The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

Woke up at 5am because some pigeons sounded like they were getting fruity near my bedroom window 🙈.

I've been feeling really overwhelmed recently and although I'm not in a bipolar depression, things aren't that great. But I saw my Mental Health Care Coordinator (MHCC) yesterday and she's just absolutely wonderful. And she made me feel like I'm doing a good job and I was actually able to get quality sleep last night even though I woke up early today. Having a passionate and supportive MHCC has made all the difference to my ability to manage my bipolar and she's such a great cheerleader. Even my psychiatrist, who I've sometimes been a bit standoffish with as he can seem quite abrupt at times, I realised was in my corner too. So that was a nice feeling and made me cry happy tears.

I'm also rather shocked and impressed with myself, that I had £84.97 left in my account and I get paid tomorrow! This never happens to me, so it's exciting to know that trying to have NSD, focussing on my debts, thinking really hard before spending, having a financial goal and this forum has really and truly helped me.

I feel like this is the turning point of my debt free journey.

I've put £80 into the Monzo pot for our trip to Blackpool next month. When I get paid in July, I should still have some left over if I stick to my budget, despite it being a busy month, and that will go into my PAD pot, and will accumulate so that I can pay a lump sum off my Barclaycard at a later date, so that I have less needed for a balance transfer.

I've also managed not to claim any money early for my child benefit and an expense claim at work this week, using Monzo's 'get paid early' feature. I'm trying to build resilience and ignore that feature as much as possible, as I was always claiming it from 4pm the working day before any income was due, and then squandering it. So now, I know that I can do this which is great. But due to poor money management for the end of last month and into this month, I'll have to claim my wages at 4pm today so that my bills that are due tomorrow have the correct amount of money in the pots that they come out of. I'm too scared to leave it to chance that it'll come out of my main account correctly as I'm being paid the same day that the direct debit is coming out, so not sure which one comes out first. But next month, I'll be more organised.

LittleMissDetermined

Having money left over is a brilliant feeling - Well done!! That's quite a chunk too  

It really helps when you have the right level of support around you and you can rely on those you know have your best interests at heart. Happy tears are much better than the alternative.  I was up early this morning too, I'm shattered now though. I'm on my 3rd coffee already. 

Keedie said:

I feel like this is the turning point of my debt free journey.

^ This is amazing! I'm so pleased for you

Keedie

Thanks LMD, that means a lot to me.

And yes, having a good support system is really supportive. I was so grateful to them, as they've helped me through such a difficult time. 

I've barely been sleeping, so although I'm knackered I'm just about surviving, but today is my non-working day so I'm staying in bed until my friend comes over later for a visit. I hope you feel perkier soon though. I don't drink coffee as I suffer from bad migraines, but I've heard it's great as a pick me up 😊.

Debsnewbudget

So pleased things are on the up for you 

Keedie

Thank you so much @Debsnewbudget x

Keedie

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts today. I couldn't really sleep well as I've been quite anxious about my budget and whether or not I did it correctly. It appears to be okay, but I think I need to tweak my spreadsheet to make it easier to track my different income over the course of the month.

Turns out that locking the Monzo pot that my bills comes out of, whilst good so that I don't dip into it came with an unexpected downside. It no longer tells me how much I am short for the rest of the month's bills to be covered, but I can see that the one that my debt repayments comes from, which is unlocked, still has that feature. So I need to fix the spreadsheet so that I'm not manually counting things or relying on the app to give me information. I should've done that from the get go, but that's laziness for you 😂.

Eventually, I'd like to have a surplus in my pots so that I can manage my budget for the calendar month, instead of from 24th of the month when I get paid, as I want to leave my job next year and depending on where I go, the pay day will be different. It took a long time to move everything around to take into account the change of payment date with this job, and so I need to plan against that. I hate my job with a passion, but I can't leave as my outgoings and commitments are so high.

Speaking of which, I paid my direct debit of £284.50 towards my holiday to TUI and I'm still burnt by these payments, but I'm stupidly and stubbornly holding onto a holiday that I booked during a hypomanic episode. Simply because I'm so desperate for a break and something positive to look forward to. I also naively believed that my son's father was going to go halves with me on our son's part of the holiday, but despite agreeing, I've never received a penny. You live and learn I guess 🤦🏾‍♀️.

