Haven’t posted much lately – work is mad!
Been quite a difficult month financially just simply because it was my middle child’s 9th Birthday. I definately scaled it down but because we are only just getting ourselves sorted we didn’t have anything saved. They have parties every other year and you guessed it – it was party time.
On Friday after paying all the bills I was left with £92 to last us a week. My first instinct was that we were going to need to borrow about £100 from family to get us through the week but then I decided that we would try and manage without. I spent £62 at the supermarket but to be honest I knew that I hadn’t bought everything I needed to last to week, but I had bought the basic necessities for a sleepover party including a B’day cake.
We then needed £10 for petrol and £10 for the electric meter that left us with £10. The girls were going on a trip with the holiday club and needed £6 for that. By Sunday evening it became apparent that £4 wouldn’t last until the end of the week as we had no bread,milk, marg and so and so on. I also owed the holiday club £42.50 but I asked if they would mind waiting until I could get them set up on my Child Care Voucher system and pay them through that.
Anyway, Mum in law to the rescue with £20 (gifted) which meant that hubby could put petrol in his bike to get to work and we could buy some of the bits that we needed.
 Monday  eve we all sat looking at the remaining £10 and try to work out how we would stretch it to last another 2 days. By this time we are just eating what we can out of the freezer and the kids are taking jam sandwiches in there packed lunches and carrots rather than fruit. We weren’t feeling too down though and we pulled together.
Anyway there was a knock at the door and it was my ex bearing maintenance. He handed me £60 and I could have kissed him! (not sure his wife who was sat in the car would have been too impressed though)
When the excitment had worn off I sat down and realised that this money was owed to me last week and because he is so hit and miss with it I hadn’t even noticed that he’d not paid. When I think back to the money he should have and hasn’t paid over the years I could kick him rather than kiss him.
 When I had my eldest I had to have DNA tests to prove she was his and then he decided he didn’t want anything to do with her anyway. I was awarded 5p a year (yes you’ve read it right 5p a year) (it cost them about 13p to send the cheque) During this time I now know that he was working but because we had no contact at the time I wasn’t aware of what he was doing.
He started seeing her again when she was 9 after I pestered him a bit (he lived next door but one to my mother-in-law). Anyway when the CSA got involved I was eventually made an award of £70 a week. He felt this was too much and as we only paid £30 a week for my stepdaughter on the same income as him I agreed on a private arrangment of £30. I felt I was being really fair but that hasn’t stopped him from taking liberties with the regularity of his payments. He even stopped paying for 3 months last year and cut all ties with her over Xmas (meaning he didn’t need to buy her a present).
So why was I feeling grateful for something that I am entitled to – because life is too short and its only money and having my daughter’s love and respect and childhood memories is priceless and I wouldn’t swop them for all the money in the world.