Flush by 30?

Sun_Addict

Great news about your mum and the bungalow It does strike me as funny that you're trying to get your mum to move out while, in contrast, I'm trying to get my daughter, who is also rubbish with money, to move out! Although hell will have frozen over before it happens in my case!

Have a fab weekend.

JWPopps

Thank you JVR! I agree with you, it's super hard sometimes with my mum because we're in this weird position where it's 'my' house, but she's my mum, and you know you don't sass your mum... (except I do, because sometimes she needs sassing:rotfl:)

You're right about the total control of spends thing, I think it will impact on things like my daily diet and also how fat my pets are... she accused me of being a war criminal because I said the cat needed to eat fewer biscuits. Which I think is a touch hyperbolic.

Hello NewMeNewLife! Thank you for reading, I'm glad it hasn't bored you rotten. Do you have a diary? I'd love to read it if so!

Hahaha SA I often think that about us! Maybe my mum and your daughter should club together?! Although, that could also be catastrophic............ :eek:

Thanks for your kind words everyone, I have a nice weekend of PgDip research and novel writing ahead - hope you all have lovely plans too

JWPopps

Hello world!!

Unfortunately Mum's bungalow fell through, the agency made a mistake and the landlord had actually agreed to let it out to someone already. They were really apologetic but, as you can imagine, it's been a bit of a blow to us both.

I've been super busy again recently, I discovered that I'm actually the only host available for my charity in my local area at the moment, which explains why I've had back to back placements for the last three months...

It's a bit exhausting sometimes, because the young people aren't allowed into my house without me being there, so I have to rush back from work as quick as I can in an hour and a half commute, and then cook their tea, wash any clothes, encourage them to bathe (sometimes easier said than done) and get them to bed all before I can do anything I need to do, but it's hugely rewarding and of course I do get paid a token amount for each night of doing it, which is how I've been able to clear my credit card so I'm certainly not complaining.

Another complication though:

I've been asked (in a sort of 'please we really need this' kind of way) if I would be willing to do some training on Saturday to speed up the process for taking in longer term placements. I've basically been approved, but they need to do some box ticking exercises and also some training to make sure I know how to cope in certain situations before they can place anyone with me... and they already have a long-term placement waiting to move in with me.

The young person is question is 7 months pregnant - in itself, not an issue and I certainly don't mind hosting her once she's a young mother either, but of course I really need Mum's (bigger) bedroom back if we need to put a cot etc in there as well.

Ugh, I really don't know what to do!! Mum has too much stuff for her to comfortably move into the box room, so do I give her my bedroom and put myself in the box room? Do I leave Mum in the attic room and give the young person my bedroom? But because the attic room used to be... an attic... there's no other storage space in the house except my built in wardrobes, which is why that's my bedroom in the first place.

Ideally Mum will find somewhere in the next 3 months, but I don't want her to feel rushed when she's already suffered a setback.

I would ordinarily say no to the charity in this instance, and they would accept that (of course) but I know the reason they're asking me is that there's no other current option for this young person.

Sun_Addict

Sorry to hear the bungalow fell through. Both of you must be gutted what a shame.

Big dilemma re the pregnant young lady. I admire you so much in that you're willing to take her on, it's a very big thing to do. My mum used to take on problem teens, often drug users. I don't know how she did it, I wouldn't have the patience. She had them living with her until the day she was taken into hospital shortly before her death at 71.

Would the pregnant lady be ok in the box room with a view to moving into a bigger room once the baby arrives? Maybe by then your mum will have found somewhere else. What about portable storage in the attic? Would the charity be willing to provide wardrobes, etc?

I take my hat off to you being willing to take this person on, I hope she appreciates it.

JWPopps

Sun_Addict wrote: »

Sorry to hear the bungalow fell through. Both of you must be gutted what a shame.

Big dilemma re the pregnant young lady. I admire you so much in that you're willing to take her on, it's a very big thing to do. My mum used to take on problem teens, often drug users. I don't know how she did it, I wouldn't have the patience. She had them living with her until the day she was taken into hospital shortly before her death at 71.

