13 months to go and counting

Well another weekend looms and it is a five week month. Spoke to son last night and he is happy with baked beans and spaghetti until payday. Plus the yellow ticket items. Made spaghetti and sauce last night I bought a supermarket own label pasta sauce for 35p it was cheaper than a tin of tomatoes and will make 2 meals. With a chopped up lorne sausage in his portion I cooked tea for 2 for less than a £1. I also got a cake for 42p which I cut into 4 so he can have 4 sweets this week. I am so proud of him. It is soul destroying that my teenager has to pay for his parents mistakes so young. But at least when he goes to Uni next year he will be able to live on a shoestring. Our joint shopping bill for a week is £25 now. I saw a colleague from work shopping at the weekend and their bill was £117 the contrast is amazing but the sunny side is that I had a medical at work last week and I am fitter than the average 25 year old it is all the expensive fatty foods I cannot afford. Off to the seaside this weekend. A group of people from church were going and had a spare place and aksed if I would go. Knowing I have no money I don’t have to pay now but can pay a small amount a week until Christmas Son agreed I should go I think it because the grand prix is on so he will be able to watch it in peace. It will be nice to go away even if it is charity and at least I won’t be able to shop. So here is praying for a sunny weekend.

Well it is the beginning of September and Son is back to school. He is so good he realises that he cannot have what his friends have but it makes me feel so mad that he has to pay for my husbands mistakes. It is bad enough that I am paying the IVA for my ex husbands debts. The idiot is now saying I have to ask for the divorce. Yeah hey man he is on social benefits and would get it for free while I am stuck for 13 more payments on this IVA. He has not paid any of it yet although he keeps telling Grant Thornton that he will. I have asked them to review payments for me but they just say that it is too complicated and that the proposal will fail. I get so frustrated. My payments are so frail. It is a 5 week month this month and I cannot see how we are going to eat healthily in the last week. It will be beans on toast but my son is very active as he is doing theatre studies A levels and it is not enough calories for him. Our food bill has had to drop to £15 a week now. The car MOT is due but I have arranged with the landlord that I can park it in the parking space behind the flat until January when payment holidays in Council tax and insurance kick in. I dread Christmas. We have no contingency savings now it went on the bus pass to get him to school and he paid for all his clothes he bought this time. He did get a job over the summer but the pay was not good. We have managed to buy a full year bus pass this time so no worrying after Christmas whether we have the money. But I will now have to factor in £15 a week in bus fares to work rather than the £7.50 in diesel. Why was I never given financial education in School. When your marriage fails you get conselling when your financial life fails you have to bumble along. I am getting to the end of my tether here. 13 months to the end and then that is only if I can remortgage the house which I cannot live in and my husband will not let me sell. At least I have never defaulted on the mortgage which again he has never paid. If the rent is paid tomorrow I can pay the IVA if it is not I cannot. I will have to ring GT today and ask how to pay a reduced payment. I hate being a beggar my gran used to say don’t borrow money I wish my husband had listened to her and why does the fact we are married mean I have to pay. No that was a rhetorical question I know the answer I just don’t like it. Well 13 payments left hopefully 12 after this week.

Am I the only one who finds weekends a pain when you have an IVA. Everywhere you go someone wants money or it costs you to go. I am at the stage where I know how much it costs to run my car by the inch. The only place I can go cheaper by public transport is blackpool and I don’t want to go there. My work colleagues think I am strange as I would rather be in work than out, but at least I cannot spend moneywhen I am there. My daughter who lives away from home finds my supermarket jaunts hilarious as I only go yellow ticket shopping and get quite disappointed when people buy the product just as it is getting reduced full price. In 6 months I have never paid more than 25p for a loaf of bread but we have no choice in what we buy. But only 13 payments to go and then I am going to have the oat and seed loaf (if it still exists!) and enjoy it. At least I had £17 in my bank account before my pay went in only issue is that this month is a 5 weekend month and school starts.