It's getting brighter

What a year we are having so far – been the worst for a long time and I wonder what else can go wrong.

We had the problems with money at the beginning of the year due to boiler repairs and the wedding which we did get sorted. Since then we did have happier news with the birth of Hazel May who, thankfully, is a very good baby!! Those of you who are friends on Facebook will have seen pictures of her and she is now smiling!!

I have been temporarily banned from posting due to someone taking exception to posts from myself and a couple of other posters. Somehow they managed to get hold of my work details and made a complaint which is still ongoing.

The good news is that Harpic has joined the forum!!! My husband has long lurked in the background whilst I have been posting and decided he would post. At least we are still very much a presence on here.

I have been totally gutted by not being able to post – this forum has been a lifeline for both of us and will continue to be so.

I fully intend to be back in the not too distant future to continue helping those who are in the same position I was a few years ago.

Fingers crossed that this year now improves!!

Just wanted to post a tribute to Ray Scollen who was known as Wizzzard on the forum. It was originally the proper spelling but something went wrong with the spelling so it was relaunched with a tripple Z!

Ray joined the forum when he was starting on his IVA journey, he wasn’t sure what he was doing but he persevered with it, even when he had problems and had to take the odd payment break. The forum was always with him, some of us were friends on the forum, facebook and beyond.

It was only because Lisa209 and myself posted on his wall on Facebook that we found out that he had sadly passed away.

He will be missed on the forum and by his friends – his jokes made us laugh over the years.

Sadly missed Ray – never got to meet you, wished I’d had the opportunity.

Rest in peace.

Thought it was about time that I updated my blog again as it’s been so long (once again!!) since I did. I hadn’t realised that the last entry was after the Christmas Do!!!

What can I say? Another Christmas has come and gone, our fourth since being in an IVA and once again my vouchers from the online surveys proved a godsend as most people had those as presents. Bit of a glitch over New Year as husband and my parents fell out!!! Things are OK now though thankfully!

It’s been a busy time of it in our family as daughter had announced in September that she and her fiancé were expecting a baby. Not overly impressed by the news as I don’t really do kids any more and they have nowhere of their own to live and they’re not earning a lot of money between them. Thankfully they can split their time between our house and his house so child care will be taken care of when she goes back to work towards the end of the year. I, thankfully, will be at work for most of the day!!!

The next bombshell they dropped on us was that they wanted to get married before the baby was born so we basically had three months in which to organise a wedding. They didn’t want a quiet registry office wedding either, it had to be a church one. You can imagine the dismay we felt as we had no idea how we were going to help fund this.

This is where family came into their own. My stepdaughter and her new boyfriend paid for the wedding dress as he runs a wedding business. I used some of my saved up allowances to pay for the bridesmaids dresses and three tiara’s from the same source. They bought their own shoes. My outfit consisted of a dress which was on sale in M&S, some ankle boots I’d had for a couple of years (bought for the ill-fated Christmas do of 2010!) and never worn – a fascinator and furry jacket I got from Ebay – cost me the princely sum of £53.75!!!

There was a moment of panic when we had a get together with the fiancé’s parents to discuss the reception (we had no choice on the venue) and were told (after they’d said that they were paying for it) that we were funding it and it was going to cost a fortune!!!!! The hall was £50 an hour plus the cost of the food and the cost of an evening buffet and a DJ!!! Must admit that we were nearly suicidal that night and the next day. His parents have no idea of our financial problems and that’s the way I want it to remain. Anyway, I believe that daughters brother-in-law and mother-in-law had a go on their way back home and the following day we had a phone call to say we didn’t have to pay for that. What a huge relief it was!!

Parents helped out with funding and a very good friend of ours paid for their wedding rings. We managed, with Christmas money and the savings from the Terramundi jar (which was going to fund a night away for me and hubby on our silver wedding anniversary!) to book one wedding car and fund the evening buffet with an excellent local firm. One of our good friends who lives just up the road from us is an amateur photographer and he offered to take the photographs for free which was brilliant news. The pictures are great as well as those of you who are friends on Facebook will have seen.

 Just to back track to the end of last year, we’d got all the stress of the wedding to contend with and then the boiler started playing up!! Had to take a payment break, our first one since being in the IVA and it was a bit of a struggle to get it agreed but we managed to get it sorted and have to pay it back over the next twelve months. Then hubby got his new tax code through for next year – as he has now gone onto state pension rather than benefits then the amount of tax he pays will go up and his tax code has now come down to 390!!! We have no idea how this, plus the rise in pension contributions for me will impact on our payments. It’s a worrying time.

Anyway, the wedding went off very well, despite the snow the night before!!!! Hubby was out clearing the road on the day of the wedding to make sure that the wedding car could get down the road and that I could get up as I was taking the bridesmaids and photographer in our car!!! We managed it though.

Since then my health has not been the best with stomach problems and a very bad back. Have to have a steroid injection next week but hopefully I will be fit to go back to work soon.