Would the pregnant lady be ok in the box room with a view to moving into a bigger room once the baby arrives? Maybe by then your mum will have found somewhere else. What about portable storage in the attic? Would the charity be willing to provide wardrobes, etc?

I take my hat off to you being willing to take this person on, I hope she appreciates it.

Thank you SA, the charity I work with won't accept anyone with needs as high as your mum dealt with so in many ways what I do is not such a big deal, it's just a stop-gap to prevent young people from falling into those issues in the first place.

I had the training today anyway and it was all fine, I need a Landlord Gas Safety cert before I can take a placement, which isn't happening until the 20th so I have a little breathing room.

For the time being she will have to go into the smaller room, and Mum has agreed she doesn't want to live with a teenager, let alone a child, so I actually think this will speed her plans to move out a bit. She's certainly seemed a bit more focused on looking for places today!

I'm nervous about the newborn aspect, because I have over 4 years' experience working with young people, but I have never even so much as held a baby (no proper maternal instincts at all I'm afraid!). It isn't my job to look after the baby, but on the other hand the social workers and health visitors won't be there at 3am if the young woman needs support, and I will. I have expressed that nervousness today so the charity have agreed that as soon as a more experienced host becomes available she will move in with them - this might even be I believe the next two months, so she might not be quite so 'long term' after all.

Hope you are enjoying the long weekend!!

Sun_Addict

I'd never held a newborn until I gave birth to my son. If anyone asked me if I wanted to hold their baby I'd be like ugh no I'll drop it. I was adamant I didn't want children. No idea how I ended up with two

Have a fab Easter!

JWPopps

I have a horrible feeling I'm taking on a bit too much at the moment, and I think it's impacting my mood and my behaviour with other people.

1. Work is not stressful as such at the moment, but obviously it's the biggest part of my day, and with the commute on either end as well, at an absolute minimum I am out of my house 10/11 hours every day of the working week.

2. This is not ideal when I am doing a '2nd shift' with a placement from the charity, because I feel pressure to rush home so the person isn't waiting on my doorstep for ages because of course I recognise how stressful that must be for someone in their position. And then I need to do all the basic requirements, cooking, cleaning for them, talking to them to find out what they need etc. If that's all I was doing in the day then it would be fine but it's pretty knackering when I've already done a full day at work.

3. My distance-learning MA has begun. I can't not do this, because it's a requirement of my job, but I am at a loss as to when I'll have enough time to do the required reading and make a start on the assignments. I also need to travel to the main campus at the very end of April, again in the first week of May and again in June.

4. Friend's wedding is coming up. I basically have everything sorted for that trip so I should feel relaxed about it, but it's another trip away coupled with the work-trips above which to be honest I could do without. It's all the organising of a cat-sitter and booking trains for flights etc that just adds to everything.

5. I'm still trying to write a novel!! I'm loath to give this up because it's my only real hobby and I love doing it, but I frankly don't have the time at the moment and this feels like the natural thing to go. But then (and I know this is overdramatic and petty) I feel like I'm losing the only thing I have for myself.

6. Money. Always money, always 'how can I tighten up, how can I pay down my debt quicker' and sometimes that becomes impossible to manage. I've ended up having to put some stuff on my credit card which is :mad: but I'm not putting it back in my signature because they're all expenses that I will be paid back within the next week.

7. Weight. Yes, I'm still a fatty. Oh well, at least that means I don't need to buy new clothes...

8. Mum. I still love her to pieces, I'm still so glad she's here and not several hundred miles away, but at the same time it would make a massive difference to me if I knew when and where she was moving. I feel like I can't plan for anything house-related at the moment, including buying new beds for my placements (which I need) because there just isn't enough space to think since I have 2 houses worth of stuff crammed into my house (and most if it is crammed into the built-in wardrobes in my bedroom).

9. My relationship. It's going really well, I am very much in love and happy with the way things are... but I'm so worried that taking a long-term placement through the charity will jeopardise it, because I went to the training on Saturday and they said that with long term, if the person is under 16 they can't ever be left alone over the weekend, no matter how long they've lived with you. Which I was banking on being able to do, because one weekend of every month I go to visit my partner. :eek:

Fixing It!

