The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for your kind words and well wishes. I actually enjoyed my New Year's Eve celebrations as my son absolutely shocked me and true to his word we cleared up a lot of the clutter in the living room and it's now a nice space for us to actually spend time in.

Two of my son's friends, my 3 nephews, my South London sisters and my mum came over in the end and they all seemed to enjoy themselves. I made everyone eat dinner at their house before they came over and I just got snacks and drinks and put a party tablecloth that I found on top of the fridge, on the dining table. We don't have proper chairs as 1.5 out of the set of 4 is okay (the other two went in the communal large bins ages ago and of the two remaining, one is wobbly hence it gets 0.5 rating). 

All the teenage boys took over the living room and so me and my sister were left doing our vision boards for 2024 in my room, with her on my desk and me on my bed. But I got the basics done, I just need to find some images online to add to it, so that it pops. I'm at my most productive when I write things down and I can see them on a daily basis and cross them off. When I was living in my second hostel whilst on maternity leave, I had coloured index cards with all of my goals on them, blu tacked to the wall by the door and light switch. I kept my bin underneath it, so anytime I threw something in the bin, turned the light on or off or in general just left the room, I could see them in front of me. I achieved all of them as well, as I made sure that they were SMART goals. 

So I'm going back to my old ways and thought of the 4 main areas of my life that I want to work on this year, and what would make me happy and healthy whilst achieving them. I'm going to take it quarter at a time, as I figured, having an overall yearly goal is good, but there's not much sense of urgency or momentum. I'm not a marathon runner, I need more short races/achievements to maintain momentum. 

Like my £9,000 debt free goal, I have split it into quarterly targets so I have one goal every 3 months. I have taken into account the fact that most of the first quarter of the year I will be on half sick pay and phasing back into work. But by the second quarter my working hours would have increased and by the third quarter, I should be back to my normal working hours of 24 per week and completed some of my larger savings challenges. Therefore, by quarter 4, I will have less to clear and I can then concentrate on Christmas and setting money aside for the NYE party I'm going to have to celebrate being debt free and how much of my goals I have achieved.

• Q1 (20%) = £1,800 ~ I have already paid a lump some overpayment £250 yesterday to my mum and £50 today, so that's £300 already and I am 16.67% of the way to my target already 🤗. My minimum payments at £300 a month equates to £900 a quarter, so I just need to find the remaining £900 and with yesterday's overpayment I am already £250/£900 towards Q1's target.

• Q2 (25%) = £2,250 ~ my minimum payments will increase from £300 to £350 a month in this period so it will become £1,050 a quarter, so I will need to find £1,200 to meet my target. I aim to have cleared my debt to my mum by the end of this quarter and taking into account Q1 overpayments and minimum payments, I should start Q2 with a remaining balance of £700 to my mum, and then I can start snowballing the remaining £500 of overpayments towards Barclaycard

• Q3 (35%) = £3,150 ~ the minimum payments for this quarter will also be £1,050 and I will finish my 50 envelope challenge in this quarter and that lump sum of £1,275 when added to the minimum payments is £2,325/£3,150. I will therefore need to find £825 from savings challenges, side hustles and so forth to meet my Q3 target

• Q4 (20%) = £1,800 ~ the minimum payments for this quarter remain at £1,050 and so I will have £750 to clear in the last quarter. I get a pay rise in August 2024, and that will increase my income from September 2024 onwards (as I live off the previous month's income), so any increase in income will help to clear the £750 as soon as possible and I will be back to freelancing at this point too.

In the event that I exceed a quarterly target, or I do not meet it, then I will adjust the subsequent quarters accordingly, so that overall I will still be on track.

Makingabobor2

You never cease to amaze & inspire me with your plans @Keedie. The vision board is a great idea as well. don't know if you've ever seen the documentary, The Secret. Based on the book of the same name. One of the things that is mentioned on there is having a vision board, with all the things you want to manifest in your life and then actually thinking like you already have them when you look at it.  They talk about imagining you would feel if you actually had all these things and living as if you already have them.  I also read once someone saying, never to say you can't afford something, or don't have the money for it, but to merely say you haven't allocated the funds for it yet.  I so love all these type of books. 
Now I've thought about that again, I think its something I need to revisit. I seem to have got out of the art of positive thinking lately.  

Keedie

I've not read The Secret yet @Makingabobor2, but it is in my Amazon basket. I keep meaning to add my Amazon gift card that I got at Christmas so that I can buy it. I've been looking at manifestation and the law of attraction when I go down my late night YouTube rabbit holes. Thanks for the reminder, I need to buy that today as it has always been on my list.

