Happier Nat's debt free diary

Toni'sfriend

Feeling a bit down in the dumps today, mostly because of work. I've been dragged into all sorts recently and today someone who isn't involved in one piece of work they are doing said that it was above their pay grade (they earn £12k more than I do) so that upset me a bit. I often feel overlooked at work and I went through a horrible bullying incident that only stopped because of COVID and now seems to be resurfacing in team meetings and on the internal staff intranet. 

Don't let this go on, Natlie. Report it and complain to your manager or their manager or whoever is in charge of the person doing the bullying. Do you have a union or staff association?

Baileys_Babe

Toni'sfriend said:

Feeling a bit down in the dumps today, mostly because of work. I've been dragged into all sorts recently and today someone who isn't involved in one piece of work they are doing said that it was above their pay grade (they earn £12k more than I do) so that upset me a bit. I often feel overlooked at work and I went through a horrible bullying incident that only stopped because of COVID and now seems to be resurfacing in team meetings and on the internal staff intranet. 

Don't let this go on, Natlie. Report it and complain to your manager or their manager or whoever is in charge of the person doing the bullying. Do you have a union or staff association?

Please report it @natlie you deserve to be treated with respect 

natlie

Thanks both, this has been ongoing for over a year and I've had many sessions with HR they keep encouraging me to deal with it myself and it did work for a while with one of the men involved. HR are on the side of the company, they are pushing me to make a formal complaint as one of those involved had duties they want to take into their team but he is getting a lot of praise from the management at the moment and I feel HR are only pushing this for their own agenda - not my protection. 

Managed to declutter another bag of recycling from the attic yesterday and I sold 2 wooden toys and a toilet training seat on FB. I have also got 2 bids on Eba*y items and I have given a few things away through OLIO. 
I have made my reverse meal plan and ordered my groceries to fill in the gaps. My aim is too keep grocery shopping below £100 a week for the 4 of us in the first instance and then to improve it from there.

Disney_Princess85

Well done you're making a great start so far. I'm also with Stepchange and you're right it was the best thing I did too!

natlie

Thanks @Disney_Princess85 I had a quick look at your diary and it would be great to know how you are getting on with your budgeting, this is new for me to and I've set up all the pots and my first/new DMP/budgeting month is starting on Wednesday 

Disney_Princess85

natlie said:

Thanks @Disney_Princess85 I had a quick look at your diary and it would be great to know how you are getting on with your budgeting, this is new for me to and I've set up all the pots and my first/new DMP/budgeting month is starting on Wednesday 

I completely forgot that I started my diary! Whoops!
Off to update it now. Thankfully i have actually been keeping up with the debt busting, I've just not been documenting it!

natlie

Morning, 
It's pay day. I've paid the rent and left money to cover all my DDs in my main account. 
In my other account I have put my DMP payment and this week's grocery shop and I have then separated all my other items into pots: clothes, annual car insurance, birthdays etc I have 11 pots in total I have added £200 to my EF.
My car insurance is going out in July but I already have all of that in a pot. 
On the 10th July I will have my UC payment that can all go in the account to pay for grocery shopping for the rest of the month and cover my sister and daughters birthday presents. I will then have an additional £130 on the 31st July (Child Benefit) that can go into my EF. 
Fingers crossed this all works out, tomorrow is the beginning of my first DMP and proper budgeting month so some small errors may occur. 
Nat

PurpleFairy26

Nat that’s a really good start. Your EF is growing nicely too. Well done. 

natlie

Thank you, I've also just added £50 to a Help to Save Account, I learned about this recently and thought I'd start it straight away. I am going to add some of my decluttering income each month - its so good to see the bonus tracking in there. I think I could set one up for my husband too but £100 a month might be a bit unaffordable at the moment 

natlie

I looked back over a previous month's grocery bill £685.33 and in the same month spent £107.72 on takeaways. Shocking! and why its so important that I stick to my grocery budget this month. My max spend in any week will be £100.