Living in the present for 2022

makingmehappy

Thank you @vampirotoothus, I did relax, a lot! In fact I just got really lazy and dealt with about 1% of the stuff I'd planned on doing. I'm just about feeling relaxed and re-energised enough to start doing some of it and, of course, I need to go back to work tomorrow. 

I'm hoping that the commute won't be too bad because people are still on holiday, and it's only 2 weeks to a bank holiday and long weekend, so I'm hoping to keep my holiday chill mood for a while longer.

I've had my head in the sand about spending though, I know I will have gone way over budget in July and so far this month, so I'm having a frugal couple of weeks now to try and even out the damage, and then I can face the music at the end of August and get back on track.

makingmehappy

Well, I have faced up to the last couple of months spending, and I went about £200 over a normal couple of months, so not as bad as I thought. I also had a couple of big birthdays to buy for and hadn't budgeted and bought a lot of stuff at the last minute in a panic, so that cost me more than it should.

I had been trying a way of budgeting by using a credit card to even out a higher monthly spend (I mean over my budget) against some lower months spending, but I think I've proved to myself that I'm still a credit card junkie. There was just no discipline in my spending, so the card's back in the drawer and I'm back to transferring a set amount each month onto a debit card. 

I've checked my expected energy direct debit on the calculator here on the main site, and it's really brought it home to me how much more I'll be needing to pay out each month. I'm lucky that while I'm still working in my current job I can afford to pay it, but it will reduce my savings and will affect my decisions about leaving this job in the near future.

makingmehappy

Well, it's been a strange and unsettled week for the country and it's difficult to not feel a bit unnerved. I'm still trying to settle into some stability in my life after the last couple of years, but still knowing that there are likely to be big changes personally in the coming few years.

The debit card idea hasn't worked, yet. For some reason the card had expired (it showed in date on the card) and my online delivery was cancelled overnight, then the cash machine kept the card. So had to ring for a new card and now waiting for that and a new pin to come through. In the meantime still using the credit card and am having to keep myself under control with the spending.

I've cleared all the 'stuff' out of my living room. I just haven't settled in to this flat, I don't feel comfortable or at home here, and I'm losing things so often it's starting to worry me that there's actually something wrong with me. It needs to be sorted, even if I don't stay here I wouldn't want to have to sort this out to pack it again, and I need to be organised and comfortable now. The stuff from the living room is now in every other room and cupboard. The next two weeks is focus on actually getting rid of stuff - rubbish, recycling, donation, using up, selling. The mantra is use it or lose it!

makingmehappy

So, most of the stuff is still in the flat. It's more organised and packed up, but it's still here, so that's next month's focus. There's a big bag for the charity shop, which will take a few trips on the bus, piles of paper to recycle and shred, and still more to sort and file. I'm giving myself a target of the end of October to have that all gone.

It's payday next week and I still have about £95 left of my monthly spending money. Some of that is because of one less online shop this month, and the rest because I haven't had any extra to pay out for social or hair or presents type things. Also I'm trying alcohol free for a while after my overindulgent summer. My online delivery seems to have reduced the minimum order to £25 instead of £40, I'm not sure why or when and only found out by accident, but it's a target for me to try to reduce my grocery shop to. There's only me, and with no alcohol involved, I might make it. 

makingmehappy

Gave myself a treat of a bit of extra time lying in bed this morning, and was thinking about getting up and going out in the dark tomorrow morning and how much I will like not having to do that at some point! I am definitely getting more and more tired now and taking longer to recover from the days I'm working and commuting. It's not been helped this weekend by the booster jab, which has knocked me out for a couple of days, and now I don't feel as if I've had any weekend.

I submitted meter readings yesterday and, in sort of good news, my new energy direct debit isn't as high as I'd thought it might be, so a few £s saved there, although it's still a lot more than this time last year. I need to work on bringing down my usage now, so that's another focus for this month.

My debit card is up and working again, so this month's money is transferred to that. I've been watching some youtube videos about cash stuffing, and I've started to do that with left over money from last month. It's strangely satisfying to see some cash in the wallets for different things and knowing that I can spend it guilt-free if I want to. 

So, on and into October, but first another cup of tea

doingitanyway

You are doing really well. You are simplifying your home and you are mindful of your spending. It is a good achievement to still have £95 left before pay day. It takes a while to get to grips with a new lifestyle.

