Slept through the Wake-Up Call and no money in the meter for a Lightbulb Moment.

PendulumMan

I've been here before. It helped a lot. It didn't fix things but it put the brakes on them getting worse. I'm needing to put the brakes on again cos I am in severe danger of careering over the edge of one of the three cliff faces I seem to be gazing into the abyss from. Health / Debt / Career are the three areas where I need to make sustained improvement and I need to make it fast.

Health: Massively morbidly uncomfortably and achingingly obese - my scales give up on 159.9kg and all I know is that I'm past that. Heart attack back in September 2017 should have been the wake-up call but didn't seem to have the desired effect. My challenge here is to get 10000 steps in a day, curtail the calorie intake and use the treadmill / punchbag / cross-trainer I have set up in the spare room.

Debt: Excluding mortgage this currently stands at just under £11500. Majority of that is on a Zopa loan, another £1375 of it is overdraft and the remaining £2590 is spread over three credit cards. My main focus on this area is to not add to the totals, and to shift if possible the CC and overdraft onto a low APR deal.

Career: I'm good at what I do, and I do make a difference in people's lives. Unfortunately I have a habit of coming across very confrontational and insincere in front of management. This, coupled with my position as a senior (and thus expensive) member of the organisation means the sniper targets are firmly locked onto me a lot of the time. My challenge here is to remain employed and somehow 'play the game' a little more to reduce the pressure on me.

Am hoping this diary will keep me honest and keep me reflective. I'm feeling better already and I haven't even hit the 'submit new thread' button yet.

pinknsparkly

Hi Pendulum :wave: and welcome on board!

Whilst it is great, and very admirable, that you have so many things that you want to improve in your life, please make sure you don't try to bite off more than you can chew. It's way better to make small long-term improvements in a couple of areas than burn yourself after a month and end up in a worse position than when you started!!

Have you heard of My Fitness Pal at all? It's an online calorie diary that is very widely used worldwide, and also has an active forum that you can get advice and support from. My sister has a Fitbit watch that vibrates every hour that she's not achieved 250 steps which she finds really helpful. I've joined a facebook group called "RED January" (RED = run every day) organised by the mental health charity Mind. Despite the title, the challenge isn't actually to RUN every day, just to be active every day, and everyone is very very supportive. If that sounds like something you fancy, then come and join us!

Debt-wise: your starting point for this should be sitting down and working an SOA (statement of affairs), which is a very detailed budget. That will tell you how much money you SHOULD have left over at the end of each month. Compare that to how much you actually have left and work out where your money is disappearing to (also - post it on here and you'll get a ton of helpful responses). Are you struggling a lot with making your minimum payments at the moment? Or are you making them ok, but not managing to pay them down over and above minimum payments?

Career-wise: Do you have a good idea as to why you come across as confrontational and insincere to management? If not, is there someone you trust at work that you can discuss it with to get their opinion on this. I actually think that this could be your biggest challenge as it can be hard to be told you're not a "people person" etc, but get as much support around you at work as you possible can.

You sound pretty determined anyway, so good luck and I hope you greet 2020 in a much better state :beer:

PendulumMan

Hey pinkn, many thanks for the detailed reply - much appreciated. In answer to some of your points...
1) There is no middle ground, it's all feast or famine, everything or nothing. I can't do measured. Wish I could. Wouldn't be here if I could..

2) MPF and Fitbit have been my friends for a long while. Massive fan of them and without them I would be in an even worse state. I religiously log my movement and intake stats every day on Google Sheets - thereby contradicting my previous statement about not being able to do measured.

3) Cheers for the headsup on the RED forum - my membership is currently awaiting acceptance or something.

4) Can't do a SOA. Sorry. It's too much of a carcrash to have people rubbernecking at. I spend way too much on Sky Q, Netflix, Prime, Xbox Live, mobile phone contracts etc. I know that. There is no food budget, there is no savings plan. I've been around here long enough to know exactly what should be done. But I can't do it. And that isn't to be dismissive of the wisdom of these folk on here - it's just I know exactly what they will say, and I know exactly how I will answer, and it wouldn't get us anywhere fast. Maybe later.

