Dear Diary - help me be Debt Free

beanielou

Just take it easy hun & have a fab relaxing time while you are away.

Lucifa73

Morning all! having a lovely relaxing time with my family this Xmas. Hubbles managed to spoil me rotten as usual as have Mum and Dad. The Wii has been a big hit with Hubbles and Dad and the Guitar Hero is already a firm favourite:j - think Dad might be buying a Wii of his own very shortly:rolleyes:

NOt much on the agenda for the coming week. More relaxing, a jolly to Wales (HUbbles has never been to Wales and once he has visited can check off all the main bits of the UK:p ) good food and gallons more fruit juice:rolleyes: .

We head back to Paisley on Saturday. Just hoping we can get everything back in the car! The cat has been brilliant the whole time and settled really quickly. Even the journey was relatively easy. We got a spray that people who show cats use when transporting their little darlings and it seemed to help him keep calm without resorting to meds which is great.

I don't know if you remember I told you my friend Suz was due in mid-Jan? Well she had her little baby boy 3 weeks early on 22 Dec! What a brilliant early Xmas present! Her waters broke at 5pm (in Markies which is very appropriate for her:rotfl: ) and at 9.48pm Blair James was in his Mum's arms:D

Anyway, that's all my news at present. Need to update finances when we get home but I think we're on track this year for me to clear my O/D and for one of the joint loans to be paid off in full. Added to that NR gave us a very nice Xmas present of a 1.5% cut in our mortgage rate and we have 2 months off paying council tax so the next couple of months will be good MSE months:T

Chat later
Luc xxx

beanielou

Glad that you have had such a relaxing time!
Spookey about your friend~ my DS was early by 4 four weeks & has the same name!!! DS knows hes in bother when I call him BJ:rotfl:

Lucifa73

Hurrah:j Finished 2008 with my main current account in credit:j :j :j

Even better - according to my budget I should have about £500 left in the account at the end of January so can completely clear Xmas spends from Egg card, as I had hoped, and if Feb leaves same surplus can get rid of overdraft too. That leaves me a full pay and a half before basic SMP kicks in which I will put into savings account to give cushioning to maternity leave so we can go out and about with Bean without having to worry about how to pay for it all:j

beanielou

Wow, fab news hun.
Not long til mat leave now?

Lucifa73

beanielou wrote: »

Wow, fab news hun.
Not long til mat leave now?

Nope - last day is a week on Friday. So looking forward to being able to 'nest' and get the baby room sorted - so long as I don't do what my mate did and give birth on day one of my maternity leave:rolleyes:

Lucifa73

Hmmm.

As noted below I expect to have around £500 left at the end of the month

Do I
a) - pay a chunk of it (I'm thinking £300) off against overdraft
b) - pay a chunk of it off Egg card and balance when the next pay cheque arrives
c) - nothing until the end of the month



edit - went for option a) for several reasons - interest rate is highest on this account, can access cash if I need it for any reason, brings me within £200 of getting rid of the fcuker

beanielou

gOOD DECISION HUN!

Lucifa73

Can't believe I am halfway to being on maternity leave:eek: :j

Hopefully I'll get a bit of time off to myself before Bean makes an appearance, unlike Suz who had her little boy on day 1 of her leave (good planning though eh?)

Have managed to sort everything out as far as possible. Only thing that is p'ing me off is that I need to be below earnings threshhold for 3 months before I can defer paying student loan even though I know already that I will note be able to afford to make payments and have advised them of this upfront. When I said to the girl on the phone 'so I have to run up an overdraft and incur fees for 3 months before you'll let me defer payment' she simply said yes, that's how the system works. Seems ridiculous that I can't preempt the position by fillin gin a form and showing them my MATB1 like I've done for mortgage ... Foryunately I have managed to build up a buffer of cash to cover the 3 months but what if I wasn't in a position to do that - do they expect people to pay them in priority to feeding their baby? :mad:

Anyway, rant over and it is the only problem I've had so I guess I should be grateful. Just need to work out what I need to do re tax credits now... Fairly sure we won't have any entitlement given Hubbles' salary but apparently I should file a protective claim just in case

angelfairy

Hi Luc,

Not stalking promise , but nice to see you. Missing you over on the preg. thread.

Glad to see you ended 2008 with your current account in credit.

You sound extremely organised for maternity leave, puts me to shame