest only which reduces the mortgage by £200!!! )
!!

Well done you - it will cost you a bit more in the long term, but at least it takes the pressure off.

jue3107 wrote: »

Unfortunately, I haven't got any old ones that are worth anything as they are usually battered by the time I've finished with them - clumsy!!

Even if they are not in saleable condition, organisations such as Envirofone will pay for mobiles (even ones that aren't in working condition) as they use the parts to refurb other ones to sell onto third world countries. http://www.envirofone.com/index1.asp

They even send you a freepost envelope to send them in. I have just got £30 for one of my old ones that was in (just) working order.

jue3107

Thanks - well I've got a couple of slightly battered old ones so I'll have a look on their website.

jue3107

I thought I would post my updated SOA. Still got loads to do, but it feels so good to see what I've achieved so far on here )

OUTGOINGS
Mortgage £875.43 - £680
Council Tax £91.00 Paid for each of 10 months
Buildings & Contents Insurance £33.00
Gas & Electric £96.00
Water Bill £19.75
Telephone Bill & Broadband £46.00
Mobile Phone £25.00 - £15
TV Licence £11.37
Life Assurance £14.56
Life Assurance £10.00
Loan £287.39
Interest Free Credit (Bed) £48.67 - Paying this off tomorrow
Tesco Master Card £171.00
Virgin Credit Card £142.00
Petrol £40.00
Food £120.00

INCOME
Child Maintenance £309.00
Salary £1374.83
Children's Tax Credit £37.38
Child Benefit £72.40

Total Incomings £1793.61
Total Outgoings £1771.51

SURPLUS £22.10

angelavdavis

Hi Jue,

Remind me again why you have two life policies?

Thanks

benbenandme

Just come across this thread and having read it all I'm really pleased you now have a surplus again each month :beer: Have you signed up to all the survey sites online? Have a look on the Up Your Income board for ideas for making a few more pennies from home, none of it will make you rich instantly but the surveys provide a bit of extra cash or vouchers which may help towards birthdays / xmas or treats for you and your son

Its amazing how much extra money can be generated through things like surveys sites / mystery shopping / aqa / ebay / bingo etc ... all things I knew nothing about until I found this site

Good luck with your dfw journey and keep posting

jue3107

angelavdavis wrote: »

Hi Jue,

Remind me again why you have two life policies?

Thanks

Hi Angela

The £14.56 policy was a top up from when we increased the mortgage 10 years ago - Standard Life - but it's a weird one as it has no surrender value at all. We had about 5 policies in total and they have all been surrender apart from that one so we thought it made more sense to keep it running as joint policy for £14.56 (ex husband pays half) per month and thought it would cost us a lot more in the future to get the equivalent cover.

The other one is purely a death policy - ex husband and I had one each - taken out probably 10+ years ago just to make sure that we were more than covered - £55k death benefit. I've also got a very good local government pension.

To be honest I'm unsure whether to just leave them as they are, as £17.28 a month doesn't seem a lot in the scheme of things. I'm now 39 and not in brilliant health so even travel insurance is a nightmare to sort out.

jue3107

benbenandme wrote: »

Just come across this thread and having read it all I'm really pleased you now have a surplus again each month :beer: Have you signed up to all the survey sites online? Have a look on the Up Your Income board for ideas for making a few more pennies from home, none of it will make you rich instantly but the surveys provide a bit of extra cash or vouchers which may help towards birthdays / xmas or treats for you and your son

Its amazing how much extra money can be generated through things like surveys sites / mystery shopping / aqa / ebay / bingo etc ... all things I knew nothing about until I found this site

Good luck with your dfw journey and keep posting

Thanks. I've signed up for mystery shopping and had a good one over the half term holiday which kept son and I enjoyably occupied for a whole afternoon without costing any money other than the initial outlay - they paid the expenses and fees within 5 days which was brilliant.

I'll definitely have a look at the board you've mentioned though. I've also signed up to pigsback, quidco and a couple of other cashback sites. I didn't know about the survey sites - do they pay you for completing them then?

Thanks again
Jue

HP_Guy

Just a small one - I think earlier you mentioned considering getting rid of the landline, but not wanting to lose broadband. A few of the mobile companies are offering broadband on their networks starting at around £10 a month - no landline required and a decent allowance for general surfing of the MSE boards! That could be another £36

jue3107

That's a good point - thanks. I'll have a look at that one too )

benbenandme

Yeah the survey sites pay you for completeing them ... mind you, its normally pennies rather than pounds, but they add up over the course of the year, last year I paid for most of my christmas presents with money and vouchers earned from surveys. They can be tedious sometimes and they won't make you millions but it is something you can do while watching corrie for example, so ins't too time consuming Have a look on the up your income board or the referrers board. Don't join any though that as you for a fee, the ones most if us use on here are free to join, they should be paying you rather than the other way round