Sorry about the novel – didn’t realise I had so much to catch up on!!!! 

Hopefully this year will improve now as it seems to be throwing stuff at us we could do without!!!

Will more than likely blog again when the baby arrives.

I do an awful lot of online surveys which, whilst time consuming, do yield results and if you let points build up over the year it can yield dividends in savings around Christmas time.  This year I have claimed over £200 in vouchers for various sites which has funded a few presents and a decent spend in Tesco when coupled with their own vouchers.

Anyway, a lot of posters ask if I can let them have the details  which I am happy to supply but I thought I would post the links I have in a blog so that they can check the sites out for themselves and I will update with any others I get.

Hopefully the links will work, if not though at least you have the websites to check out and sign up to.

http://www.globaltestmarket.com/

 http://www.valuedopinions.co.uk/about/

 http://my.yougov.com/

 https://www.opinion-people.com/index.php?csite=2&SES=1f61ea31e64e404e4ca12589ea2edb2f

 http://www.iap-interactive.com/Winatripforjoining/tabid/170/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

 http://www.consumerpulse.co.uk/

 https://www.opinionoutpost.com/

 http://portal.justtheanswer.co.uk/communities/default.aspx?p=p16654636

 http://uk.toluna.com/registertol.aspx?bn=2&rgid=1839b94d-873a-4881-8e9d-677f3b108a3a&rsid=&rcid=

 Hope this helps but if there are any problems, let me know via the forum.

I can’t believe, once again, that it is so long since I updated my blog!!!

 IVA continues ok at the moment but we will be hitting a few snags soon but that’s a whole new blog!!

 Last weekend saw another Frugal Friends Christmas meeting, my third since finding the forum. There would have been one last year but the weather was against us so it was cancelled.

 This year was booked at the Travelodge in Northampton with a meal at the Toby Carvery attached to it so we could have a sit down meal rather than a buffet.

 Once again, many thanks to Melanie Giles for funding the evening, especially as she couldn’t be there. She was missed.

There were fifteen of us who attended – myself and my hubby, Tracey and her fiance, Lesley and her husband, luluj and her husband, Roadrunners (Michelle and Kevin), djw and his lovely son Jordan, Skeef and last, but not least, Andy and his wife Bev.

 It was great to meet up with old friends again and also to make some new ones. It’s amazing how we all get on so well considering we’ve never met in the flesh before.

 The evening got off to a dramatic start when one of the barmaids fell and knocked herself out!!! I think she was ok but was taken to hospital for a check up.

 Wasn’t impressed that we weren’t allowed to open a tab behind the bar so poor Andy had to go out and find a cashpoint to get money to buy the drinks!!!! Stupid thing is that we were able to open a tab for the meal!!!

The meal…………….what can I say? Mediocre would be about the best we could say. Meat was tough, veg not good and you had to hunt to find the gravy!!!! As for dessert – luluj will tell you that her Eton Mess was just that, a total mess with very little meringue!!! Rhubarb crumble was cold and custard for it was served in the same sort of bowl as the pudding – where on earth did that come from? Many complaints were made and I believe there was some sort of reduction but not a lot. Unfortunately I was ill later in the evening so made my excuses and went to bed.

 We thought the evening meal was bad? Breakfast was even worse!!!! Not out on time, food was cold and the baked beans were burned!!!!! Needless to say everyone in the restaurant complained and none of us had to pay.

 All in all, not one of our better Christmas get togethers food and location wise, so I think next year a room and a buffet will be better so that we can all mingle rather than be sitting at different tables.

 I’d like to say the weather was kind but although we had no snow, the fog was quite bad.

 I felt awful that the food was so bad, as I was the one organising it but I think everyone had a good time anyway.

 Next year will be different!!

 The poor blog section does seem to have had some problems recently!  Thankfully I saved my last entry so I’ll post it again as I have nothing else new to report at the moment. 

It’s been a while since I posted. I think I find that the longer the IVA goes on now, the less I find to post about, especially as the IVA has been going well. I think a lot of posters find this.

The 16^th July saw the second FF summer do at my house. Could not believe how the weather changed in twenty four hours! On the Friday night it was gorgeous. Saturday morning the heavens opened and it was torrential rain!

Unfortunately some people were unable to come because of the weather and problems with baby sitters.

Those of us that came had a fantastic time though and it was good to see Mel and Andy and his wife again and to meet some brilliant new friends, nepensioner, chas.m and his wife and Pauld172. A big thanks once again to Melanie for funding it.

We’re now looking forward to the Christmas Do which is booked for 19^th November in Northampton. A fair few people have booked already which is brilliant!! A mixture of oldtimers and newbies. Really looking forward to it. Again, thanks to Mel for supplying the food and drinks. 

The IVA continues to run smoothly at the moment although I am getting more and more worried about what is going to happen when hubby goes onto state pension rather than the benefits he is getting now. Who knows what is going to happen? Something to sort out with the IP and I will update the forum and my blog when I know what is going on. 

