The Mental Debt Struggle...

Sun_Addict

I’m glad you had a lovely day at your mum’s. My DGS has a PS5 and is obsessed with gaming - he’s 7!!

Here’s to 2024 being a good one for you and your son 🙂

Keedie

The gaming obsession is really scary @Sun_Addict! My 8 year old nephew (hot chocolate boy) got a VR headset for his Christmas present and he's been having a great time, but I'm a bit confused as to how it all works and he can play virtually as an avatar with other people.

I'm a nerd and so my gaming obsessions are things like Sudoku, Monopoloy Go and Coin Master on my phone, or word search games or solitaire. I've never been a proper gamer even when we had an Atari when I was a child, I always wanted something handheld like a Gameboy (never got one as they were expensive and you can't buy for one child and not for others). But I used to collect board games, so those things float my boat, but I've never understood the gaming rage that some people get. Perhaps I've just never liked or enjoyed something enough to forget to eat or get angry 🤷🏾‍♀️.

I am really looking forward to 2024. It's been a very testing year, and 2023 has put me through my paces. But I definitely believe that next year will be much much better.

LittleMissDetermined

I am a gamer so I can relate, I do play little games on my phone but the past few years I have had a switch and I absolutely love it. I only play a few games on there but I have invested the hours.  

Keedie

I do love my games LMD, but I've never tried a Switch. I can imagine it'd get very addictive for me (yes I do have the tendency to get overly invested in the things I like 😂).

When my son was younger he had a DS and he loved it, but he put it down when we were in the arcade in Butlins and a man and his son picked it up, and when my son told them it was his, the man said he was lying and they just walked off with it! He was only about 7 or 8 and was traumatised and inconsolably crying. I can't even remember if I replaced it for him as I think he got an iPod Touch for a birthday or Christmas soon after. 

I found a budget spreadsheet that I'd brought off Etsy several months ago, that I'd never started. But I've been setting it all up now, so that I can start it on 1 January, as it gives me a monthly summary with fancy little graphs and an annual overview. It doesn't really fit my needs, which is why I didn't really use it, but it's going to be helpful for me to track where I am spending in relation to my budget. I've never properly tracked anything, so it will be useful to see.

Cherryfudge

That's so sad about your son's DS. Some people are unbelievable.

I'm trying to track categories in a spreadsheet too, but I think I'll search out recommended categories for next year's. It might make year-on-year comparisons difficult, as I'm currently using my own ideas of what's what, but what I spent doesn't make as much difference as what I'm going to spend and I get confused at the moment with things like 'is printer ink stationery or electronics? (Stationery, I think).

All this planning for the coming year is fun. I know that's not all that realistic but I like to have a challenge or several to aim for, and I'm less overwhelmed this year than last.

Keedie

I would put ink in stationary @Cherryfudge, as I would count it as office supplies etc.

The spreadsheet I have doesn't have the categories I would use, but it has some fancy formulas that allows you to set your budget items like listing your bills and it matches the spend against the budgeted amount and show the proportion of spending overall. I don't know how to do all those things on excel, so I'll be using that to check my spending as I've never consistently logged anything and I'll have an overview of it all, whilst I work out how to do develop a spreadsheet for my own purposes. I'll then match my own categories against the spreadsheet, so I can see what I have spent etc.

I paid £250 to Barclaycard which is my last payment for 2023 and I am officially at £9k now. Yippee! 🥳

Sallyforth

Congratulations hitting £9k @Keedie - £1 PAD and your under £9k which will feel good.  I do read your diary regularly but am rubbish at posting here. 
SF x

LittleMissDetermined

Well done on reaching the £9k mark @Keedie, that's fantastic! 

I got cross when I read your post about your son's DS, that's appalling behaviour and totally cruel. I can understand why he was son inconsolable. I haven't been a gamer since the PS1 but I do enjoy the few games I have for the Switch, although you can lose track of time which isn't ideal!

Enjoy using your new budget tool, I think things like that can keep us focused even if they're not a perfect fit to our needs. 
LMD x

~FlowerPot~

well done Keedie on getting debt to 9K go you! Great start for next year x

Keedie

Thanks everyone for cheering me on, it really makes such a difference to keeping me motivated 🤗.

I'm definitely happy to be on the verge of entering the £8k bracket, and that spreadsheet will help me to better understand my spending so that in 2025 when I'm hopefully debt free, I'll manage my money better.

My son was a bit scared of adults for a while after that man blatantly stole his DS. But I think that whatever that man had going on in his life to do that to an innocent child does show cruelty, but perhaps maybe also some desperation? As at the time, the DS was quite a sought after console. But I dunno how these people think 🤷🏾‍♀️ as I can't relate.