Vegan, Bipolar and in Debt.

evkizzy

Around £400 of debt on my TSB CC was an emergency loan to my dad who temporarily had nowhere to live. He's just told me that he will be able to pay me it all back in full (plus the interest) on Friday so that's a big weight lifted.

Tomorrow is one of my 2 sisters birthday. She hasn't made plans to go out or do anything that costs money (thank goodness). I'll see her and my nephew for an hour or so in the afternoon and give her my super lazy totally unthoughtful £10 in a card (the same thing I've done for all my family this year just to take away the stress of actually finding our what they really want is way beyond my means).

I'm also working for 2 hours as a personal chef (which I love) over lunchtime so that will keep me from going out and buying things.

Confession: I've been invited to a meet up (which I've been suggesting to the group for ages) tomorrow evening. I really want go and it's cheap so I may suggest to my SO that we forgo a payday date night in favour of this.
Am I awful for wanting to go?

evkizzy

Hello. I hope you all had a good day yesterday. I had a bad headache and spent a lot of the afternoon in bed.

Due to me sleeping so much in the day, I had a bit of a rough night. I struggled to get to sleep until I decided to just get up at about 1am. I ended up binge watching House and cuddling my cats.

I've become really good at not spending money lately (which is great) but my concern is that I've not got enough money coming in. I've had a letter from HMRC about my WTC and that I need to declare my earnings to keep receiving payments but I don't know what they are as I haven't done my accounts yet (I'm self employed at a few things and have 2 tiny part time jobs).

I'm generally quite confident but I fall apart when it comes to official forms of any kind. I used to have a CPN to help me but NHS budget cuts dictated that unless a patient needs constant psychiatric care, CPNs are no longer available without going through the system (which takes months-years).

I need to get something sorted out or I'll have my money taken away again - like my DLA when it switched to PIP. Bipolar is a long term, degenerative illness but having "well days" in this instance, counts against me so the support services available are limited and becoming increasingly difficult to access when I do eventually crash.

Sorry for the non-cheery post but I've not been to sleep and I'm feeling anxious about what I'm doing with my life.

Wow. That escalated quickly.

doingitanyway

Is there a CAB near by. They are usually skilled at WTC forms.

There is also an organisation called Taxaid. They are free advisers for s/e people. They are a helpline and really helpful. I was a s/e creative and they helped me a lot. They understand how to deal with HMRC too.

Try to reach out for help whilst you can and not bury your head and ignore it.

I'm having a veggie chilli with fancy bits tonight using Ald1 super 6 veggies thanks to your post

Have a good day

doingitanyway

taxaid.org.uk

evkizzy

Okay then. I got my HMRC form sorted with help from my SO. I declared what I knew and they've given me a provisional payment schedual and time to do my accounts. Phew.

We did go to the meet up last night but I managed to convince 2 of the women who'd not been to the Morrocon restaurant before to allow me to order a selection to share between the 4 of us. It worked out less than £10 pp that way with a great variety of choices.
I'll take the £10 off my Make £10 a Day challenge to show how my spending affected my saving. On the plus side: I'd made £48 in the challenge that I'd not had in my budget.

Tomorrow is payday and I've managed 12 NSDs with 3 days to go. I know I'll be buying food tomorrow so I'm hoping to get one more NSD in for my first month of money saving. I'll review my totals on 1st August to get an idea of progress and add up all my receipts to check the reality of my spending in a month so I can budget better for the month ahead. Hope you're all having a wonderful day.

evkizzy

Tonight was frustrating and emotionally charged as my SO and I had a very frank and open conversation about our finances. We went through every single transaction over the last month, our credit cards, our social spending, food budget the whole thing.
It was overwhelming to see it all in black and white. So I have halved our food and toiletries budget for August to £95. We have £80 between us for all social activities - unless we can make extra money (which can be used for either fun or CC) and all the rest of our money will be thrown at our debt at the end of the month. It's much tighter than a realistic budget but if we can do it (or even get close) then that will be an amazing saving. Admittedly there will be a lot of boring food choices and a lack of going out but we figured we could find a way to jazz things up with a pot luck and a games night (free and sociable) so we shouldn't feel too isolated.

Just when you think you're getting somewhere life throws you an upsetting truthbomb. *Sigh*

Florence_J

I've just been reading your diary. You've got some great MSE ideas in there. I wish you a lot of luck on your path to being debt free. I am also hoping to be debt free by the time i am 30.

evkizzy

Your DFD was the reason I started mine Flo.
Thank you x

evkizzy

Last night we had a super frugal dinner using mainly items from my stockpile - pasta in a cream tomato sauce with Linda McCartney sausages (free with my bonusbond voucher) chopped up into "meatballs" (using a tin of East End tomatoes 20p, 1/2 carton of Oatly cream 75p, a 1/4 tube of tomato puree 25p in an offer from Tesco and some Schwartz Spanish seasoning free from Asda using cashback apps.)

It was gorgeous. The seasoning really made it delicious. Would have been great with butterbeans but I've not been shopping yet.

SFV offer alert!
*Linda McCartney sausages are £1 in Morrisons (lowest price).

For those that have a Makro card, Cushelle 24pk toilet roll is BOGOF £ 13.20 (£10.99 w/o VAT) And 16pk of Plenty kitchen roll is the same offer and price. I've price checked and they're both better than any supermarket deals by a considerable amount. I'll pay for these using money I made in the Make £10 a day challenge (so not touching my shopping budget).

No idea how £90 will feed us both plus 2 cats this month but here we go!

Florence_J

I discovered that there is a vegan food festival tomorrow in south wales where I live so I am going to go to that. Although i'm not vegan, I do eat a lot of vegan/vegetarian meals and love the lifestyle. I have been inspired to go tomorrow by your posts.

Also, this may seem like a weird question but I was wondering if you would know the answer. I see so many cheap coconut oil brands, like KTC, and i remember last time I bought coconut oil (which i love) it was in Holland and Barrett and was not cheap! I was just wondering out of the world food brands or supermarket own brands which one would be a good investment? Forgive me if i have just asked a really random question

P.S. thank you for the tip off about Linda McCartney Sausages. I was planning a trip to Morrisons anyway.