From Trash to Cash: Dribbling a river

moneymabel

Morning Toots well i've compromised and got rid of the grey box and put the writing under the gallery...coz i havent a clue how to move it above it lol!
Off out (yep I know i keep saying that) and will look at flyladying when i get back

jo70mo

JoeyGrey wrote: »

The biggest change in me is that I am getting on and doing my dishes, even when I don't feel like it. I just put the kettle on for a cuppa and get on with them while the kettle boils. They dry themselves while I drink the cuppa and half an hour later a quick swish with the tea towel and they're gone and my sink is empty and shiny again. My SIL is in constant awe as I have been known to wait until I've run out of cups or plates before getting on and doing the dishes :eek: - I have a lot of crockery and I live on my own!!!!

lol about the running out of pots thing. thats been us too. and yes I get on with my pots during the day and put them away very soon after. which is why when I sometimes leave them it doesn't get to me because its not big loads and easily done. eg the other night when I'd been up since 5am with poorly Ds and then worked 8 hours.
I just made sure sink was clear and shiny and went to bed. next morning was still an early start but I was washing up within minutes of getting DS settled with breakfast.
Hope the cat room goes well.

Toots I hope you get the move sorted out - it sounds like it is just the right thing to do for you all. hope you find somewhere lovely to live.

Jo x

nixinixi

Morning all!


Hi Joey, sounds like you are making great progress!! and you to Jo! Fantastic!

I love how this thread has morphed really from making £10k (which I know we all still want lol!) but it has made us all look at our lives and make bigger changes and start to understand ourselves a little better and most of all accept ourselves a little more too.

:jHurray for not feeling guilty!! :j

:j Hurray for accepting that we can't do everything all at once but we can achieve anything with babysteps :j

:j :j Hurray for this thread and all the Dribblers !! :j


Sorry, a post from the heart! I'll have to stop that!

xxxxx

JoeyGrey

Lol Nixi, hurray for you too!

I agree completely, it is such a motivational thread with great people who are hugely encouraging. I am sadly into my 40's now and feel as though this is the decade I finally learn who I am and get myself sorted out. They do say life begins at 40!!

nixinixi

Awww thanks Joey lol! I think all of us on here have come through huge journeys this year and learnt a lot about ourselves and a lot of that has come from this thread....... I for one still have a long way to go but I can see that I am slowly getting there !!

So who is going to watch the footy??? OH is finishing work early, so we get a nice lunch just the two of us, then we are allowed to pick the kids u early from school to get home and watch the match..... hope it is worth it!!

paulabear

Joey, thanks for what you said about the bride, and thank you for the inspiring post - I got OH to take the boy to school and now have a shiny kitchen floor and all my lower kitchen units are clean too, yay have joined flylady and am yet to do my sink but looking forward to it now lol. Meanwhile Freyja's teaching herself to draw people - and is very good I think - and I think I'm honouring my grandma by cleaning my house as she was always very houseproud and never procrastinated, to my knowledge! My cousin said some great things at the funeral, many of which were things I would have said if I'd been able to put them into words and say them in front of a church full of people. I told him afterwards how grateful I was for that. He also said one of the things he remembered was another relative saying of my grandma, that she was a 'decent woman', and I think that's something to aspire to; I'm also determined that if I'm ever in a position to be asked to speak at someone's funeral I'm going to be able to do it - it's always been something that would make me freeze like a rabbit in headlights, speaking in front of people; so I'm going to sort it out because then I can feel like I'd made them proud.
On the subject of procrastination; I've got an absolutely excellent book called 'Feeling Good', by David D. Burns; he says that people who are extremely successful know that motivation comes after productive action - you have to start things whether you want to or not, because once you begin to accomplish something it will spur you on even more the book's about getting out of depression, if anyone's interested, it really is great even if you only have time to dip into it like I do!
Toots, did your friend get back to you? I never realised you worked in a fireplace shop - thought you worked in a craft shop and sat there making things while you waited for people to come in, for some reason...xx

jo70mo

Hi Paula and Nixi,
I know what you mean Nixi, this thread has been amazing in so many ways. I loved your from the heart post. Hope you enjoy the footy.
Paula, even in the saddest moments there is always something we gain. sounds like you gained things from yesterday hun. hugs cos I'm sure you still need them.
Thanks for sharing about that book it sounds really interesting. Its true that if you do manageable stuff you feel able and motivated to do more of it. thats why flybaby works for me cos I can still succeed at it cos I am looking at that as the goal and not the bigger picture of the whole house. I can feel motivated to keep doing it and slowly adding more in.
and today cos I cleared off the kitchen table for last nights dinner the kids have been going sitting there for drinks all morning and now brought lots of pieces of material to decorate it with their own version of a tablecloth to make it look like a "hotel table". they obviously appreciate it being clear and usable.
Jo x

paulabear

Jo, I'm so heartened by that, my table is supposed to be clear for eating on but it always ends up covered in toys! I've started leaving crayons and paper there and what I've found is that we all end up drawing while we're still sat there, it's really fun and we all enjoy it xx

paulabear

And I loved Nixi's post too lol xx

MummyandPaige

Morning everyone.

