oh my life...... Light Bulb moment.

Erickem

Just wanted to say hello, wish you good luck and good health and say that I'll be subscribing...

MiMi66

Erickem wrote: »

Just wanted to say hello, wish you good luck and good health and say that I'll be subscribing...

Thanks Erickem! Nice to know people read my small offerings. Always happy to have ideas of money saving as well.
And wide awake at 4.20 this morning. Just not on!!

Magpie100

Hi MiMi,

Good to hear from you! Sorry January has been so tough. I found it awful, too. Am day-by-day feeling a bit better and desperate for Spring now. I've really had enough of the cold, dark mornings.

You've survived the worst of winter now though, so hoping your renewed determination will keep you straight. Annoying about the overtime but presumably you WILL get it at some point very soon?

Positives: You have stuck to your self-DMP even though it has been hard. This is absolutely crucial if you are going to take a big step like selling your house. I know it is draining thinking about credit cards and money every single minute of every single day, but I think it is a process you HAVE to go through to confront your spending habits and change them. Are you finding some things becoming easier?

When is the trip? And what is your budget for it (nosy, I know, but it might help focus you to have it all written down here). And is it worth doing a new SOA for the new year so we can see what's what? I am such a taskmaster!

There are crocuses in my garden and next will be the snowdrops. In a month things will feel very different, and so will you. xx

MiMi66

Hello all and lovely Magpie100 - well what a few days of quite remarkable weather - in some ways it makes a person feel very small doesn't it - like the planet and the climate forces really are so much greater than anything we face. still enough romancing about snow and wind - back to reality - debt.

I am not happy with myself these last two months - I have slipped, and feeling bad about it. I am not sure I can write much about it right now, as I just feel a bit disgusted with myself. I am in the middle of a mini wake up call. Does this happen with people on self managed DMPs I wonder.... It is not irreparable damage, but certainly tells me what happens if I take my eye off the ball. I will update my figures at some point - just spent the last hour with a pen and paper and spreadsheet going OMG...

So back in the saddle I go.....

On a good note - I have the money aside for the spending money for the trip in two weeks time, plus a bit to get some essentials for the trip (torch, pair of trousers) and the overtime finally did get paid - whew. I got taxed such a lot though so depressing - why don't they go after big corporations instead of people like me. I have £900 aside of which will cover spending money, visa, overnight meal costs in London and food and a bit of fun in Cambodia and Thailand. Many of my meals are covered but I have dinners to buy there but I understand is is very inexpensive. I am not a big drinker at all, so this shouldn't eat into my pennies to much. Fingers crossed I might even come home with some to throw at the debt.

Does anyone else think this is an unfair situation? If you have one person households or a single earner supporting children - and you go above £40K or so you start getting heavier tax of 40%. Two parents, or two earner households can earn £39K each (£78K together) and never pay higher rate tax. Single parents are so heavily punished if they try to get ahead - to earn the money that a family might enjoy. Anyway - maybe I on my own with it but it does feel lousy to see so much of my overtime just sucked away, while friends in partnerships have a much better time of it. Can't beat the system that seems to enforce through taxation that marriage or being partnered up and working is given a bonus, over a very hard working single parent.

Anyway - grumble over.

So - I have to take back to the shop (sound familiar?) a neck cushion- to TKMaxx - bought for the flight and several 10 hour bus journeys I have coming up. It was £10 but I will return it because I saw I have £21 pounds on my Boots card that I didn't realise was there - haven't been into Boots for months, and I was happily suprised when I saw that there this week. They have a neck cushion there, and though it is £15 - I would rather spend my points than my cash (or card- see guilty....).
I also have a £8.75 voucher from Holland and Barratts which I am going to use to buy disposable compostable wipes to take with me! excellent as I will be a grubby little mare I think and I didn't relish taking ordinary ones which would take gosh knows how many years to breakdown in the ground...eco warrior to the end.

I have kept thinking about selling the house and am stumped with what to do - have decided to hold off all thoughts til I am back and reevaluate it then. Just seems to be a difficult time for moving and having any sense of the future. It would help a lot with my tiredness by cutting down on work driving, but I am anxious that in a way I would be giving up my home security to pay off the debt. Hard to know what is right to do.
My lovely son is off to uni in September and is getting very excited - growing up more and more each day. And my daughter may well be home for a few weeks/months after finishing her degree this spring/summer - I'll be glad to have her home but I know that really she has launched well and truly and that it will only be a pit stop at home. I wonder at what point do parents stop making sure they have a bedroom for adult children to come home to? I'd love to think I would always have space for the kids and that in part makes me nervous to sell my modest three bedroom house in case I can't get something like this again. So I flux between sell or get a lodger and while the kids are coming and going that feels a bit tricky. Maybe September?


Hmmm. So my commitment to myself needs a bit of reinforcing.
Budget - once I am back I will review it all and do a new SOA -so much has gone up hasn't it! I've been okish with food shopping, nipping and paring it down but still need to be more consistent with that. Tiredness and lack of time tends to screw it up.
I have some overtime booked for April, not as much as before - but in all honesty I could not keep up that level of overtime - I would collapse and it would be not worth it. I am doing a few hours later this week.

Isn't it a strange thing debt - it comes over me in waves of disgust and sometime in wonder as in 'how did I do that to myself!' There is man on here who posted a year or so ago that he had done an 11 year DMP, paid off £103K in unsecured debt. Humbling that he managed that without completely cracking up. He posted just after making his last DMP payment. Can imagine that thrilL.