Like you the background of instability in the country increases my personal feeling of not being settled. I am sure your decluttering and organising at home will help ease this for you.

Good luck with AF October

I haven't heard of cash stuffing so off to look it up 

makingmehappy

I have been feeling really tired for the last few weeks, so all the tidying and cleaning has ground to a halt as I've sort of gone into survival mode - work, make sure my parents are ok, sleep, rinse and repeat. I've taken a few days off now to try to get some extra rest and carry on tidying things up so that life is generally more organised and easier to deal with.

I've got about £33 left of this month's budget, but I didn't have 2 weekly shops as one was cancelled due to technical difficulties and this week I'm using store cupboard and freezer stuff up.  I have reduced the monthly amount by £50 to try to encourage me to be a bit more careful and to use up any vouchers and gift cards I've got. I found some Tesc0 vouchers I'd completely forgotten about, but last month I tried about £40 of others that I think have gone out of date, so I need to contact the company to see if there's any way I can use them. I'm keeping a list of vouchers that are held in different places in my cash stuffing wallet now.

Payday tomorrow so I'll have a look at next month's budget and make some plans.

makingmehappy

Gosh, a whole month since I've updated and that month has just whizzed by. There's been lots of appointments and things to deal with recently and I've just been on autopilot most of the time. This is the first day off I've had for a while, so I'm making the most of it with a rest and maybe a stroll round the local town later, if it doesn't rain.

I've run out of money on my spending card this month. I had some higher cost online shops early on and there's an extra weekend before I get paid on Monday. I do still have about £40 left in my purse because I've been too busy to go anywhere to spend cash. So I'm not having a grocery delivery this weekend and I'll have a use-up week with some small top ups from the local shops.

Still working through the stuff

makingmehappy

Well, it's been a while since I've been here on this diary. It's not been a good time. My mother had another hospital admission after a fall and broken hip. After dealing with the initial emergency, hospital visiting, looking after my father, dealing with social services and carers, my nerves are jangled. 

This time I knew that I wouldn't be able to work and deal with this, so I've taken time off and I won't be going back for the rest of this year. I don't think I can go back to work and then have to take more time off when the next emergency happens, as it invariably will. Now I'm panicking because there aren't any more pay days for a while.

Frankly, my parents are fighting me all the way on the carers thing - I see it as the start of ongoing support for them and me, my mother sees it as a bit of a blip until she's well enough to do all the things again that made her exhausted and fall in the first place, and my father sees it as a short-term arrangement because I can be his full-time carer now (and I mean 24/7)! Now I'm thinking I might have been a bit hasty with the time-off work thing, but I just don't know how to cope with everything - it's too much.

My eye has been totally off the ball with money and all spending has just been going on the credit card. I'm not sure I even know how to budget now, with no money coming in at the moment. Last week I panicked about having enough cash in the bank to pay all my bills, so used a 0% money transfer offer from one credit card. I do have savings but most of them are in accounts which are to stop me spending it, so not immediately available. I also have some pensions that I can put into payment, but that's all going to take some time to sort out.

I think at the back of my mind, there's the thought that maybe I won't be able to go back to work and that this is the new normal, and I'm not ready for it.

I'll have to face the financial music soon, but I'm actually free for the evening, so I'm going to relax and think about it tomorrow.

makingmehappy

Hello Monday morning and I'm feeling grateful this morning that I'm not rushing out for a long public transport commute to work.

I need to get into some new routines and let things settle down after all of the upset of the last few months.

I'm going to try going to visit/help my parents once a day. I did try last week, but there was a lot of resistance from my dad, the interactions were a bit fraught and then I felt guilty, but going at a specific time in the afternoon for a couple of days has seemed to work a bit better.

I'm turning my phone off (my parents contact me on a different number). I'm trying to let go of the idea of getting everything out of the way and then things will go back to normal - there's always another appointment/assessment/visit/call so I'm going deal with things when I'm ready. This week and next week I've got appointments of my own I'd already agreed to, so that's enough at the moment.

Focus of the week is tidying up in my home, which is a complete mess again because I've been concentrating on my parents.

I also need to deal with my broadband today because my contract ends in a couple of weeks.