A Much Needed Wake Up Call...

BadBookkeeper

You sound like you’re making progress.  I know what you mean about birthdays etc needing planning.  I’m currently preparing my 2022 budget and estimate I’ll spend £700 throughout the year on gifts for other people, not including Christmas which is ridiculous and needs forward planning!!! I know you shouldn’t give to receive but I definitely don’t receive anywhere near that when it’s my birthday!! Keep at it 🙂

BL07478

I feel exactly the same, I make effort to remember all birthdays but when it comes to mind...

Made some progress over the last few days, cancelled Sky and switched over to BT TV. I also was looking over my phone contract and realised I was paying nearly £10 a month for Amazon music unlimited so cancelled that, also have a Disney plus add-on but we use that a lot so I'm just checking around to make sure it's the cheapest way of having it.

We're going to do a test today of switching off everything thats plugged in that we know of for a couple of hours then checking the electric meter, our heating hasn't been on since the start of the year and from my last bill our combined dual fuel was nearly £120 of usage...

Our direct debit is £140 which is barely affordable, so I dread having to turn the heating on.....

Tinkering with the budget for next month, looks okay so far and I don't think I've missed anything out this time. I can even stretch to getting my hair done at a college salon.

Solved the problem of worrying about paying for my nans birthday treat - told my 2 brothers we should chip in a a bit of money each to cover the pedicure, some flowers and some wine. Win-win - she gets spoilt, they don't have to worry about to sorting anything themselves

We've just about survived this petrol mania, OH had literally 5 miles of diesel in his car on Friday night and we had no diesel anywhere but some places had unleaded so he filled up my car and has taken it to work yesterday and today, I've been told by my family places that do have some diesel where they live so by all accounts I think he's going to stop somewhere today and get a few litres in a jerry can so he can drive his car to fill up properly for work. Thankfully I've been off this weekend!

BL07478

I am very mentally burnt out at the moment, feeling low but not to the point that I think I need to see a GP just yet, I just need a bit of a break and to take better care of myself. 

I also have to confess this somewhere as I can't tell my OH just yet - amidst all of my recent money troubles I have, I believe, 2 accounts that have defaulted. I am heartbroken at this because my last bad mark on my credit file was due to drop off mid next year which would have meant no bad marks for the first time probably in about 10 years, and now it's going to be a 6 year long slog again. I just can't admit that to him yet, I am hopeful that when we do come to buy a house in a few years as long as everything is satisfied, we have enough money behind us and go via a broker that we will be able to get a mortgage however he is going to be so let down, he's not so much as a missed a payment ever in his life.

So now begins hammering in as much of the work I can do from home as possible and seriously looking at the work overtime sheet to pick up a few hours here and there to add up to an extra days work per month, as I want to get everything else gone as quickly as possible. 

I have been nursing this secret probably since the start of the week and I have been feeling hopeless from time to time, I should be older and wiser and yet I have allowed this to happen again, primarily all for the fact that I basically have a panic attack at the thought of trying to speak on the phone to anyone I am in debt with.

Also this week I was reading back through old messages to my OH trying to work out when I had had my implant put in (panic over nothing, still way over a year to go lol) and at that time was being really proud of getting all of my credit cards paid off bar a couple. Now I have more, and all of them at their limit. Thankfully because of my extra pay this month they are slightly more in check so starting to make some actual progress.

I had to get all of that off my chest, it's had me in random fits of tears through the week between phases of literally just laying in bed doing nothing but staring at the ceiling.

Today to many others should be a fun day, I'm shortly going to have a Skype chat with some family abroad, then visit my nan and then hopefully see my dad and brother but all I can think about is how much I've got to do in the day and still get an early night as my next four shifts I have to be in work by 6am. As I say, I just need some time off! I've got some leave booked for the last week of October but if a training course I'm due to go on mid-October doesn't go ahead, I'll probably end up booking some extra leave a bit earlier just for some R&R.

WinterWarrior

How is it that you are missing payments and OH isn’t? Are the regular outgoings split fairly according to income or are you shouldering more than your fair share? Are you spending more on joint food or other expenses? Maybe an SOA or just writing everything down might help. I know it feels bad, but don’t panic too much, it’s always fixable, you’ll be ok. Just take some time to put it in perspective, take some time off if you can and know that things always get better. 

BL07478

I actually took the above advice without realising it lol - I've spent my time when I haven't been at my full time job just trying to take a bit better care of myself, I took some time off of my extra work I can do at home to take a lot of pressure off of myself and took a few simple steps to chill out a little - the biggest change was probably cutting out my extra strong coffee I have many times a day to just a normal coffee in the morning and then cold drinks or tea throughout the rest of the day. 

Over the next week I'm going to start factoring in some exercise 2-3 times a week and drinking more water (I drink next to none)

In answer to the above question, I sat down ages ago and workout out our fair share of the regular outgoings based on our proportionate income so it's just the amount I have going out with my debts, really. If it wasn't that we are hoping to buy in the next few years I'd probably consider a DMP but in the next few months I should have some of the smaller stuff paid off or caught up on any arrears so the minimums should come down a fair amount and get back on top of it all. 

Day to myself today so catching up on some much needed housework, bedding all being washed etc and bathrooms cleaned, tonight I'll get cracking with some extra work. I have this thing I need to work on where I know the steps to take to get a problem sorted but put it off for some reason. That's probably something I'll look to talk to someone about along with some various other self-esteem issues at some point when my schedule is less hectic. 

Had some extra rest days this week as I'm on a training course for the next two weeks Monday-Friday so my rest days had to be moved, got out of some night shifts due to that which was nice

I am hoping when I get my "head up" payslip this month it'll show I've gone up the payscale and hopefully a little overtime in there, too. Then I can sit down and confirm my budget for next month. 

savingholmes

Is it worth considering online shopping delivery so you can budget and set a limit in advance and check what you have in? Doing that helped me and I'm planning to go back to that approach having had a few months of over spending doing in person shopping

savingholmes

It also sounds like a chat with a GP about how you are feeling may help