FLR(M) or SET(M), a total predicament; I am a ball of stress. A stressy mess.

Best of luck.  I don't know the answer to the question on if it has to be mailed in the day before the expiry or the day of.  Personally, I'd do it tomorrow if I were you--just to be sure.  It's a pain.  DH and I did ours pretty last minute and had to hunt down some missing bank statements and such.  We tracked out our schedule so we could make it in one round--bank for statement, post office to get new passport pictures of both of us, then the bank queue.  It worked out okay, but made for a busy afternoon.

No need for the binder though.  They'll just take out what they need.  You're only paying for extra shipping weight and may not even get it back.  Just send the docs.  It also sounds as if you may be thinking you need to send things they won't even look at.  This isn't your initial FLR, so no need for things like relationship photos, just stick to what the application asks for--no "bits and bobs."  I also wouldn't personally stress so much about the presentation.  It should be fairly straight forward: passports, financial/work info, letters for proof of you living together, etc.  Organize them in a way that seems logical and I'd think they'd be fine.  It sounds as if you are making this way more complicated than the application itself demands.

Also, and I know this can be tricky with your timeline being so tight, I'd copy or scan the passport info and visa pages if I were you (and any of the letters if you might need them for other reasons like if you do self-assessments).  They won't do for anything official, but it is good to have if you have someone needing proof you have one, like if you start a new job and they want to see a passport.  You don't know what will come in the next months and of late the applications seem to be taking 3-4 months.  You don't need to do that, but it may be handy to have.

Good luck, and congrats on the Life in the UK test!  Let us know how it works out.

If I get it in the mail/postmarked on the 7th (the day my visa expires    ), will I be okay? Or does it REALLY need to get in the mail by tomorrow? Ugh.

On or before the date your visa expires, but that is cutting it close.  I would go to the post office myself and send it Royal Mail Special Delivery and get a stamped receipt.

Is there any advice on how to organize/present it in the package to be mailed?

Just stack it in order of the check list at the back for the SET-M form, with the application form on top of the stack.  Inserts, tabs and the like may or may not be useful to the IO, but a simple, ordered stack is your best bet.  There have been several debates here on it, but KISS (Keep it simple silly) is your best bet.

Aw, thank you, guys! I am feeling more and more at ease as the night progresses - haw!

Husband and I are taking the first train in the morning tomorrow to the town he works in and will be doing pit-stops everywhere (library for printing things, our joint bank, his bank, etcetera) to hopefully get it all together and get it mailed off together so we make sure we have everything we need, before he goes into work for the day. Then I'll just come back home.

I have been going through and organizing all the mail I have saved, and I have noticed I have roughly 10(!) sources to use from. Granted, the very earliest thing I can find is from August 2007 (I arrived here Jan. 8th, 2007), but they only want six from three sources, after all... so it all should be okay, I hope. One thing - do mobile phone bills/statements count towards official mail?

The one annoying thing is my bank is supposed to be mailing the last three months bank statements but it has yet to arrive in the mail. I am going to have to print copies from the website and get them authenticated at the bank. Best I can do since they haven't arrived in the mail yet...

Will they send everything (letters, bills, and so on) back? I am going to make copies of our passports tomorrow and everything, but I would like to hold onto all of these things for filing purposes, really... to stash away. Or should I make a copy of every single thing because they won't return everything?

Thanks again... I do think I have been overcomplicating it and making myself overly stressed for no reason, just because I remember what the Spouse visa interview was like and how stressed/emotional I got over that (and, of course, all turned out okay...!)

Keep it simple silly... haw-haw, I like that! I should really remind myself of doing that sometimes!

Do you not have anything at all that shows your address before August?  I know it's more spread out now that they require less documents, but 8 months seems to be pushing it to me.  I don't want to add more stress, but is there nothing that might not be on the actual list but still give some evidence you lived there?

I have been going through and organizing all the mail I have saved, and I have noticed I have roughly 10(!) sources to use from. Granted, the very earliest thing I can find is from August 2007 (I arrived here Jan. 8th, 2007), but they only want six from three sources, after all... so it all should be okay, I hope.

That is stretching it.  Is there anything from early in the relationship addressed to you individually?  8 months is pushing it, as Condenza says, it "might" be a problem.

One thing - do mobile phone bills/statements count towards official mail?

Yes.  It is a myth that they don't count.

Will they send everything (letters, bills, and so on) back? I am going to make copies of our passports tomorrow and everything, but I would like to hold onto all of these things for filing purposes, really... to stash away. Or should I make a copy of every single thing because they won't return everything?

They are supposed to return EVERYTHING and take their own copies of everything they want to keep.  Sometimes they keep some of the evidence.  If they do, let us know as we are trying to get UKBA to correct this if it occurs.

Ah! Now I am stressed again.

