Bad Month.
Tuesday 30th September, 2008 - £7,899.83 in debt…
Over the last few weeks, my financial situation has gone from bad to worse and has made me feel a bit despondent. In fact, the only thing that’s made me more emotional all month was the Pride of Britain awards. Now that I’ve stopped howling at the moon (”he threw himself ON TOP of the grenade! And he didn’t even go to hospital! OH MY GOD!”), I’ve managed to compile a list of the month’s successes and failures. The first list didn’t take long.
Whoop! Whoop! Success!
1) I managed to wangle a month’s free Amazon delivery through Amazon Prime, cancelled the payment as soon as I thought of it, and wasn’t charged. At last - a company that doesn’t try to steal from me.
2) I started work for AQA and made £328.80 in my first month, which isn’t bad for a sideline.
3) Rather than donating money to charities, I’ve been clicking on TheHungerSite every day and taken some food, blankets and empty printer cartridges to my local rescue home.
4) I’ve spoken to the boss at my temping job about working from home, and we’ve come to an agreement. This means that, as of this week, I’ve got a weekly wage coming in again. Hooray.
Aaaaargh! Failure.
1) I’ve paid off almost nothing. Although my usual minimum credit card payments have gone through (phew!), I haven’t been able to pay off any extra and I’ve even started using the Tesco credit card again. And, because the month hasn’t gone well, I’ve slipped into old habits of not opening my card statements. Luckily, I’m doing this blog so I had to do it eventually.
2) I still haven’t got an E.ON switch date! That’s nine weeks now! Time for an angry phone call, I think.
3) Barclaycard has raised my credit limit to a stupid amount without asking me. It wouldn’t be so annoying if I wasn’t so tempted…
4) Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be picking up anyone’s dropped coins off the street, as it’s occurred to me that I don’t actually walk anywhere these days and there aren’t many discarded pennies inside my car. Perhaps a bit of a lifestyle-change is required next month, but can I really go without my lovely Matiz?
5) I’ve had a minor wrangle with PayPal. I hate PayPal. PayPal must die.
Buh? Don’t know yet.
1) Now I’m thinking that booking the holiday to Prague might not have been such a good idea. I’m still looking forward to it, and the return flight cost me less than £70, but I’ve still got to book the hotel and get some spending money together…
2) I’ve started entering as many competitions as I can fit into my hectic schedule but I haven’t won anything yet.
So, there you have it: It’s not even Christmas yet and I’ve already had a really awful month. I might send a question to AQA: Would it be easier for me to (a) throw myself on a grenade and survive, or (b) get back on top of my debts?
PS. AQA will be featured on the Graham Norton Show, tonight at 10pm on BBC2, but you’ll have to sit through Travis if you’re going to watch it. And Graham Norton. Sorry.
Olivia waits patiently…
Tuesday 30th September, 2008 - £7,926.83 in debt…
So, I’ve gone against PayPal’s wishes and cancelled the unauthorised transactions. Ha. That will teach them.
Well, I might incur ten small fees, but at least I’ll have stood my ground.
You’ll remember that, on Friday, I discovered that ten PayPal transactions, totalling about £80, were about to be taken from my bank account without my permission. To cut a long story short, PayPal told me that these transactions would be refunded eventually, but if I tried to stop them going through in the first place, I’d have to pay a fine for each separate returned transaction. I wasn’t too happy about this.
I spoke to the Financial Ombudsman yesterday morning, and they seemed pretty shocked that I’d been told not to cancel the transactions. My phone call was recorded as an official complaint, which PayPal will have to address within the next couple of weeks. Watch this space.
When I discussed the whole thing with Barclays, they agreed that I should cancel the transactions but the only way I could do this would be to cancel my PayPal Direct Debit, which I did.
Now all I can do is sit and wait, on the edge of my seat, for PayPal to respond to my complaint. Well, I might make the odd cup of tea and pop to the toilet every now and then - I do have a life, you know.