I also brought The 12 Week Year as my own Christmas gift to myself, and that talks about how to fit your yearly goals in quarterly periods. I've only just started it, but that's what helped me to plan my goals for being debt free into sections, as before I had overall amounts that I need to save to pay off the debt, but it was generic over the year.

I read a lot, but mainly fiction as I can't always concentrate to follow non-fiction, but I am going to do one self-help book a month, and January 2024 is The 12 Week Year. For February 2024 it's The Compassionate Mind as I need to harness more self-compassion and acceptance. So I can get The Secret for March 2024's read. I figured if I read everything I've had on my list, but I go slowly, then I'm more likely to take it all in and actually apply the principles. 

Makingabobor2

I love the Law of Attraction books. Its just a case of keeping it in your mind when things go wrong. So easy to slip. 

~FlowerPot~

keedie I really liked the secret and also Abraham Hicks/ the Law of attraction. Ester Hicks wrote a really good book if your interested in that sort of thing called Ask and it is given. The first part goes through the lawe of attraction stuff and the second part is about 20 or so exercises you can do to focus of attracting the things you want.

Keedie

I’m loving these book suggestions so thank you very much! I’ll add them to my Amazon wish list 🤗. 

I’ve made a promise to myself that I will walk for 5 mins a day or if I’m bed bound or housebound, I will do some form of stretch to work my muscles. And I’ll get 10 mins of fresh air a day by myself enjoying my balcony. Or with my son if he chooses to join me. We went for my micro walk yesterday and today I went alone as he didn’t sleep properly and was knackered. But I’ve been enjoying it. And I had a small glass of wine whilst on the balcony tonight, with my dressing gown on under my coat, my hat and slippers keeping me from getting too cold. 

I need to block off my half of the balcony from my neighbours side, as they have so much junk on their side and it took years of me asking them to clear it for it to be done! But now that we’ve got our half of the balcony back and we can enjoy the outdoor space, it’s really comforting. It just needs a frugal makeover so that we can make the most of it this spring and summer. I want to get some solar powered fairy lights and paint the ugly red and peeling railing a nice black. And get some of that Astro turf carpet stuff to put out there and paint the tiles white to make it look fresher. 

Makingabobor2

I agree the Abraham Hicks books are the best, but a few more I l found useful that you may want to look into are
The Power of your Subconscious Mind
Manifest as you Read
The Healing Self
Dissolve the Problem
Magic Words
The Magic of Manifesting Money.....all these are available on Kindle

 Then of course there is Louise Hay's book You Can Heal Your Life, which I love.

Th balcony sounds like it will look lovely when you've finished it.  Love the idea of just a 5 min walk a day as well, that really is a good plan. 

badmemory

If you are bed bound wriggling (circling) the ankles is a good one.

Keedie

Such great book recommendations, so thank you @~FlowerPot~ and @Makingabobor2, I'll check them out. I've heard of Louise Hay as her book was recommended in my mental health book club. I also found a book called The Art of Saying No by Damon Zahariades that's on Kindle Unlimited and looks quite good as well.

Thanks for the circling ankle trick @badmemory, I'm lying down now and trying it and it seems to be helping as well. I feel quite weak today, as I met my friend in central London and despite doing all the step free access that was available on the tube, I just feel so wiped out. I couldn't even get home properly from the tube station, as the short flight of stairs took me ages to navigate as I'd accidentally left my foldable walking stick at home, and I think I was annoying people as they went past me 🤦🏾‍♀️. I had to get the bus the one stop from the station to my house, when normally I walk and stop and start as needed as the little hopper bus doesn't run very often. But it was just waiting at the station and I dragged myself onto it and then got off at my estate and braved the stairs to my flat. I won't be leaving the house until Friday to go to my bipolar support group, but if my legs still feel like jelly by then, I'll take 2 buses so that I don't have to faff about with the tube etc.

I put some more money in my tins as I had a 50p and £2 coin in my change, and I'm proud to say that I've tracked every penny spent so far this year on that fancy spreadsheet I got on Etsy. It's helping me to keep an eye on things, and will give me a good insight into things when I do my monthly, quarterly and annual reviews.

Cherryfudge

When I lived in London I used to love the balconies that people had done something with. A determined gardener can grow a huge amount, for instance, or there was one where a canary used to sing in the mornings on my way to work. The most extraordinary one was an early-morning bit of opera. We didn't really have one at the flat I was in, just an access path along the front.