I have decided to pull out of the challenge as I am sick of fighting for everything. I am posting to let you know that even when you think things are bad, they are not really, it could always be worse. I will not be sticking around either as after this post I will be hiding in shame and embarrassment. I feel empty. I have spent so long fighting for everything and so long watching it all fall down that I just can't do it anymore.

The last few months with you lot has made me realise a lot of things. You can try to ignore things, or try to laugh things off, but at the end of the day nothing changes.

I started this challenge to see if I could raise the money and provide an income for me and my DDs without the OH. I needed to prove that things would be ok if I left, that I could cope, but I can't. Not because I can't make enough, but because I would never have enough to leave and even if I did he would make sure that every move I made to provide for my girls he would scupper.

I had a very good upbringing, I was sheltered from most of the bad bits in life and my parents made it all seem so easy. When I was 18 I met a man, he was lovely, kind, caring, would do just about anything for me. He always wanted me with him, it was flattering. My dad got annoyed with me not being in the house much, said I was treating it like a hotel, between work and my new fella, he was right, we rowed and the fella said I could move in with him, so I did. I had only known him 3 months, but he seemed so nice. He wasn't working, he had a criminal record, an electronic tag and had just got out of prison, so as I was, I paid for most things. It wasn't enough. He convinced me to get a credit card for emergencies and to make him a secondary card holder, just in case. He then decided to go self employed and needed the start up, so applied for a loan online in my name and another couple of credit cards, when the paperwork showed up to sign, he told me it would be fine, he would make the repayments when he started making money, he told me that it was his only chance to make money as no one would give him a job and that if I loved him I would trust him and sign it. I did. The money came and he sent it all, he got a few bits for his business, he got a £1000 tv, new furniture a new PC, several weeks of pretty much non-stop partying and then it was all gone. The first repayment date came and there was no money for it. I took out an overdraft to cover the first payment while I thought about what to do next. He always had excuses and never money. I couldn't keep up by myself and eventually they all defaulted. While all this was going on, he was claiming benefits as a single person to pay for the rent. It was then that I realsied that not everyone in the world was nice and honest, but he kept promising that he would pay as soon as he had the money, so I stuck around in the hopes that he would do as he had promised. We used to argue a lot, well, I say argue, but really it was more like him throwing insults at me for just about everything. It was my fault we had no money, if I helped him as opposed to going to work, then he would be making money, if I had told my work that I wanted to be paid more then they would have given me more money and we would have been able to afford the food/cigs/washing machine that we had needed. I cried a lot and he shouted a lot. He bought me a puppy on day, well he convinced my friend to lend him the money to buy me a puppy and I loved her, everytime he started on one of his rages, she would curl up on my lap and lick my face, like she was trying to comfort me. I took her everywhere. A few weeks later, he bought me a kitten to go with the puppy. He hit my boss, phoned up everytime I went in screaming abuse at whoever answered the phone and pretty soon the lifts that I relied on stopped happening. I spent a lot of time in the flat with him telling me what to do to help him. The only ones that were nice to me where the animals and I became very attached to them. He used to think it was funny to hit the dog over the head with a baking tray, she was so scared of him, she used t ocower in the corner everytime he moved.