We have come so far now, I hope we can sort something out.

The 36^th payment has left our account today so that’s officially three years in. Whilst I think time is starting to drag a little now, when I look back it seems to have flown by!   Wish I could feel more positive about it though.  I know we are not struggling as much as some posters but it seems to be going on forever!

We have been lucky so far – no major appliances have needed replacing and the car hasn’t needed a lot of major work doing to it, just tyres really which my parents paid for as a Christmas present a couple of years ago!  They’ve also just paid for us to have artificial grass laid in the back garden – it looks great, much better than the green algae and tufts of grass left after a couple of hard winters and three dogs! This is guaranteed for 10 years.

My stepdaughter is now well on the way to an IVA with Mel and her company – I do hope she gets accepted and and realises that she has to pull her belt in!

 I’d like to think that we are well over halfway now. Unfortunately I think that because of the equity release we have now officially reached the halfway mark. Can’t mark it on my avatar unless I change the date of acceptance but I think I would get too depressed if I changed it now – far rather wait until I come to the end of the five years and then change it so that it shows twelve payments left!

The forum continues to go from strength to strength. We have new mentors who have been with us for a long time now and deserve the recognition. We have a lot of new posters as well and I’m proud to be able to help them on their way. There have been so many posters that I have seen come and go that have been able to sort out their IVA with our help.

 I am friends with so many people now on and off forum (love seeing people on facebook so I know who I am talking to!)  Have met a lot of them as well.  Don’t know of too many forums where that happens.

 FF this summer looks to be the best one yet! Lots of people have expressed an interest in coming and I know some have made a firm booking at local hotels. I am really looking forward to it.

I’m proud to be part of this forum.

What a week I have had! From looking at my countdown to retirement on my calendar which was due to change to three figures rather than four in the next couple of weeks, I may well have to add a couple of thousand days on!

 I’m a public sector worker and have paid into a final salary pension scheme for years and was looking forward to being able to retire in just under three years time when I hit the big 60.

 Now the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little dimmer (I think the bulb is on its way out!) and the tunnel has not only been extended but it’s been partially bricked up as well!

 If the recommendations from the Hutton report get accepted there is a good chance that I won’t be able to retire until I am 63 and I really do not think I will be capable of doing the job I do at that age. I’m already forgetful now so lord knows what will happen by 2016!

 Not only that but I will be taking what can only amount to a pay cut after the Winsor report on public sector pay.

 It has really got to me this week – I’m normally quite positive but can see that our IVA may hit the skids in the next few months and I’m not sure if we will be able to afford to carry on.

 If only we had taken further advice when we first got into debt and done an IVA then – we would have been almost finished by now instead of having at least two, and more likely three years to go.

 My biggest fear is losing my home – we’ve lived here for 22 years now and I really don’t want to leave but if the IVA fails then bankruptcy is the only thing left for us.

Next week I’m off to a workshop on ‘Managing Stress’ – let’s hope it helps me be more positive.

 Sorry about the doom and gloom but I had to let it out somewhere and don’t want to worry my hubby until I have to!

It’s been almost three years since we started the IVA. At times it seems to have slowly but then I sit here looking back and start wondering where on earth the time has gone!

Had a phone call at the beginning of the week to make arrangements for our annual review, something I always dread even though I know it is routine.

We checked and double checked our I&E – things have gone up so much, petrol in particular, however having looked at our figures I did wonder if they would be accepted. As I said to hubby though – we give them these figures, it isn’t as though we don’t spend them – they can only say no.

The appointed time came………and went! No call! About fifteen minutes later though the phone rang and she couldn’t have been more apologetic. We went through the figures and the only thing I wasn’t allowed to increase was meals at work. That I can cope with. The fuel and food rises were fine. She even asked if we were happy maintaining the IVA payments at the level they are! The devil in me wanted to say ‘no, I’d prefer to pay nothing at all’ but didn’t know if she would have a sense of humour or not!

Yesterday we had the confirmation letter saying that our payments will remain the same and just requesting payslips and a P60 (which of course we don’t have yet and I’ve never actually sent off before!)

To those who haven’t yet experienced an annual review or waiting for this years, it’s not as bad as you think and you know that a further 12 months has gone and you are closer to the end of your IVA.

Our problems will start at the end of the year when hubby officially becomes an old git and his income will be halved. Not looking forward to having to sort that out but our company don’t want to look at it at the moment so we’ll carry on as we are.

I’d like to think we only had two more years to go but in reality it will involve an extra one as we won’t get a remortgage so I think I can say that we are halfway through now.

Still love to see those months counting down in my avatar though!

Just to let everyone know that Topsy is now back to her normal self thank goodness!

It was a worry yesterday, more because she was so ill – I’d have sorted the money out from somewhere if I’d had to.

Thankfully it seems that I won’t have to.

Sorry for blogging about that but I did feel the need to write it down somewhere as I was so worried about her.