The Mental Debt Struggle...

Cherryfudge

I'm a great believer in making it a game - if it works, it doesn't have to be serious.  

Keedie

Yep game on @beanielou! And yeah, it being fun is definitely the more sustainable approach @Cherryfudge. If it's boring and stressful, I won't stick at it. 

After work today I created my spreadsheet to track the money that I need to accumulate and save, so that I can make lump sum payments off the debt and boost the savings. 

I can't remember if I mentioned the fact that my increase in hours hasn't been processed by Finance as yet, so I won't see the increase in this month's pay and they will owe me salary arrears next month instead. Well if I hadn't, that's the situation at the moment. I'm a bit annoyed about it if I'm being completely honest, as I completed all of the paperwork on my manager's behalf and she said that Finance take ages to do their bit. But I'm not 100% sure how much of that is true. But anyways, there is nothing I can do about it. She said that she could add it to the system before the paperwork comes back as she knows it will be approved, but I told her not to bother as it would show on the system that it was processed before the paperwork. And I like things to be methodical and we should be following the rules, so I certainly wouldn't do that for her or anyone else. She looked a bit taken aback, but accept it.

July 2024's pay will be lower than I had anticipated, and although this month's pay will cover next month, August 2024's budget, it will be okay. As I have £462.15/£2,275 accumulated so far, and that is a combination of a rollover from last month, some money that I was owed and the child benefit that has been saved so far. With the rest of the child benefit, the PIP and my wages yet to come, I will just inch over the amount needed to be able to still start my new budget. And as August 2024's pay will be higher than anticipated, as we also have our cost of living award pay rise from 1 August 2024, it just means that by the time I accumulate everything next month, I'll have a miniature buffer after I've counted for September 2024's budget.

I'm aiming to keep rolling over the little surplus so that it grows, as there is small window between my earnings increasing and my universal credits decreasing, where I will slightly better off during the transitionary period. So I figured, if I just continue as if that little bit doesn't exist, it'll help me at the end of year to prepare for 2025 and hopefully trim a little off the Barclaycard.

Cherryfudge

It's not good that you are having to wait for your pay but what a manager you are! It's brilliant you can gather together those separate pots of money and turn them into something that will smooth over the hiatus.

Keedie

Thank you @cherryfudge, that is very kind of you to say. I'm just continuously trying, and I don't always get it right, but I try.

I treated myself to a Chinese last night with my personal spending money, and I was feeling sick beforehand (flare up incoming and a lot of nausea), and so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I normally would do. And they're closed for a month from 16 July to 14 August, so it'll be a while before I can have that guilty pleasure again 😌. Hopefully I'll have a pep in my step by then, and can enjoy a treat at the end of summer.

I have so much personal admin to do that I feel like I'm drowning. I'm getting used to working the longer hours at work, as in being alert enough to do them, but the days off I'm rather tired. But there's so much to do, that today I'm just trying to catch up on things whilst lying in my bed. I need to get ahold of HMRC as they've changed my tax code and I've been meaning to do it for weeks. But they don't answer the phone. I'm also trying to mentally prepare myself to do my autistic sister's deputyship finance report which is due next week. I've been putting it off as it's so much work doing the report for the OPG, but it's getting to crunch time 😬.

Cherryfudge

I think I've heard elsewhere of HMRC being unobtainable - would an email at least give you a proof that you've been in touch, and buy time?

I hate getting started on big pieces of work. Getting my head to slow down enough to use brain power takes time, energy and agitation (and also a lot of snacks as some sort of compensatory sensory input). So you really have my sympathy on the finance report. I usually have to tell myself there will be a finite amount of things to tackle, then just start inching my way though them. I hope it will be easier than expected.

badmemory

Have you tried HMRC at 8am, it always used to be easier to get through then, although I believe they are worse now.  It is pretty much the usual problem with getting rid of people who know what they are doing & then make it so that more people need help.  I don't know if this will jhelp but there are a lot of very knowledgeable people over on cutting tax who may be able to help.  Read a few threads & you will very quickly realise who to listen to.  I think you can sort your tax code without having to speak to them.

Keedie

I contacted the OPG for an extension to the report. It's just so overwhelming! I thought the deadline was 19 July as I got the date confused with the date that me and my mum are going away for a spa break. We'd brought her a Wowcher deal for her birthday, and that's the weekend that we're away. Turns out the deadline is on 24 July, but I was just feeling so stressed out today that I called them and asked for an additional week. So they've granted that and we now have until 31 July.

We were drowning in lots of receipts and papers today, all over my mum's kitchen table and trying to get things in order. We've done all the wordy parts of the report and noted her income, but it's the detailed expenses that is the toughest, as every penny needs to be accounted for. I was very mentally unwell last year, and so we got an extension until September 2023 to complete that report. And it was a horrendous ordeal as we underestimated how long it would all take. But I kept meaning for us to meet regularly and go through things so that by the time the report is due this year, it's less time consuming. But I used all my mental capacity to get back to work in February 2024, and then my sister had that emergency operation in April that wiped me and my mum out as we both were looking after her and her son. So we've just been snoozing it and now it's coming back to bite us 🤦🏾‍♀️.

My brain needs a sense of calm before I can tackle something complex or very important. And I get anxious about it hanging over my head, which hypes it up even more and I need to think of a way to motivate myself to start it. Then the more time that goes by and the closer I get to a deadline, the more anxious I become. Then in that anxious state another day goes by and the pressure just creeps up another notch... it's so draining and I often feel like my brain is really broken.

But at least the extension gives us a chance to pace ourselves. I wrote down all of the tasks that we both need to do and I've started pulling together bank statements, utility bills, expenses receipts in date order and so forth. We're meeting again on Sunday to go through the tasks I set and get all the evidence together, and then we're meeting again on Tuesday afternoon to start doing the calculations to map the bank statements and cash log with the receipts and to see if we're missing anything. We'll then pick it back up on the last weekend in July after we've had a break.

I don't know what HMRC's problem is. They changed my tax code and sent me a letter, but I can never reach them to ask them what's going on. I admittedly am only trying when I remember on a Friday, as I can imagine Mondays are super busy. My tax return is all up to date as I learnt my lesson from last year, and they actually owe me £7.79 (I don't get it 🤷🏾‍♀️) after I paid everything. But I will check out the tax forums as that never occurred to me and I don't quite know why.

Cherryfudge

How nice to be owed something from tax.  

The OPG report sounds huge... but is a bit smaller now you've started and I think if anyone can do it, you can. Look back at how far you've come in the last year, it's massive how much you've overcome.

Keedie

Yes it is nice to be owed money from HMRC rather than the other way around 🤗. 

The OPG absolutely report is massive! It gives us such a headache to complete it and you have to categorise every single penny of income and outgoings, and if there is a mismatch or deficit, then you have to justify why and then they scrutinise all of the statements, receipts and everything else you've written.

And if you don't do it properly, or they think you're taking advantage of the vulnerable person and therefore not fulfilling your duties as a deputy, then they can remove the court appointed responsibility as a deputy. It's a lot of pressure, and of course, I am not ripping off my sister, but trying to log everything is stressful. Especially as some transactions are cash and some are card or online. I'm a little bit slow, but it's only just occurred to me last night, that the really detailed spreadsheet I've been using when I was tracking my own expenses, is what we should have been using to track my sisters 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️. But at least this accounting year has only just started on 4 July, so once we've done this report, we can sit down and catch up on July's expenses and then keep on track of it. And that will make next year's report seamless.

Cherryfudge

A really good spreadsheet sounds like the perfect solution, especially as you effectively have a template that works for you!