Nothing went right from then on, he got worse, I grew into a nervous wreck and I clung to the animals. I didn't want to tell my parents that things were bad and have the told you so looks, so I lied. I was stuck. He used to spend the money he had on going out and getting blind drunk, he was home either late, or not until the next morning, it was obvious what he was doing but what could I do? I used to talk to my animals, they were the only ones who I could talk to, friends dropped like flies when he turned on them or wouldn't let me go out without him there, not even to the doctors. He used to bully me into having sex, so suprise suprise, I got pregnant. I didn't tell him, I lied, I used to tell him I was going to the shops for something and go to the doctors, I wasn't going to have him have this hold on me. It was all arranged, I had told the doctor not to phone me, that I would phone them to get the date, but the nurse never got the message and phone the home phone which he answered and told him. All hell broke loose, he wouldn't stop shouting, I was used t oit, I just sat there and cried, hours went by and he still didn't stop, I lost it and I hit him, he hit me back. It went on for days, he wouldn't let me out the house and phoned my mum telling her the news. By the time I managed to get out it was too late, I was too far along to get rid. I spiralled into a depp depression and hated the bump, I couldn't hold it together, I cried all the time and did nothing. I lost a lot of weight and we got evicted from our house. We found another but the landlord wouldn't let me keep the dog, so he phoned the RSPCA and got her taken away while I was out. between what I was already going though, that and the fact that my cat got hit by a car a few months after having kittens, I was a hairs breadth away from being sectioned. He started shouting like he always did but this time when the tears started, I couldn't stop them, it turned into hysterical sobbing and after 5 or 6 hours of it, he phoned the hospital and told them. They sent a shrink round but I didn't say anything and when I did start talking, he didn't like what I was saying so he threw her out and wouldn't let her back in the house. When it came down to it and the baby was due, he took me up the hospital and they told me it was a false alarm, so we went home and being a saturday, he wanted to go out, so he told the lodger he could have a gaming party downstairs, shoved me in the bedroom and went out. Half an hour later one of them came upstairs to got he bathroom and peeked round the door to find me delusional and in lots of pain, he carried me down the stairs and shoved me in the car, it only took 15 minutes to get to the hospital, but when we got there I was told that the babies heartbeat was dangerously low and there wasn't enough time to get me up to the maternity ward but they would try, 10 minutes late DD1 was ripped out without painkillers. I think the lodgers friend is scarred for life after that. I was put on a ward by myself and DD was taken off me. I didn't feel anything, nothing. He came by for 5 minutes decided it was too late then went back to the pub saying he would be back at 8am to pick me up. I din't think anything of it then, but I realise now that it must have been obvious how unstable I was, thats why I was on my own. When they gave he to me in the morning, I fell in love, she was perfect, suddenly I had a purpose, a reason to stop crying. I clung to her, never put her down, refused to let her go. I didn't want her to ever have to fell what I felt. I was still a wreck, but not all the time. He didn't like it, the fact that he was suddenly not important, that I had a reason to say no that he couldn't argue with. The novelty wore off with him though and soon he started again. I was exhausted and if I fell asleep, he would deliberately wake the baby up so I couldn't sleep. I snapped and phoned the police on him once, but he calmed me down before they arrived and learned to disconnect the phone when he started from then on. He started a limited company for his next venture, still claiming benefits and as he couldn't add up right, got me to do it all for him, so I registered. The benefits office cottoned on, as did the police as to where he was getting all his money, he was put in court but they saw the baby and decided he was reformed, I prayed that he would go to prison and I would be free, I even wrote a statement against him, but it didn't work. I was living with him and he made me sign the forms for the council, so it was ordered that we both had to pay back all £17k of benefits from the last 5 years despite the fact that all charged were dropped against me.

He brought a boat from the money he conned and scammed and life started to get better, in hindsight that was probably because he spent a lot of time out of the house. I went to the doctor for the pill but was told that I had to wait for my periods to return before he would give me anything, so I waited, but by the time they came, it was too late, I was pregnant again. He convinced me that we would finally have the money to pay back everything we owed when we moved away and even started paying the bills, so having nothing to loose and no way of moving away from him, we moved to the coast where, things may be better, but thats only because he is not here. He started to grow softer when he spent time with DD1 and I thought that maybe things would work out better, I was wrong.

I setup shop, started earning my own money and he asked if he could list a few bits that he had on the boat for sale, so I let him. They got paid for and turns out he never had them. He withdrew the money from Paypal and spent it, the paypal account got suspended for being linked to one of his and they won't unlock it until they recieve payment to clear the negative balance of £739, I have over £500 in there that I have earned and he is refusing to pay the bill. He pays no household bills and puts nothing into it. I have to do it all myself and it has got harder now that I have no income other than the tax credits. He is doing lots of illegal things in my name and I can't stop him without getting myself into serious trouble, the sort that will put me in prison, I can't leave because I now have no income and no money to move, the bailliffs turn up almost daily and to top it all of the neighbours. who I phoned the police about when they had a stupid party til 3am, cots vibrating, garden full of drunk, stoned 13 year old still in their school uniform decided that a good payback would be to break into my house while I was asleep and steal my purse and baccy and also phone social services telling them I abuse my kids. Great, and when they turn up to inspect, I have my binbags full of rubbish in the hall and am sitting making up longlines in the living room with big sharp hooks out and DD had just decided to throw her yoghurt all over the sofa. I had had a night of next to no sleep as DD1 has an ear infection and I start crying when they tell me why they are there and have to sit there listening to them quizzing a 2 year old on how often I wash them and brush there teeth and watch them check the house to make sure they actually have beds to sleep in and see them eyeing them up as they ask how often I feed them. They had his records with them from when I phoned the police and aparently she has to refer me to her manager for review as I have no support network here and its people like me who flip and neglect their kids.

I feel like I am about to loose it again, I can pretend that everything is ok and I can joke about it, but really its not and I don't know what to do about it, I have tried and tried and tried and I don't see the point anymore. I would give anything to swap problems with one of you for a day. Everything is beginning to catchup with him now and most of what he has done has either been in my name as I found out, so whatever hits him will hit me twice as hard and I can't see a way out.

Sorry for the long post, I am just exhausted with trying to be someone and something I am not. The only thing that gets me through the day is the happy bubble I have created with my kids, in it we can play and laugh and smile and its just us, its my retreat, the one place that I can be happy and loved. Stepping out of it means a constant battle to keep everything in line and at bay, trying to move forward, only to be knocked back, so I am retreating back to my bubble where the world is simple and I am loved until he comes home.