Real Life on Hold

-Selene

I'm feeling excited today!! :j

Looking at the receipts, it turns out that my guesstimate of £42-43 for the shopping was based off me quickly glancing at the receipts and looking at the figures BEFORE my colleague discount was applied. So the total is £38.68 :j

I bought everything on my list except for pizza base mix but couldn't find it and was in a hurry. There wasn't much yellow stickered stuff, but I was shopping at 10pm so probably all the best bargains had gone by then. I did get some though: single pot of yoghurt 20p to 9p, potato salad 70p to 59p, something and pesto dip £1.40 to £1.09. Not the great deals I was hoping for, but still better than nothing. Yoghurt was yummy and potato salad is destined to be tomorrow's lunch.

Falafel was OOS so replaced with veggie lasagne ready meal. Also OOS were the Quorn pepperoni slices (clearly the universe is refusing to serve me pizza :rotfl:) but I got Quorn scotch eggs instead at 15p cheaper. Shame they won't last quite as long though

Forgot to add to this month's list: Yoghurt 2x 4-pack @ 35p each, eggs @ £2 for 15 and multi-surface spray @ 75p. Also bought two extra 1L cartons of apple juice at £1.50 for 2 (usually £1 each). Probably wise as managed to finish one of the cartons already

Cashback totalling £4.02 has tracked from apps 1 and 3. App 2 is still under review as the milk wouldn't scan but fingers crossed I'll be able to add £2.35 once that tracks. :T

Two greengrocers don't do vegetable boxes. One said they did on their website so made a special trip to get there but apparently that was two years ago and since then it's changed ownership and the website has never been updated. :mad: May have to look into online vegetable boxes and hope they use a decent courier

And now talking about all this food is making me hungry :rotfl: Off to put that lasagne in the microwave!

-Selene

Okay. I have fallen off the wagon

As of today I have: £3.69 in my "main" bank account, £456.66 put aside for my rent (which was / should be £495 but a couple of DDs came out which I forgot about) and £593.97 put aside for my driving lessons (which should be £700 but I had to reduce amounts I was putting in as I needed that money. £700 is my goal though -- then once I hit it I'll get a new goal).

I fudged up. I don't get paid this Friday; I get paid next Friday. :wall:

And now here are my problems:

#1. I forgot to cancel my iPad contract (fixed period expired in June. Meant to cancel in May giving 30 days notice which coincided with the expiry date... never happened). I need to visit EE to get it cancelled. That's £20 this month and another £20 next month down the drain for internet I don't use (Got contract while living with mum who didn't have wifi, moved to flat with no signal, got wifi and use wifi now.)

#2. Last week was horrible, mental health wise. I don't want to go into depth, but a very dark mood coincided with a visit from Aunt Flo left me curled up underneath blankets in both mental and physical pain, and as I was not up to going to the shops or spend time cooking, I spent £63 a week on Dominos. I feel sick thinking about it. I regret it, I don't need judgment. If I could turn back time, I wouldn't have spent that amount of money. But this means I am now £63 out of pocket.

#3. Because of eating Dominos, and the fresh food I didn't cook, I have had to throw away a lot of the fresh food which was rotting / out of date. I haven't calculated how much I originally spent on it. I don't want to think about it. But it's such a waste and I keep thinking about all the money I could have saved. :mad:

#4. I go back to work on a rehab plan this week which means I'll be doing less than 1/3rd of my contracted hours to start with. I don't know what the rest of my income is going to be composed off, whether I should get more income support or get more sick notes from my GP stating "return to work on X hours a week" and use that to bridge the gap (SSP is £85 a week and my wages as of this week will be something like £42, so my payslip would be composed of £42 wages + £43 part SSP). I'm not sure what the right thing to do is.

#5. My electric bill is way overdue. My arrears were supposed to be paid in instalments but EDF refused to co-operate regarding the dates, so I decided to just add the arrears repayment amount to my monthly bill, except I can't find my meter key to open the box and read my meter. I can get a replacement for £1-something, but then there's the question of how to pay my bill as I'm sure it's more than £3!

