Where to focus - mortgage, renovations etc?

shellstar

I won £150 on the premium bonds. Hurrah! Ex-DP is also back from deployment. DS remembered him and gave him a big hug and was happy to play with him. That was nice to see (and a little maddening when he complied with reasonable request with no fuss whatsoever. Typical!). 

I've also decided to enlist the support of a career coach. It's someone I know. She worked with me at my previous company and set up by herself when she was made redundant during the pandemic. It's not the cheapest, but I tend to think investing in yourself is usually worth the money. I need to do something to get my groove back or pivot or whatever. What I'm currently doing isn't working and I'm usually of the view that if things aren't serving you, you should listen and make changes. No point staying stuck. 

Oh, and the cute lion costume for World Book Day - I couldn't even get him in his coat this morning. Ended up just bundling him into the car with a blanket on. I might see if he'll wear it this evening. Would be such a shame for it to go to waste, although obvs I plan to re-list it. 

shellstar

Pay day tomorrow. It's been tight again because I got my hair done. I have a conference next week so thought it was time to tidy things up. I haven't had it done in 6 months. I explained my circumstances have changed and I need to reduce costs. They had the trainee do me colour under supervision and she did a great job. I love it! They also gave me a new cut and have said she'll be able to tidy it up next time, so that will reduce the cost again. Yesterday cost me £90, which is already £108 cheaper than last time (thought last time was a full head of highlights and this was half a head). They said it would reduce it by £45 to have the trainee cut my hair next time so I'll do that. I've looked into colleges, as I know that is a good way to reduce costs, but the nearest one is actually pretty far away and I think when you find a hairdresser you like and trust you have to stick with them to an extent. 

Won a lucky dip yesterday. Fingers crossed for the weekend. Also received my £55 Amaz0n gift card from signing onto my new mobile phone provider, so I've used that to get my DS some bits - a new bib (his are a bit mouldy round the cuffs now), a booster seat for the table as he's taking against the high chair more and more, and a reusable sticker book as he seems to love this kind of thing atm and I've recently booked to take us to visit family in Scotland. We're going by plan as I thought car journey would be a nightmare (8 hours usually, if you only stop once, which isn't feasible for him). I am hoping stickers on the plane won't be a disaster. I only have to keep him occupied for a short while at least. 

shellstar

I've made some decisions. Hopefully good ones. Possibly crazy ones!

I've been working with my career coach and I've decided to change career, and based on a lot of soul searching and some practical considerations, I'm going to try to retrain to become a psychotherapist! Bit left field in many ways, but I've always had an interest, I've personally found therapy hugely beneficial and I think as a career it will hopefully feel more meaningful to what I actually do. Also, if I work for myself it would give me a lot more freedom and balance, as well as mean no travel needed at all, unless I chose to go to a professional conference of something. 

So, I've signed up to do a Level 2 certificate in therapeutic studies. I'm able to use my annual leave to do this it's the first step towards retraining. Once I have the certificate, I can apply to retrain. It will take approximately 5 years (GULP) and I haven't worked out how to do that with a full time job, sole custody of a small boy, insecure rescue dog to walk and a house to run but cross each bridge as we come to them I think! 

One part of the transformation is... to sell the house! Clearly, I need to reduce my outgoings in order to make it possible to at least drop my income to begin with, as it would take time to build up a new career. I've spoken to Ex-DP and I've asked that we put the house on the market by January 2026. This then gives me time to move before I have to apply for schools. I think he'd rather hang on but he has agreed. Hopefully he doesn't change his mind once the time comes. 

Next is I have to look at my house buying budget. Previously if I moved my top budget was £450k, but I'll now need to keep money by for my training, so this reduces my budget to £425k. That is max, and as much as possible I will try to stay under that, as long as I can have 3 bedrooms, a garden for DS and the dog and live in a safe area then I think those are my only must haves. Oh, and catchment of a reasonable school ideally too. 

I'll re-jig my signature when I get a chance. I've looked on paper and this hugely reduces my emergency fund as the money will be repurposed for training as well, so I'll need to slowly build that back up. 

So, a new plan. I suspect it will be a difficult balancing act and maybe I'll fail, but hopefully not! It feels like the right thing to do. Things aren't working for my in my current industry and I'm a big believer in listening to the universe. If it's not working, it's not right and it's time to get proactive and do something about it! 

shellstar

I've had a tight month this month, mostly because I set aside quite a lot at the beginning of the month (£650) into my moving fund.

I won £150 on PB (woo hoo)
I've so far made £15 on Vinted from selling on DSs too small items. I find sleeping bags and swimwear sells well on there. I've used this money to buy some wellies and shoes for him as his feet have grown. I mostly use Vinted to make his clothing needs as cost neutral as possible. 

Work is completely flat out and I've had to work quite a lot of extra hours. I don't get overtime. I've decided to put in a flexible working request because whilst working extra hours is challenging and unsustainable for me, working in the evening to buy myself a day off would change my life right now. My boss isn't keen and they have no experience of compressed hours in this company (I've worked compressed hours before in another company and it was my agreed return to work pattern before I got made redundant). I've drafted the request but haven't sent it yet. 