So I am going to go and do the dishes - yep at 1 am, and then to bed, and I am not going to cry about slipping up - I am just going to take a deep breath and make myself refocus and crack on with it. I can still do it in under 5 years, so that is what I am focusing on.
Hope people don't think I am too much of a fool.

One-step-at-a-time

Hello MiMi,

Popping in to say hello - I have subscribed and will be following
Just wanted to say that I am glad you are taking the trip. A temporary change of environment can be so beneficial to give your mind something else to occupy itself with for a while!

Magpie100

Mimi - I was wondering the other day how you were getting on! Good to see you back posting. Sounds like things have been tough - this is always such a grim time of year as we all cling on desperately for spring. Sorry to hear things have been dicey on the money front - but do update us when you feel up to it. No judgement here - this is a long, slow, slog and there will be times when you go backwards. No one thinks you are a fool - if you are, we all are.

Great that you have the costs of your trip covered, though, and it sounds like a break is just what you need. Even if you haven't been perfect the last couple of months you have had a plan to pay for the trip, and executed it. The neck-cushion saga made me laugh - I would do exactly the same! But I bet five years ago you wouldn't have bothered exchanging it.

Re your point on taxation - I completely understand what you are saying and it does seem unfair. But, we live in a world FULL of imbalance and inherent unfairness across all of our institutions. Knowing that doesn't help when you look at your payslip, I am sure. But wasting precious and limited time and energy fretting about something which you just can't control is perhaps a waste of both those things. Your diary is the place to rant about such things, for sure, but I hope you are not dwelling on it too much. Far better to focus on what you CAN control. If you started to think about all the external factors that influence our lives you'd start to go mad. well, I would.

I think when you come back from your trip is definitely a good time to post up a new SOA, and revisit the house decision. There is no need to think about any of it while you are away. I like the idea of reinforcing your commitment to yourself - which is exactly what you are doing. You are are doing this for YOU, and try not to think too much about external factors.

I would love to go to the places you are going so do make sure you tell us all about it. And I hope the break does you the world of good. M100

twisting

Just wondering how you are getting on? I've been following your posts for ages xx

Magpie100

How are things going, MiMi? Let us know how you are when you can. M100

MiMi66

Well - very very kindly MSE Forum guides have let me reopen my discussion here as I wanted to update people on what has happened for me - I cannot believe it is 3 and a half years since I last posted.... such a lot has happened.  At times over the years I have felt so bereft of hope of ever sorting out my finances and my life (still a work in progress) and have felt too embarrassed at times to post and say - 'Here I am, same old issues going on....'
So things have changed.....

I have had a succession of health issues - a colourful background - pelvic stuff - a huge operation in June this year, and also fell and broke my ribs in January last year - that was sooooo painful  I have to say.  In short I was returning items to a man I had started seeing and it was obvious it wasn't going to work out, we'd ended it, but dignity went out the window when I returned his worldly goods and fell very hard on slippery outdoor concrete steps at his house and banged and bumped myself into bruised spine and two ribs fractured.  However - while laid up (on very painkillers) I decided to try internet dating.... (Did I have to be on opiates to get up the will to do this again?) - hmmmm.... so  having had 10 years of no relationships, I had stuck my toes in the water not once but twice and this time it's good - really good. We are engaged :-) - no hurrying towards the alter as yet, but very committed and sure of the direction we are going in.  One life changing thing I learnt from both relationships - is that men do not fall over in shock or run away from women in debt - it was always a huge fear for me - the embarrassment and shame attached to having built up so much debt meant that I was frozen in my personal life - and I am very grateful to both my 2018/19 chap and the lovely man I am with today, that they restored my confidence and helped me not run away from my issues but face them head on, really strengthened by knowing I was loved and am loved despite my poor financial skills and the picture I was in.

OH has a very different attitude towards finances to me - he is more relaxed and doesn't panic as do I (I still panic about money and security)  He has kindly helped and we are looking at buying our first property together soon - small but a start.  I have my house still - and am going to retire from NHS work next March and look to pay off a big chunk of the mortgage with my lump sum, including the debt bit.  (I did end up adding the bulk of my debt to my mortgage in 2019.  I have to say that help ease my mind so much, not scrapping from one month to the next trying to meet repayments and not increase my debts.)

I have adjusted my shopping to a degree - I still need to keep making progress on this - I tend to over shop on groceries at times, and my spending is in fits and flurries - I need to drill those down more and more.  I have started looking at what the motivations are behind my shopping - counselling and a supportive therapy group, and I have found some help in that.  I think 'things' and the ownership of pretty things has been a rubbish and damaged way that I have developed to try and fruitlessly fulfil a hole in me from childhood stuff,  it doesn't work.
 I have embraced charity shops and second hand, and try to keep my access to shops and online to a minimum.  I recognised last summer 2020 that my desire for particular items can be quite obsessive and lead to compulsive shopping - I am doing my best to recognise that when it starts and to talk my self through those times.  I am doing my best.  

The credit cards have gone bar one for emergency urgent use.  I don't carry it.  This has made the world of difference.  

So I am in a good space, happy to keep posting to help keep myself on track and to share anything I have learnt.  I so hope that some of the people who read my pages in the past do catch up with this - I have felt sad that I disappeared off line and never shared what was happening - it had been a  good way to keep a record of my journey and to keep me accountable.

My lovely children are still doing well - great kids (adults) and both with much healthier relationships with money and attitude to worldly goods than me :-)

jusferbrowsing

I binge read your thread and what a lovely post to update us with. Congratulations on your engagement too.