Starting fresh with good intentions

PurpleGazelle

Hey there, long time reader, first time signing up and posting though.

This year is bringing a lot of change in many respects, I can't be as specific as I like out of paranoia someone/anyone I know is also on this forum lol. But I ended things with my OH recently after quite a few years together, I instigated it this time round but it's not the first time that we have had similar conversations. So ideally, in the next few months, we will be leaving our current rented home and going into separate properties, dependent on how conversations go with our landlord to end our tenancy (very) early - neither of us can afford to live here without the other.

I've sat down and worked through my finances for what I can afford to rent by myself and there are options out there, some nice ones at the moment, but I'm trying not to get too excited whilst I still don't know when I can move.

My focus for the next year is going to be to get my head down and work hard and get rid of my debts which I am yet to total up as there always seems to be another one creeping out of the woodwork. However there is generally overtime to be had at work and I will have more time to fill when it's just me (and the cat).

I don't think I've ever been very good with money, when I was in my late teens it was payday loans, over the years it's been credit cards, catalogue accounts, buy now pay later... you name it, I've probably gotten in trouble with it. However, starting soon I will need to manage my money as efficiently as possible and will have no one to fallback on if I go stupidly over budget on things, so I think it's actually going to be the kick that I need. I did a huge amount of overtime at the end of last year that will get paid at the end of this month, so some of that is going straight to starting a mini emergency fund.

I work full time and do some freelance WFH as well, which actually was something else I messed up completely as I kept putting off putting aside the money each month for when it came to the self-assessment tax. I even lapsed on the payments for my repayment plan a few months ago however having sat down and completed my most recent self-assessment form I finally got the courage to phone up and re-instate it and they've done it to cover the amount of my recently submitted assessment, so the focus going forwards needs to be setting aside money each month so that I am ready to go for next year. I get major phone anxiety speaking with people I owe money to, though I'm not sure why, I haven't ever had a bad experience phoning anyone. 

Various things will be paid off in the next few months, a short term loan (final payment on the 1st) and one of my phone contracts (of which I have multiple) the device plan is basically paid off so will pay the extra to clear it next month and then cancel the tariff on that so that'll be another payment gone going forwards. That's about an extra £100 each month which can then be allocated elsewhere.

I'll sit down and work out everything debt wise and post it over the next week or so, just wanted to get over the fear and get my first post up.