The turtle moves.... slowly

GeorgianaCavendish

Hope you feel better soon. Give yourself the time you need, we'll be here when you are ready again x

Humdinger1

Hope you're OK.  I think our homes to us are what the cardboard boxes are to the cats; we need to feel happy and secure.   The stress of moving is unbelievable so please be kind to yourself.  You're doing brilliantly love Humdinger x 

astrocytic_kitten

Thanks everyone, very touched by the comments and checking in, you're all such lovely people. I'm hopefully on the mend now and starting to feel a bit more able to do stuff. I've got most of the moving admin done (still a couple of addresses to change that I've been putting off for ages), I've changed the mortgage direct debit so I'm overpaying some each month, I've got lots of bits and pieces and smaller jobs in the flat done (or rather I've organised and paid for someone else to do them!) and have 2 of the 3 big bits of work booked in (everyone here is booked up months in advance). And the 3rd one can wait a bit. So I'm feeling like I've got to grip with things a bit. I've paid off 2.93% of the mortgage but that's mostly because I paid some of the proceeds of the sale back in so it's not really indicative of the future payoff speed.

I'm hoping to get more on top of the budget from August onwards, I'm pretty skint until the end of the month now. I haven't got into debt or touched savings (other than for planned work on the flat), but I've also just been spending a lot. The last straw was that I needed to buy some new hot weather clothes because my old holiday ones are too small and I've spent just a bit too much for clothes that I don't absolutely love and that were more panic buys than items I'll be keeping for decades. Already worrying about winter cost rises etc so hoping that coming back here with renewed energy will keep me accountable and on top of finances.

girlatplay

Great to see you posting again.
If you can't take/send any of the clothes back then try to get as much wear out of them as possible and don't beat yourself up about the cost.  You know where you've gone wrong, it's spent now, take the lesson and move on.

Exciting that you've got some jobs done and others booked.  You're getting there 😊

savingholmes

Glad you are doing okay and making progress - and as importantly getting some help in!

astrocytic_kitten

Being back on MSE is already getting me into better money habits, I was going to spend an extra £100 next month on a very lovely velvet bedspread in the sale that I've been lusting over for a while, but instead its going onto the mortgage. As lovely, and thick, and warm-looking, and-really-it-might-save-money-in-the-long-run-this-winter as it might be, it's not as good as whatever interest I'll save putting the money to mortgage instead

I'd love to be able to put this extra to the mortgage every month but it will need to go to the gas bill this winter, not that I'm complaining - very grateful to have the headroom in the first place and I know if I hadn't got a grip of things I'd be in a very different place.  

In other good news, one of the summer things I'd washed and worn before deciding I should actually have returned developed a hole in a seam after 3 wears so is now on its way back to be refunded. I briefly considered asking for an exchange but I'd have needed to ask for one size down as the reason I was wishing I'd returned it was it stretched out loads with wear, so I decided to take it as a sign and just get a refund. That leaves 3 clothing regrets - two summer tops in the sale (one too low cut so anyone taller than me can see down my top, one ok but don't love it and kind of wish I'd just returned it), and a headband (I desperately want to be the kind of person who can pull off a cool boho headband look but I'm really not, though I am wearing it round the house to keep my hair out of my eyes). Looking back through the year, there's also a pair of pjs in the sale at the start of the year that in retrospect I could have done without. So that's not too bad on the buying clothes I don't absolutely love front. Not top of the range, gold-star MSE-ing, but definite improvement from where I started out  

I'm not telling you all how much I've spent on paint testers though. Some things must remain secret 🤣

girlatplay

You're definitely getting there and you sound bright and cheerful 🙂

savingholmes

Glad you are feeling more in control again. 

I've made and kept a couple of mistake purchases as I didn't return them in time - well make that at least 4 - but I did return 3 others this week which is progress. We all have similar vices I reckon...

astrocytic_kitten

Well I’m back, having spent a huge chunk of money on boring home stuff. But I can now get onto the fun side of things to really make it a home. Hopefully without much in the way of spending but instead just getting blankets and books and pictures out of boxes now the major work is done. I’m very very very slowly starting to catch up with diaries.

I realised that one of the reasons I’ve been avoiding the forum a bit was that it felt so weird to be spending money in the current situation and knowing that barring total disaster I’ll probably be ok. I grew up in a house that always worried about money, I’ve had periods in my life where I’ve barely earned enough to live and had to scrimp and save and count every penny, and I’ve had periods where I’ve spent way above my means and ended up in masses of debt. I’m so grateful and feel so lucky to have had my LBM when I did and very aware that I’d be at a crisis point now with food and energy prices if I was still overspending and in debt. As it is, my income is far below where it was at LBM but I’m in a much safer position financially and it’s just so weird to be there. I don’t think I’ve ever felt financially secure in my life (I mean there’s still a lot of disasters that could happen and I’m in no way set for life but I’ve got a very solid emergency fund now so I’d have a year or so to figure stuff out instead of less than a month)… it’s been messing with my head a bit and I can’t really describe it more than that. 

Also I’ve been having to come to terms with now being disabled and it being very unlikely I’d be able to get back to my previous level of functioning and having to adjust my goals down quite a bit. And part of that was accepting that there’s no prospect of me going back to the volunteer work that helped me feel like I was giving back and not pulling the ladder up after me. But I just can’t do that now and don’t know when I’ll ever be able to get back to it, and there’s basically just been a lot of FEELINGS floating around 🤣 

And even this feels very self indulgent with the situation so many people are in and the general state of the world 🤦‍♀️ 

But to MSE…I haven’t been keeping track of my spending totals because they’ve been all over with the move, I’m hoping to get back on track for the second half of the year. And when I started to think of all the thick cosy fluffy clothes I wanted for winter I made myself write down all the indoor winter clothes I already have and unsurprisingly it was a fairly comprehensive list 😂 I’m already wearing them and as I feel the cold badly so i think the heated blanket will be a real essential this winter. 

South_coast

I've been feeling the same about continuing to spend/consume in the same way, when everyone else is posting about planned cutbacks 🙁 Hope you manage to work through all the thoughts and feelings soon x