One Bad Week (you have to laugh, right? *cries*)

Posted By Laura in #New!, Family Finance, In the Home | 0 comments

It started on Monday when I realised that No.1 son was heading off to college in jeans that are more rip than jean. I mean, we’re not talking a little socially-acceptable slice of knee showing. No no. The boy loves to longboard. And his jeans are his buffer. We’re talking verging on indecent, and no doubt uncomfortably chilly in the breeze.

Two pairs of jeans for Mr 6’2″ 17yr old – bye-bye £65 (and that was in the sale).

Then on Tuesday I pulled off the drive and realised that the small black spot on the block paving had been growing for a while. And it’s where I always park my car. So a trip to the garage is needed to find out where the oil leak is coming from. Frankly, it’s not a massive spot, so I’m ignoring it this week.

And then Wednesday we decided it was finally time to tackle that damp spot on the corner of the house that had been caused by the overflowing downpipe. We just had to clear the pipe, right?
Wrong.

Drainage pipes aren’t supposed to have that much solid root ball growing inside them…

The 1920’s soakaway hasn’t been touched in almost 100 years. And when we doubled the size of the house (and therefore roofspace too) it had to deal with the double the amount of water. Turns out the pipe was overflowing at the top because it was blocked way down underground.
Ugh.
We cleared the pipe ourselves, and as much of the underground blockage as we could by hand (tugging and snipping for an hour at a rootball so dense it refused to budge), but it runs at right-angles to the downpipe (so too sharp a turn for drain rods) and goes out under concrete patio.
Oh, and while we were at it we thought we’d best check the other downpipe at the back of the house too.
Also blocked.

Time to call in the experts with the power hoses – and even they wouldn’t promise that they’d fix the blockage. It could easily be just old and collapsed and in need of digging out and replacing.

Thankfully the power hose treatment appears to have worked for now – fingers crossed, we’re just going to wait and see how it goes. Naturally there’s still the damp issue in the house wall to fix… Having had a summer to dry out we no longer have the mould and smell in our bedroom, but without treatment we know it’ll be back as soon as the winter weather hits. So we had to start researching and then go shopping for the best damproofing waterproof sealant – and add painting that side of the house to the list of emergency jobs.

I figured things couldn’t get much worse, really.
Until No.1 son came home two days after the new jeans arrived, with his lovely new only-worn-twice pair looking like this…

And then it rained, so I used the tumble dryer for the first time in months… and the dry screechy rotating rattle that was emanating from it had me wondering if it might not just grind to a painful halt. I ignored the noise and pretended I couldn’t hear it (you see a pattern happening here) but I’m pretty sure that shopping for a new tumble dryer is in my very near future.

Ugh.

So when PayPlan challenged me to write about a bad week, I might have looked back at my week of disaster and given a hollow laugh as I replied. When you’re living  a budget as most of us have to, just one unexpected extra cost can throw things out a little. A repetitive series of disasters like the week I just had can cause serious finance issues. It’s not that you can’t pay your bills or budget – but how can you possibly foresee the unexpected random big stuff?

PayPlan have created this fun interactive example which show just how easily you can become in debt, and the importance of managing your finances. 

PayPlan understand how debt has an effect on your whole life, and work hard to help you manage the debt whilst still retaining a sense of freedom – when we were in a really tricky financial situation a few years back now we looked for help and the advice we were given was to either ‘sell your hose and move in with your parents’ or ‘declare yourself bankrupt’. Neither option was what we wanted to hear – we were young, able and determined and we absolutely knew that with a little help we could work our way out of the mess we had created.

Payplan have spent over 20 years helping people deal with their debts and keep right on living their life. They offer guidance and support on a wide range of practical, long term debt solutions – so if you’re starting to struggle with that overwhelming feeling of financial pressure, do give them a call. You don’t have to handle it alone.