#6. I need to top up my rent somehow to get the amount back to £495 (thought I'd do this with "next week's" wages but the reality is my wages get paid 2 days after my rent's due in 2 weeks). I don't have any money due before then (got some things up on FB and Gumtree but nothing's sold yet) and a £100 voucher a former neighbour was buying but she's mucked me about after I've been holding it for her for weeks and delayed payment again.

I know that the sensible option is to borrow from the driving lesson savings to top up my rent, pay the electric bill and use what's left for essentials until payday (especially as I need bus fares for work). That is what my head's telling me, but my heart is saying no. I opened a new current account for the savings, with the plan of transferring money for yearly outgoings into it once my finances are stable, and in the three or four weeks since I've had it, there has been no outgoings from that account, despite the fact it's right next to my other current accounts (the last time I had savings in the same bank as my accounts, I constantly robbed my savings until I had nothing). I'm kind of proud of that fact. That I've exercised enough self-restraint to not touch that money for unnecessary things like I did before. (Shame I can't do that with my current account, but I'm getting there!) And the thing is, if for example the council's computers crashed and couldn't pay housing benefit before my rent's due, I wouldn't mind dipping into that money and paying it back into the savings once the council's computers were up again. But this situation was caused by my stupidity, my lack of resolve, my rubbish attitude money-wise the past few weeks. It was my fault, not out of my control, and there's this niggling fear that if I borrow from my driving lessons money, what's to stop me from doing it again until there's nothing left? If I hadn't spent money on pizza and cancelled my iPad contract on time, I wouldn't be in this position now.

I just feel so rubbish, and there's only myself to blame. :wall:

SarahPennySaver

Hi Selene
Just read through your diary and had to say hello. I know exactly what it's like to struggle with being off work while still trying to pay all the usual bills and although I tend to be off work with a chronic pain condition I get major anxiety problems when I have to deal with money/debt stuff and have also suffered from depression.

I don't have any magic fixes I'm afraid but I just wanted to say that you are not alone and I hope that this week has been better for you. I know what you mean about eating fast food and then having to throw away the 'good food' - I currently have a fridge/freezer mostly full of food that has gone off but I haven't had the energy/courage to clear it out and see all that money gone to waste. I also struggle with housework at the moment so have been eating oven food off paper plates because all of my saucepans/plates/cups etc needs washing. Just don't tell my mum!

First - the Dominos week has happened, you can't change it and feeling bad about it will only make your general condition worse. I know that's much easier said than done but please understand that you are not the only person who has done something like this and at least you didn't go and spend £500 on the horses or similar!

Second - I'm going to agree with your head about the rent/driving lessons situation I'm afraid. Hopefully you have now been paid and everything is sorted but as someone who is facing bankruptcy (and also needs driving lessons!) please remember that priority debts are your priority! If you don't pay your rent (or pay it late/incomplete on more than one occasion) your landlord can evict you. I don't want to be scary but it's really important you pay your rent and council tax first, before anything else. You may have to look realistically at your reduced income and think carefully about changing the amount you are putting aside for driving lessons. What about making it a percentage of your income rather than a fixed amount? So you could say once rent & council tax paid you are going to put 50% of what's left into your driving savings? Again I know it's easier said than done but it's the sort of thing I wish I'd done when I had more options & less debt!

Looking at your income/expenditure/shopping list - any idea how much of the £200 is you and how much goes on your cats? I'm a cat owner (servant?) too so interested to see what you spend & if there are any savings we can think of in that area.

You mentioned pizza/pizza base a couple of times, it might be worth experimenting with making your own tomato base and then you can use it for pizza/pasta as needed. I make big batch (when I'm not in my current state!) and then freeze it in one person portions. You just buy the cheap/value tinned tomatoes and then add herbs & anything else you fancy and let it cook down for a while. Obviously I'm not a chef so probably worth googling a proper recipe! I know Jamie Oliver does a simple version - if you can't find it I'll did out my cook book and have a look. It may not look like a huge saving but if pizza is your go-to yummy food then might work out better in the long-term.

Finally (sorry this has turned into an essay!!) - have you tried applying to the EDF Energy Trust for help paying your energy arrears? There's also the British Gas Energy Trust - you don't have to apply to the company who is your supplier as they are separate charities. It sounds like you have a genuine need and are working hard to improve things so why not give it a go?

Hope things are better this week & keep going with your diary.

Sarah xx