In one hand out the other

The story of my life really. The starter motor was going on my car, bought the parts myself (saving £30) and local garage fitted along with a full service, £200 on the car. That's okay, however garage noticed I may have a cambelt problem, can't find anything in the service history to suggest it's ever been changed, this car is 7 years old, done 78,000 miles.

After a bit of research I realise I have to have this done otherwise it's the end of the road, literally. Quoted £250, coming to terms with it. It's a lot of money, that I can afford without going into the EF or putting it on a card. Just that car tax is due next month aswell.

Cahoot have received my first letter re PPI, this morning I receive an email from them telling me that the policy for my insurance on my loan ( I don't have the loan or policy anymore !) is available via the website etc etc. Is this a mass mailing and coincidence or a response to my letter ? I know they are tough nuts to crack on PPI and I'm sure this one will go to the FSA.

My printer hates me, it refuses to accept any colour cartridge I put in it. I don't have a good relationship with printers. This one is 18 months old.

Aside from these little blips I'm doing okay snowflaked £150 extra on to my debts last week and staying focussed, these little things won't push me under again.

Frittering

This week I've made a silly mistake and an assumption that knocked my budget sideways.

My current account has a glamourous name like 'Gold' account from a well known High Street bank. I've been with them 23 years and have a good relationship with them - out of which they have obviously profitted. One nice little earner they have from me is this Gold account, if I use the OD facility I get charged £12. Well this month I'm in it up to the hilt, the charges plus interest are due out this week, £20 out the window. My silly mistake was forgetting this.

My assumption - some of my cashback would be in my account this month. Nope, not due until next month. £50 short.

I really have to get on the ball with where my pennies are going.

Update on reclaiming PPI. Neither bank that I requested the documents from have sent them this week. So the letters are going off anyway. Considering the MSE site is down this morning (due to a whole program on reclaiming PPI was on prime time TV last night) I think the sooner the better.

A bit of blog browsing turned up this post this morning, Paying Down Debt By The Penny by PaidTwice . I love the quote about frittering.

Reclaiming PPI

Here's a thing - I had a loan from 2001 to 2006 with a well known UK bank that has had a lot of people queuing outside their branches recently until the UK Government agreed to to help them out.

The loan was originally a consolidation loan and had I stuck to frugal ways when I first took it out I would now be debt free. Anyway that's neither here nor there, but some parrallel universe that I didn't see the signpost for !

Now I hear the reclaim your PPI thing is kicking off and I'm going for it ! Got the template letters, got the orginal agreements and T & C's on their way so here we go. I believe I was misold the PPI over the phone to enhance my chances of the loan approval. This could work out to be over £2000.

For info on reclaiming your PPI check the MSE website:

PPI Reclaiming Guide

PPI Reclaiming Discussion

PPI Reclaiming Successes and Failures

Add to that I also have a 'flexible loan' with a division of Abbey/Santander, the only thing flexible about it is how high the interest rate has risen from an original 7.9% to 19.9%. Again I'm paying PPI on it which I don't recall asking for or being advised about. That's £30.99 a month.
I phoned them yesterday, cancelled it and can now start to pay the actual loan off.

The next step is my Next account, there is no visible PPI on any of the statements, am I being charged PPI ? All I can see is a service charge.

Once again if you dob't ask, you don't get.