The Mental Debt Struggle...

KajiKita

It’s amazing how the training for the alternative earnings route is just opening up for you - to me that’s always a good sign that I am on the right track when that happens 😊

I think the boats in Cambridge are called punts 😊

Well done for shuffling away that £350 to save you from temptation. A savvy move … 

The girlfriend sounds like good news 😊 I can imagine meeting 14 family members in one go must have been fairly intense for her, bless 😉

KK

AntoMac

Good to hear that your boy has found a nice young lady Keedie. Credit to you and your family for making her feel welcome. Being a youngster meeting a whole new family is very daunting to say the least. The youngsters seem to think us older people have got it sorted and know what we’re doing. It’s only when they get older li,e us that they realise were mostly winging it too 

Keedie

Yeah I think so too @KajiKita. There's lot of signs that this is the way to go with the training route. It's definitely something that I want to do and it'll make a difference to my work/life balance. I've also considered doing a loan with my workplace, as they have an interest free loan that they deduct over 10 months directly from your salary. So there's options, but that one is the least likely, but useful to have remembered that it is there as an option as you can pick the amount from between £250 to £2,000.

And yeah, his girlfriend is really nice. I wouldn't have been brave enough to meet a large extended family when I was her age, so she did really well. And yeah, we definitely don't know what we're doing as older adults. We've just had more practice at winging it 😂.

I met my friend for lunch today, she took me to a vegan place in Soho, London called Mildred's. It was rather pricey so I felt incredibly guilty about the cost of the meal. But it was delicious and we had a good talk about work and stuff and have found a better balance moving forward (she's the friend that became my manager). It was really good to meet up with her and I feel like I've got my friend back which is really nice.

Keedie

THE SUNDAY SUMMARY

(Week 42 ~ 20 October 2024)

Debt Regrets

Goal 1 - 100% repayment to Bank of Mum 3 (school fees) - due 1 April 2024
Progress Checker = £3,800/£3,800 (100% repaid)
🎉 Achievement Date = 24 March 2024 🎉

Goal 2 - Pay £5,000 off my overall debt balance in 2024 - due by 31 December 2024

Progress Checker = £4,248.80/£5,000 (84.98% repaid)
I paid £350 towards the debt this week, and so the amount to repaid target is jumping up which is exciting - yay 🎉!

Goal 3 - Clear Barclaycard Plan 1 (£6,508.43) - due by 31 January 2025
Progress checker = £3,647.23/£6,508.43 (56.04% repaid)
With the £350 that I paid, it brings the remaining balance that I need to find, as £2,261.20. And that pot is now cleared out as I spent the other money in there, so I'm at £0/£2,261.20 to clear Plan 1 by 31 January 2025. The total sibling debt is £1,135.32 and that will all go into the pot that I am building to clear the £2,261.20. Which means the part that I need to find is £1,125.78.

Saving Grace

Goal 1 - Save £500 for my son's 18th birthday - due by 30 September 2024
Progress Checker = £500/£500 (100% saved)
🎉 Achievement Date = 15 September 2024 🎉

Goal 2 - Save £500 emergency fund - due by 31 December 2024
Progress Checker = £216.25/£500 (43.25% saved)
I've made £2.27 in cash back and so that has boosted the emergency fund by another  a smidgen. Still didn't do any surveys 😬.

Balancing the Budget

This section of my weekly check-in will focus on how I am preparing for the upcoming month, so that I can stay on track and be more successful in meeting my targets.

Income Tracker - £2,500 for November 2024's Budget
Progress Checker = £854/£2,500 (34.16% accumulated)
The child benefit was £25.60 and so £25 went towards November 2024's budget and the £0.60 went into my buffer pot in Monzo. My PIP also came through, but some things have come up and so I've had to move some money around, so I'm not able to put that towards November's budget. So I need to increase my freelance work to make back as much of the £405 from the PIP as I can. I have half term booked off work, so I should be able to freelance about 10 to 15 hours that week, whilst still relaxing.

Freely Debt Savings - £300 Goal for November 2024
Progress Checker = £0/£300 (0% saved)
As my income is behind target at this point in the month, I'm not sure I'll be able to get any of my target for next month. But the main thing is that I meet my target for the budget. If needed, I can always put this on the back burner to December 2024.

Keedie

What a week! My financial goals, study plans and my house move are all in a bit of chaos at the moment. I'm feeling rather discombobulated. 