5) Not struggling with minimum payments at the moment. Certainly was in the past, and likely will again in the future - but to put it into some perspective, my current OD/CC debt totals around £4000, my available credit on the myriad cards & accounts I have is £34800. And I have been there. So am trying to calm the waters so I can pay down some more.

6) You're right about the career being the toughest one. Throughout my life I have had zero respect for authority figures and to this day am hard pressed to name any role models. At work I am loved by the foot soldiers and the service users but despised by the hierarchy. And I think I prefer it that way. I've been in leadership positions before and been instructed to be the hatchet man. Couldn't do it. I fought and planned and out-thought and charmed and blagged my way to get to where I am now - way further than someone like me should have ever got, but what troubles me now is the lack of energy, lack of physical and mental health to keep fighting and keep surviving in this place. And that is why I have to be holistic, that is why I have to work on the weight the debt and the work together - cos I am being literally and figuratively crushed.

Anyhoo, that's enough soul-bearing for tonight. Positive things today have been - surpassing the 10000 steps target, not going overboard on the calorie intake (even passing up an Eldarado in preference for a smug cup of tea), getting all my dry cleaning sorted ready for Monday. Negatives today have been remembering I need to fix the screens on DD's tablet and phone - promised her well before Christmas and she has just politely reminded me. But overall, a good day. Time for a coffee and a cuddle with the cat. Night all.

PendulumMan

Successfully navigated the worst Sunday of the year - hoping to do the same tomorrow with the most painful Monday. I wanted to be out in the garden doing useful stuff but didn't want it enough to actually get there. Positives today were a walk in the park - and passing my 10000 steps target again for the 5th day this year, refurbishing a couple of old gadgets and coming in well under my calorie intake level. Am hoping sometime this week that the scales will stop reporting an error and will start reporting a number. Off to find the cat, and then it's an early night for me.

PositiveBalance

Hi Pendulum Man and welcome! :wave:


You have a lot going on. TBH, it's almost impossible to successfully deal with so many things at once. Your posts sound a bit manic - you have a lot going on but no plan to attack it, which makes life harder for you.


How about finding out how much is owed on each CC and the interest rate so you can figure out which debt to try to knock out first with any extra money you find/comes your way?

PositiveBalance

Also, check out Dave Ramsey on YouTube or download his app and listen to his podcasts. I have found him to be a massive help.

badgerhead

Good luck and you have a great title for your diary.

PendulumMan

Another day done and it was a good one. Had a number of people telling how well I looked and how I had clearly lost weight. This is despite me still being off the scales. I'm just waiting for that magic 159.9 to be on the display. Some day soon hopefully.

Wore two fitbits today, one on each wrist and each linked to a seperate account, with the settings adjusted for the dominant hand. Yet still there was a disparity of just under 1000 steps. According to my regular one I've done 8034, according to the refurb it's 9052. Puzzling. Anyhow, either way I haven't hit the 10000 mark and most likely won't before midnight.

Am in process of finding out interest rates for the cards and also trying to calculate what the daily rates on the Overdraft are costing me. I have a feeling the latter is more evil than the others and I will certainly attack them based on order of how much they are fleecing me for. I also need to go forensically through my (somehow inaccessible on some HR server) payslips as my most recent P60 shows my total pay for the year being a good 5 grand less than it should be. I'm sure there's some perfectly reasonable explanation but it's good to dream...

Off to make some coffee and to see if my cat wants any company.

CCW007

PendulumMan wrote: »

I also need to go forensically through my (somehow inaccessible on some HR server) payslips as my most recent P60 shows my total pay for the year being a good 5 grand less than it should be. I'm sure there's some perfectly reasonable explanation but it's good to dream..

My P60 shows my salary as my pre tax income after pension contributions have been applied.

PendulumMan

Many thanks for the pension headsup CCW007 that saves me a lot of legwork. Although a bit more legwork might be exactly what I need. Pretty much the only cloud on the horizon at the moment is the step count which for the second day running is going to hover around the 8000 mark. Not sure if it's this diary or the increased exercise or the reduced calorie count (managed to get it under 2000 today) but overall I'm feeling a far more positive vibe about things. Had a couple of things thrown my way at work which I was predicting, and had been previously strategizing how to swerve them, but instead have just taken them on with a smile.