This is not meant to be a 'feel sorry for me' post! All of my stresses and problems are minor compared to some peoples'. I usually cope pretty well under pressure, it's just that at the moment I'm feeling the weight of quite a few expectations.

So here's my step-by-step of how I'm planning to cope:

Work: Like I said, it's not stressful at the moment and I can't really get round the fact that I need my job to pay my bills, so I'm just going to let my manager know I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with non-work stuff. She's really supportive, so I think that if she knows about it, she'll be flexible and understanding if I need to make the most of our Flexi-policy.

Charity: I've spent quite a lot of time with other people who do what I do in the last week, and it's been eye-opening. I've been putting far too much pressure on myself to be available all the time!! Some hosts will only do one night a week for example, and others can only take the people in after 7pm! I need to be more aware of my own limitations, and the 7pm thing makes a lot of sense to me. I usually get home at 6.15ish, so having 45 minutes before they arrived to get tea started and have a swift tidy round would make me feel a lot less stressed.

MA: The pressure on this one is largely of my own making. I have 3 assignments due this year, but (drumroll please...) they're not due until September!!! So although I know I will feel much better once they're submitted and out of the way, I need to forward plan a time to write them instead of beating myself up about not having done it yet. I have booked a week off in July for no particular reason (as in, I'm not going anywhere) so I'm just going to use that week as a study week.

Wedding: There's no reason this should be a stress. I have the flights and hotel sorted, Euros already bought, EHIC card tucked into my passport and wedding outfit planned. I can't do anything about the fact that the charity will need to find a respite placement for any young person I have staying with me. It's only 3 days, I need to stop letting it bother me.

Novel: I'm setting myself a writing goal of 500 words a day, which is about 30-minutes worth of writing. I could do it in my lunch hour, or on my bus home. This feels doable, and then on weekends I can review the weeks' work and spend a bit more time tinkering with it.

Money: I'm doing better than I thought I would be! My habits have definitely changed since I started this thread: I don't use my overdraft any more. I've cleared one credit card and the other is only for day to day purchases and gets paid off monthly (which was always the goal!!). I do want to start OPing my loan and mortgage, but for this month I'm going to chill out on that and start it properly when everything else has settled down.

Weight: Well you can't have everything. I'm going to continue my fasting pattern for now, but I'm leaving any bigger lifestyle changes until after Mum moves out, because best will in the world, women in our family like to feed people and if I start to 'diet' or 'eat healthy' now she'll just keep finding ways to inadvertently sabotage me, out of sheer love.

Mum: I don't want to rush her. This one is hard to deal with because I genuinely think my stress levels would dissipate substantially if she had a move out plan, but I am not prepared to upset her over this, or make her feel unwelcome.

Relationship: What's the 'shrug' emoji? I don't know what's going to happen here. My boyfriend is supportive of what I'm doing, and he can visit me when I'm hosting as he is DBS checked... we'll just have to see how it goes. If it becomes clear that a long-term placement will negatively impact my relationship I'll simply have to go back to one-night-only hosting...


Gosh this is long! I feel like I needed this off my chest though...

Sun_Addict

What a long post JWP! An interesting one though and I'm pleased you more or less came up with a solution for everything. Sometimes you just have to write it all down and the solution becomes evident. It's great that you host people for the charity but you shouldn't let it be detrimental to your health/work/home life. Could you take a break from it until you're less busy?

JWPopps

Thank you SA, I knew it was massive as I posted it - I don't think I was really expecting anyone to read it, as much as I just needed to write things down somewhere no one I know will see it, you know?

Anyway, I really don't want to not host, it's important to me to do it I think, but also I'm currently the only host they have in my area so I'd really be letting them down. We'll see what this week brings!!

Thank you for your support

jvr

The other way to look at it is that anything you are able to do as a host is more than they would have without you. It has to fit in with your own goals and life as well or you will become unhappy and burnt out and then not able to do it anymore. I think you should be hugely proud of how much you do and not put pressure on yourself to do too much just because they are short of places. You never know, by demonstrating that you can make it fit around you, you might inspire someone else to do it....