I didn't get my first job whilst living in the UK until November 2007, so any mail beforehand is a bit hit or miss...
We had a lot of problems getting my name put on bills, for some reason. Not for a lack of trying. I also didn't get a bank account (we got a joint account) until November 2007, either.

I am still going through some things... but I don't know. Obviously, the one thing I have that states my name (only in the letter accompanying it) is my husband's tenancy agreement from when I moved in with him to the property he use to rent before we moved to our own. It's a sloppy tenancy agreement, too. That is from right before he flew out to the States when we got married, with a letter with it stating from my old landlord that he was happy to welcome me as another tenant. But that actual tenancy agreement is only signed by my husband, and from a couple weeks before I arrived. :/  I will try to look around more but I just don't know. This is exactly what I was worried about. He kept absent-mindedly throwing away mail as soon as he opened them. I KNEW this was going to happen! 

Granted... I hardly got any mail to start with. It was mostly his mail he was throwing away.

suregena,

You might need to write a letter explaining the lack of mail from the first few months of your residence.

What would I say in the letter?
I am still going to search the house up and down for anything from before August 2007... but if I do find anything, it will likely only be in my husband's name. We had a very tough time getting my name on anything when I initially first moved here (before I got a job... when I got a job, things were infinitely easier), as we tried with his bank and phone company.

It could also be my fault. I was a bit in "culture shock" when I first arrived here (he had always visited me in the states and I had never visited the UK prior to moving here) so everything seemed much harder to get accomplished in those early months, considering I didn't even know my way around at all and he was full-time at work. I was very much dependent on him to start. Things like council tax was tricky. When I first moved over, we lived in a very large Victorian house that was split into four flats, but the council tax was set for the whole building. It had to be broken up between each tenant on each floor and paid to the person's whose name was on it so he could pay it. So, getting my name on that obviously was not possible.

Now I am incredibly worried about being denied ILR...

If your name was on the tenancy, or the covering letter, no matter how sloppy, that is evidence.  You really need something to cover the first four months, and this sounds good.

Vicky

My name is definitely not on the tenancy agreement (just my husbands), but on the letter typed up by the landlord, he states at the end... "Mr. ********* has been a tenant in ***address*** since Summer 2001 and has always paid his rent promptly. I would be most pleased to welcome his wife as another tenant."

So, ahg, it's not even in my name in that last sentence, but throughout the letter he states things like "Simon and Gena will have full use of the property," etcetera, etcetera.
But only mentioning me in parts by my first name.

That won't work.  Can you get a letter from him confirming the date you did move in?  Didn't get on the council tax or register with a doctor, take a class, apply for a phone contract, get junk mail, get a bank account, get an NI number, send off for a catalogue, anything, for four months?


Vicky

I applied with a GP three months after I arrived, because that was their rule. I called in January, and they told me that I could only join their practice once I had lived in the UK for three months. So, I did (April 2007.) I received no mail from them while being a patient there.

If I had junk mail, it definitely got thrown away as I thought that was not accepted (although the past year I had been holding onto some junk mail.)

I can get a letter from him confirming the date of my arrival, but I would definitely not be able to get this in the mail then until January 7th (which is the day my visa expires.)

I mentioned the council tax fiasco in my last post.

I took no classes.

I didn't get a pay-as-you-go phone until November 2007, as that was when I could afford to (when I finally got a job.) I was allowed to get a contract phone in October 2008 (as the company I was with wouldn't let me until that date.)

I couldn't get a national insurance number without a job (I called them in February 2007 but they said I needed a job first.)
I was having a hard time finding a job without a national insurance number.
I finally got a part-time job in November, 2007, and I finally got my national insurance number shortly afterwards.

Never sent off for a catalogue.

Yes, the beginning was a bit bleak...

I guess I am really screwed then.

Your doctor screwed you over.  Their 'rule' was unlawful.

Did your mum ever write to you?  Did anyone, ever, anywhere, ever send you any post?  Anything at all?


Vicky

Good luck finding something, even if you can try for letters from official or professional types stating you were in residence during that time.  I wonder if someone at your GP might be willing to write a really quick paragraph on letterhead saying you registered at their office on such and such date and listed _____ as your address--that's something.  You could just pick it up in person.  I'm sorry if our advice may have mislead you at all.  You focused more on your worry about not having enough documents, so when you started finding enough, I didn't realize that you meant you didn't have any from most of the first year.  

This is one of those situations that doing a document check with someone fab like Vicky, as was suggested, would really have been helpful!  I know budget has been super tight for you, but this could be an ouch.  I hate saying that since you are already stressed.

Would the OP be able to qualify for the FLR still with that same app (even though she'd lose the extra money for the ILR application) if she doesn't get the ILR?  If so, you can at least set your mind at ease that way and know you can stay in the country.