I was also quite relieved to find out that none of my 3 credit cards have APRs over 20% - I remember being maxed out on a sub-prime one a few years back that was something ridiculous like 54%. And I was even more heartened to calculate my overdraft rate (which I had assumed was something extortionate from them city moneygrabbers) turns out to be a rather anodyne 4.8%. This is entirely through luck rather than judgement and I will still seek to see if I can shave a few percentage points off the debts and roll them all into one.

I have an unattended cat keeping my armchair warm and so I think it's time to post this and get a coffee. Night.

PositiveBalance

PendulumMan wrote: »

I was also quite relieved to find out that none of my 3 credit cards have APRs over 20% - I remember being maxed out on a sub-prime one a few years back that was something ridiculous like 54%. And I was even more heartened to calculate my overdraft rate (which I had assumed was something extortionate from them city moneygrabbers) turns out to be a rather anodyne 4.8%. This is entirely through luck rather than judgement and I will still seek to see if I can shave a few percentage points off the debts and roll them all into one.

While consolidating your CCs at a lower interest rate will help in terms of an increase in the amount of each payment being paid toward principle instead of interest, please don't confuse it for making progress in paying your debt off. You may feel a bit better doing a balance transfer, but it ultimately won't make that much difference.

Pendulum Man, I'm going to say something and I would like you to read it, think about it and then repeat. Several times if necessary. Then get humble, cos you aren't going to get out of this situation until you acknowledge the truth of the following statement and then change your mindset as result of acknowledging the truth of it:

Your ways of handling money do not work.

I'm not saying this to be mean or judgemental. I'm saying it as a reformed bad money student who had to first acknowledge it herself, go out and find a better way to deal with her finances and then implement it.

I also say it as you said in your first statement that you have already been here and it 'didn't fix things but it put the brakes on them getting worse' and yet they are now here, worse than they were. A brake is but the start of what you need to do to sort your situation out but it is only the very start; you need to put the brake on so that you can put yourself in reverse and get yourself out of this debt once and for all.

Until you truly acknowledge the truth of the above statement you are not going to get out of debt as you have to humble yourself to learning a different way of behaving with money and be prepared to accept the knock-on effects this will have on your and your family's life, no matter how much sulking goes on because Netflix and Sky Q have been cut or put on a strict diet.

The word 'humble' might sound a bit much, but it really is true. It's only when you acknowledge that your ducking and diving - your shaving a few percent off the high interest rates you are paying on your CCs despite thinking they aren't that high as you once had one that was OBSCENELY high - hasn't got you to where you want to be and carrying on in the same vein won't get you there, either. To get to that place you will have to truly acknowledge your lack of efficacy in this area and learn to do things differently from the very foundations up. Starting with getting yourself into no more debt at all and working from there.

You need a new learning model.

I don't say this to point fingers and judge; I say this as someone who has had to learn to think and act differently around money herself in order to be working my way out of debt. I'm not going to lie, it's a slog, but I'm getting there, even if it isn't as fast as I would like (when is it ever?! :rotfl:) However, I am confident the skills I have learned in doing so are truly useful and have become ingrained – slowly – as I continue to use them and that they will help me stay out debt for the rest of my life: I can only imagine what I'm going to do with my mortgage once I'm done with this debt!

I've drawn an absolute line in the sand for myself as I am NEVER going to be in this situation again in my life, not matter what it costs me (and I'm not just talking in £££, either.)

To quote Dave Ramsey you have to be 'sick and tired of being sick and tired.' I don't think you have reached that point yet as I think that you think that you can plot your way out of this with some balance transfers and other jiggery-pokery while neglecting to address why you are spending more than you earn. Until you have an honest conversation first with yourself and then your spouse about the underlying issues, I doubt (but hope) that things will change for you.

I sincerely hope that you manage to get yourself out of debt this time, but until you are ready to mentally kneel down and say 'I haven't got control over this and I need help to learn how to sort this out', I fear that you might not.

All the best, Pendulum Man (although I'm 99.9% certain I could guess your old login name but don't worry - mum's the word! )


Best wishes


PB
:beer: