Tonight Matthew, I'm Going To Be The Little Engine That Could

It's going to take all of my mongrel cunning and guile to finish this month solvent.
I got paid on the 8th and because our Working Tax Credits have just been renewed and were (I thought) not being paid until the end of the month, all the direct debits and such came out of my wages, leaving me with nothing to pay into the credit cards when usually we throw a stack of money at them. I can't work out how this has happened. There were a couple of biggish things to pay in the first week of the month - Babcia and Dad's wedding anniversary flowers were nearly £50 and the newspaper Memorial notice for V's first anniversary was over £50, not that I begrudge either in the slightest. And I'm keeping a good check on the food bills too - we're at £263 out of a budgeted £350 (just whilst all the kids are home for the hols, then back down to £200). Anyway, I discovered yesterday that we got our WTC paid on Friday so I used them to pay this month's Council Tax (a mighty £177 which, considering we don't get any rubbish collected, is high by any standards) and paid some money off one of the cards. Now there's no more money again until I get paid on 3 September so it'll be tough.
On the plus side Red is paying me back £50 a week from her portering job that will cover the money I've had to lay out for her in the never-ending rent saga. Yes, that's still creaking on. I'm waiting on £53 in expenses from work and have another £30 or so to put in. I did a mystery shopping job yesterday for a whole £7 (yay!!!). I have a little bit of money in my ING account but that's really for Christmas. I have just over £22 in 20p pieces in my calculating cow AND between us we have £5.50 in Tesco vouchers. Oh, and I have about £45 in my Paypal account and made £10 in eBay sales this week but one of the things I sold was given to me by Babcia and even though she won't expect it, I'm giving her the money from the sale...she needs it just as much as I do. Am I going to make it? Let's just say I'm going to make like The Little Engine That Could.....I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.......

Actually, this is slightly creepy.....:S

Now, I have a dilemma. You remember that some of Red's rent money was taken by the housemate who was responsible for paying it to the landlord on behalf of all the housemates? And that I paid, as guarantor, £680 which Red is portering to pay back? Did I also say that on the last day before they were evicted, whilst I was helping Red scour out the kitchen, the landlord rang and said that he'd discovered there was a further month when the rent hadn't been paid....another £340 each outstanding? In a nutshell the landlord is saying that the deposits (£680 each) are now in arbitration because Red owes the 'missing month' and the rent thief owes...well, who knows what she's paid. The other three housemates' parents have already paid everything for them, no questions asked. My dilemma is, do I pay out ANOTHER £340 (see above, where do I get it from?) making it a total of £1360 I'll have had to find, and hope that we get the whole of the deposits back? Or not pay it, write off the deposit and still have my £340, bearing in mind that the five sets of parents were joint guarantors, ie we are responsible together for whoever doesn't pay. Even if I do pay, the landlord could say that, since there is rent outstanding from the thief, we can't have the deposits back anyway without covering HER share. I wouldn't put it past the landlord to make up some reason to keep the deposits anyway, since I assumed deposits were for damages, not rent arrears. He has never proved, to my satisfaction anyway, that the money wasn't paid, although with everything I hear about this girl I can quite believe it. But to ring up on the last day of the tenancy and say that he'd just discovered that rent from the previous November hadn't been paid (this was July) just stinks to me. Plus he is threatening to sue the guarantors jointly which is not good as I am the one out of Big Man and I with a good credit rating. Anybody got any ideas because it's driving me crazy. I am so thoroughly pissed off with the whole episode and Big Man is no help at all. 'Sue him!' 'Sue her!' 'Don't pay any more!' He wants to load the gun but let me shoot it. Will this ever end? Help!!!!

Finally, since some commenters were envious of my 49p toilet roll dolls, here they are in all their glory.

I ♥ toilet roll dolls :)