I've felt so weak and tired that I ended up overspending on food for convenience. But I found a £50 note in an envelope in my little safe box when I was decluttering. I think it was from my mum for my birthday last year. I've set it aside and put it in the new safe that I brought during the Prime day sales. Life has taken a bit of an awkward turn, so I need to sit down and rethink my whole entire budget and financial goals for 2025 onward. I won't have as much flexibility as I thought/hoped, and so I need to have a long hard think on how to do things now.

The change in life priorities also means that I have to put a pause in the study plans. It will give me more time to save, but alebit at a much slower speed. But that may not be a bad thing as I'm still in between choices course wise. So I'll still get my head around that and save. But I think considering I only have £50 a month spare to put towards the courses, and I need to get the Level 2 done by summer, I might have to do the work study loan or the finance options with the course provider with a lower deposit saved initially. 

House move wise, the decluttering is going really well. But there doesn't seem to be any suitable properties to bid on, week after week. So I think we're going to have to home swap. Which means things are gonna have to be ovverhauled a lot more to be able to make the flat more appealing to people. As visitors are always recovering from the stairs and are winded by the time they reach my front door. So they need to be awed by the flat 😂. I have a social care review on Thursday, so I'll speak to the social worker then about everything as well.

Things will be okay. I'm just in that weird transition period where I am having to rethink everything, and it's as scary as it is freeing.

Cherryfudge

Nice to find that unexpected £50!

Otherwise, things sounds like a bit of a rollercoaster. Good idea to talk to the social worker: that will also give you a few more days for things to fall into place (I find this sometimes happens if I take a step back and a couple of sleeps).

Well done on the decluttering, and remember you have the final say in what changes you implement (beyond those that no one can help happening, says she who bought her first 'senior' ticket recently).

Keedie

I was very excited and confused to see that £50 note in that envelope. Luckily I checked it, as at first I thought it was empty. Can you imagine if I had a more zealous approach to delcuttering? 😂 I would have thrown it away for sure. But I'm very pleased to see the progress from the delcuttering. At the moment, we're mainly tidying and decluttering spaces so that I can get rid of unnecessary things. I then need to collect my shredder from my mum's house and get to shredding all of the papers I've set aside. The hallway cupboard also needs a ruthless tidy, so that I can only have the essentials in there and some storage solutions for all the knick knacks that we seem to accumulate in life.

I definitely need to move. But life has happened and it has just fallen a little lower on my priority radar for now. I also need to speak to the social worker about how direct payments work, so that I can choose my own carer. It's just not working with the other agency. The lady is nice enough, but I still don't really feel comfortable with her in my space, and I'm having to repeat the shopping in dribs and drabs, as she only gets some of the things I need and makes up the rest. As I asked her to buy milk chocolate digestives as they're my son's favourite biscuit and she came back with a carton of chocolate milk 🥴🤷🏾‍♀️.

My emergency fund has gone down, as I gave my friend £100 as her sister was involved in a bad car accident whilst on holiday and it's going to cost a lot to get her treated and get her back home to London. I can't offer much practical help, but I figured that amount should hopefully help a little bit. 

I'll be opening up my cat tin Lenny this week as it's half term and it'll be interesting to see what is in there. It's all 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins as the 20p and 50p coins are in one of those Poundland tins you open with a can opener. 

Debsnewbudget

Instead of opening the money tin with a can opener, try a large flat knife in the top, hold it upside down and shake, the coins will then slide out  along the blade of the knife.
takes a bit of effort but I find it easy enough to do 

Cherryfudge

How lovely that you were able to help towards your friend's sister's costs. The last thing they need is to have to worry about the finances. I hope her sister is able to get home and on the road to recovery quickly.

The mis-spending by the carer is really verging on financial abuse, unless they aren't able to read English. Milk chocolate digestives aren't exactly a rare item. Surely most shops stock them? Basically if this mis-spending is a regular pattern, she's not spending your money according to your specific instructions, which also verges on neglect. (Arguably). But I think you are right to raise it as an issue. The not-feeling-at-ease is a bit of a warning signal. You feel that way for a reason, though it may be hard to put your finger on it, and the carer's pleasant manner makes it harder to identify what's not right. Your son might have some insight into what's wrong.

Brilliant that you are making such a lot of progress with decluttering. I have yet to get the knack, but I did throw out some old prescriptions (the paper not the medication) the other day. Yes, that's how fast I go.  

beanielou

I have direct payments & they work well for me. Hope you can sort them out. 

I wouldn’t be happy either with someone spending my money on things I dident want or ask for.