Am I a fool?

milobrulee

I work full-time, and for the past few years I have also worked a freelance job alongside my fulltime work. The income for this is £500 per month. I earn around £2700 post-tax from my full time.

I had debt amounting about £22k last summer. I have been able to reduce this to £15k as of now and my snowball plan puts me at paying it off by this summer.

However, I have been increasingly suffering from anxiety due to this freelance contract. It's pretty demanding, requiring lots of evening work (about 10hrs a week) and I am constantly missing deadlines and then getting worried and knotted up over it. It just goes on and on, but I've stuck with it because I can't handle to lose £500 a month when I am in debt.

I have just done the sums on it and worked out that if I were to quit, I could be debt free before the end of 2018. Not as soon as I'd like, but is it worth it for the ease on my mind? I have so much going on in my life, and have cut back a lot but I feel freeing up my time would make life that bit more enjoyable.

My partner doesn't think I should quit. Naturally, he wants to encourage me to be debt-free ASAP and I can very much see his point. I admit that I don't really tell him so much what is going on behind the scenes re: how I feel about this job. He doesn't really see that it stresses me out that much so he doesn't think it's a big deal. But even just thinking about not having to do it now makes my heart flutter a bit.

starting_again_in_the_sun

If I were you, I would give up the freelance job. Just over a year to be debt free isn't really a long time.

Furthermore, if the anxiety gets worse, it could start affecting your full time job which could potentially have worse effects for you.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

milobrulee

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starting_again_in_the_sun

Ahh that makes it a little more complicated, but at the end of the day I'm sure your partner values your health.

Does he know how it makes you feel? Does your employer know about the contract?

milobrulee

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enjoyyourshoes

I would look at how you set and agree target, both with freelances and self.

Negotiating with self to extend when you become debt free may unlock why you seem to over-challenging yourself or being unrealistic?

This then links to how best to negotiate with freelancing work, are you attempting to achieve '100% work' within the 40+ hours freelancing per month? (could you do 80% work within less time and still deliver what is required?)
Do you undervalue yourself with freelancing as 40+ for £500 seems the contracting company is getting an incredibly good deal?

Unlocking these may assist or give you more options (negotiating more time to do freelancing, charging higher rate, preparing better to negotiate rate/deadline, saying no and challenging back.etc

milobrulee

I possibly do undervalue my time. Problem is I've had this client since I was a student so I haven't really increased my rate. For a long time I was just grateful for the income because it was the difference between paying off just my minimums and not even affording that. But now, it's become such a burden and I hate getting home at 7pm from a full day of work knowing I have another 2hrs to do in the evening.

I do honestly in my heart wish I could just be free of it. I wanted to quit last year, but wasn't financially stable enough. I have wanted to quit every day since then and am now stressed out about it more than ever. But I feel terrible to take money from my boyfriend and just shift the stress to him.

ViolaLass

Why would you have to take money from your boyfriend? You suggested earlier that dropping the work would be mean a little longer to be debt-free but that it was doable.

If your boyfriend doesn't know the full picture then he can't really have a considered opinion on the matter. Either tell him the full facts or tell him you're quitting.

milobrulee

He is already assisting me. So I feel like the money I do "take" from him each month (having him pay the full rent) is going to go less far because I will be reducing my debt repayments by £500 a month. I guess the option is I tell him to forget his commitment but that would put me back in the dark place of only affording the minimums and that's what really caused the worst of my stress and depression. Since he has started helping me, I've really felt I've made the biggest dent.

I feel I will try to explain to him just how anxious and exhausted this job makes me feel, but he often struggles to empathise and I worry he won't "get" what I'm trying to explain. He doesn't envision it as being that bad. He doesn't understand how anxiety works.

enthusiasticsaver

You already have a substantial full time income. Having a separate stream of income to put towards debt is useful but your mental health is important too. Maybe you need to think about what stresses you out? Is it the debt or the freelance contract or both? If both then work out and maybe post an soa on here to see what difference losing the £500 monthly will do to your DFD.

pmlindyloo

You are on an extremely good salary so it may be worth doing a SOA so that the good people on here can have a look to see if there are any further cutbacks you can make.

It is always difficult when only one of a partnership has debts and obviously your partner wants this cleared asap so you can start saving for a house.

But, this must not be at the risk of your mental health.

To be absolutely honest, your OP's inability to realise how this is affecting you does not bode well for the future. Some of us are vulnerable with our mental health and if our 'other half' has no empathy then things may be difficult in the future.

I think it is time that you stood firm about this extra work you are doing. To clear your debt off in such a short time is truly awesome.

I do not know how old you are but is saving for a house a huge priority?

Usually compromise is the way to go.

You have to explain to your OH that doing such stressful work is having an effect on you. If he is completely unsympathetic then you have decisions to make about your relationship ..........................

I would suggest that you find another job which you can do to make up some of your loss. Something that does not cause you stress.

With that extra money and possibly some ideas from the folks on here about your expenditure may mean that you are not far off what you are making now.