I started my therapy course. I'm loving it so far. I've started looking into next steps and I've found some courses that work but unfortunately I can't find anything that works in the modalities I'd prefer to study. I think instead I'll have to choose a modality that works with my responsibilities in terms of teaching schedule and maybe later in my practice I can go back and add in some studies around my preferred modalities, when I have more flexibility.

DS 2nd birthday is coming up. I've decided we will do a gathering as it will be nice to see people and give DS a fun day. I realised with his water table and paddling pool (gifts from his last birthday) and a splashpad I already have for the dog (he didn't like it), I've got a veritable water park ready to go! So I've told people it's a casual event. No presents needed, no party bags will be handed out, come if you're at a loose end type thing. Sainsbury's have sausages and burgers half price this week so I've ordered some and they are going in the freezer until needed. Should be lots of fun and pretty low cost as these things go. 

So with savings and wins this month my moving fund currently stands at £43,114.96. Not too bad. That 96p is a bit annoying. I'll look at rounding that off.

shellstar

I'm not very regular with this diary stuff (sorry) but I guess it's for me so up to me how often I update. Some big steps forward in the last couple of months, though on a day to day basis it feels a bit like treacle!

I got onto my therapy course. I start in October. After 3 years I will be a qualified counsellor. After 5, a qualified psychotherapist! A few things are needed to make a success of it, including:

Childcare! Well, I asked Ex-DP if he would look after DS for me 2 days a month whilst I retrain. Just during the day, I'd be around for mornings and put him to bed, and leave all his food. He does still have a nap, but he's easy to get down for that. It was a no. I half expected that, but disappointing nonetheless. So I started looking into weekend nannies and found an agency. Bit of a minefield but saw two very good people. I was just about to offer the role to one of them (it's 10 weekends a year) when DSs key worker from the childminder offered to do it for less. She takes her son to work, he's 6 months older than mine and they are good pals. He already knows her, she just asked that she look after him at her place, not mine. So this is basically perfect and saved me the nearly £700 finders fee I would have had to pay as well. She offered to do it for less than minimum wage but given she'll need to give him lunch (I can send snacks) and she's also a single mum who is hoping to use the extra money to buy a flat, I said that was too little so I'm going to pay her just over minimum wage. Not hugely generous of me but my budget scenarios show things are going to pretty tight over the next few year and at least I don't feel like I'm scamming her, and I can relieve at least a little bit of mum guilt in that DS is being cared for by someone qualified, who he knows and loves already. I've asked Ex-DP to drop him off and pick him up for me (it's opposite direction to where my course is) and look after the dog on those days. To this he has magnanimously agreed. My hero.

The next stumbling block was flexible hours. In order to qualify I need a minimum of 400 client hours. I don't start seeing clients until year 2, but I thought it best to work out a plan for that in advance. Options are evenings (when childcare would be needed and I'd see even less of my son), weekends (same, plus would clash on a monthly basis with my classes) or reduce my hours, which I can't afford to do right now. So I asked work if I could instead compress my hours and work 4 days in 5 (obvs I haven't mentioned the retraining thing. I said it was to give me more balance, which is also true). Essentially 9-5 and then 8-9.45pm once my son is in bed. In reality, I rarely get a full lunch break (or even a break at all quite often) so I don't think I would have to work that late every day. Well, it went down like a cup of cold sick. My boss was not happy and actually started making some really catty remarks about being a part timer. This is before I even submitted anything! So, with the help of ChatGPT I crafted as compelling a case I could muster and submitted it to her and HR anyway. They took their time considering it, breaching UK law in the process but this week, they've finally agreed! So that's great, as it means I don't need to look for a new job on top of everything else. It will start in January with a six month trial period (my probation period was less!). I'm confident it will be fine though. Plus, as I don't actually need to start seeing clients for another 9 months after it starts, I'm going to have an entire day to myself once a week for a whole nine months!!! I CANNOT WAIT!!!! I shall declutter, batch cook, exercise to my hearts content on those days. May even get on the apps - In the immortal words of Taylor Swift - start looking for my next mistake. HAHAHAHAHA. As if I have time.  

So apart from actually having to get through it workload wise, I've now got the funds, the childcare and theoretically the time to do my training. WOOOOHOOOO!! 

Oh, and I persuaded Ex-DP to put the house on the market. It's not going well, not many viewings and the ones we've had say it needs too much work. I think the problem is it's half done - not a wreck, not finished. It's also summer and the market seems to have slowed. I have several houses saved to view if we get a buyer and none of those seem to be selling either. We'll see how we get on. It's not urgent. It would just be nice to not have my own space again, and be fully settled somewhere. I must learn patience! I've got all the money I realistically need for a house move (I think) so now my savings are going to concentrate on building up a nice big emergency fund, for when I transition careers.