On a slightly more positive note, the homeschooling seems to be getting less moaning each day, and I explained to my son that I'm under a lot of pressure to provide him with the best opportunity that I can, and he seemed a bit shamefaced. He's been trying harder and I've backed off from reminding him about his lesson start times and he's logged on with no issues. I think a part of him is secretly excited that he gets to still do his GCSEs, and as we're discovering more about the school's online platform and how it all works, it seems to be helping him to settle a bit more.

At the start of the week he was complaining about the short lesson times and 'gaps' in his timetable as he didn't understand all the breaks. But now, he's at the end of the week and he has hardly any lessons on a Thursday and Friday, he's suddenly loving it 😂. He's currently having a lie in as he doesn't start until 10:50 today! 

I have to drag myself food shopping at some point today, but I need to do a meal plan as that really helped last weekend.

Hope you all have a good day. x

LittleMissDetermined

Hi Keedie, you will find the first 3-4 months will involve a lot of spreadsheet adjustments as you get used to a new way of budgeting and spending. It will take time but it will soon be easier and you'll get into a pattern with ins and outs.

Well done on having that discussion with your son, whilst it won't have been easy it sounds like it has had an impact and things are getting better there.  Hopefully he will understand a little more about the sacrifices you are making for his future. 

The holiday is expensive yes. But if you can manage the payments it will be a wonderful break that you both will very much deserve by then!

LMD x

Keedie

Hey LMD,

You're right. I think I'll be tweaking my spreadsheet a lot over the coming months until I get into a routine of things. I'm trying to find ways to make what I do have stretch a little further, and keeping down energy costs and trying to get on top of NSD etc. I'm hoping that in being frugal and having an actual structured but flexible plan, I'll be able to have a life but still make a lot of progress with my debts.

The talk was good, but I think there needs to be more, as he still doesn't fully get it. The day after our talk he asked me for a £200 tracksuit for his 16th birthday in October! I calmly explained that wasn't an option and he's more than welcome to save towards it and use his birthday money on top of what I can give him. He seemed to understand that I'm under financial pressure with school fees, cost of living crisis, debts, increased food costs etc. But that selfish teenager inside of him, seemed to think that despite everything else going on around him, I would still splash out like that. It boggles the mind sometimes!

I'm definitely motivated knowing that this holiday is there next year. I feel like doing nothing much all inclusive for 10 days will do wonders for my mental health even though the stress of paying for it, is a lot. If there was no tuition fees it would be fine as the payments are high. But with everything that I've been cutting back on, I can meet the holiday repayments, tuition fees and minimum payments.

Once I've cleared my debt to my mum in October 2022, I'll have £150 extra month from November 2022. So I will snowball an extra £100 towards my Barclaycard on top of the minimum payment to bring it down, and put £50 towards my car maintenance fund towards next year's MOT, service and repairs. 

The holiday is due to be paid by March 2023, so once that's out of the way I'll use £200 of the £284.50 towards my Barclaycard, car fund and emergency fund, and use the extra £84.50 towards general living expenses, to take some of the pressure off me. 

AntoMac

Things seem to be falling into place for you Keedie, albeit with the odd bump along the way. Well done.

Keedie

Thanks @AntoMac. I'm cautiously optimistic...

I think it's just a complete change in mindset that is required and once I can get a handle on my spending and how I prioritise my finances, time and energy, things should get easier. 

I've just got off the phone with my social worker and she's spoken to the care agency to change my carer, and I feel so relieved! I have a carer twice a week to help me keep on top of my flat, domestic duties, food shopping, cooking when needed. But the care agency messed up and didn't tell the carer that they should be cooking or doing shopping so I've been struggling to do it all, whilst my carer would only clean and wouldn't help with anything else, even though it was on my care plan.

When I arranged with the social worker to have my plan updated properly and to change the time of my visits, the social worker agreed and contacted the care agency. But when they advised my carer that she would be doing shopping from this coming Monday, she got really angry and confronted me about it! It freaked me out and when I spoke to the social worker she said that was inappropriate and she said that I can change the carer, and now I feel like I can have a fresh start and actually get proper support moving forward.

I'm hoping that by having more control of my care, it'll take the pressure off me as well. Because I'm having to work extra hours because of the increase in my expenses, I've been so exhausted and I was worried about burning out. With more targeted help, it should hopefully reduce the likelihood of a bad fibromyalgia flare up. As I'm constantly in pain and knackered.