The Mental Debt Struggle...

Makingabobor2

Definitely need to get rid of the carer. She sounds useless. 

Keedie

The carer is wilfully useless. She mumbles and I can't understand her and she looks exceptionally busy, but wastes a lot of time. One time, I asked her what she doing sitting in the kitchen and she said she was waiting for the washing machine to finish! There was over an hour left of the wash cycle and she was on her phone chilling in the kitchen when the rest of the flat hadn't been touched. I just asked her to leave. 

I just noticed this evening that one of the few photos I have of my dad has been destroyed. It has chemical liquid marks on the passport photos. I can only assume she was spraying antibacterial spray on my bedroom bookshelf to clean it and wasn't paying attention. I just wipe the dust there, I don't spray it for that exact reason. My old carer was in and out of my bedrooom for 2.5 years and nothing was so sentimental was damaged.

I was on a work call on Thursday, and this new carer came in with the hoover. I had to mute myself and explain that I was on a call. She said to basically pretend she wasn't there and then proceeded to jab at my heels with the hoover to clean under the desk when I was sitting there! Then she signed her timesheet as finishing at 2.20pm but she left at 1.50pm.

And as for the chocolate digestives, she got them. She just also decided I should have chocolate milk for whatever reason. I put jacket potatoes on the list as they make a quick cheap meal, and she got me normal potatoes. I wanted to baby plum tomatoes to put in salad and she got me tinned plum tomatoes and decided that I should have two tins of that. She brought grated cheese when I had written a block of cheese. I think she just doesn't care. She appears to be so helpful, and is always smiling but I feel on edge when she is around. And she said she'd help me declutter my room and I told her to leave it alone, and she went and moved things around anyways and I have no clue what she threw away. Then the other day I asked for her to change my bedsheets as I have trouble stretching and getting the quilt in the quilt cover etc. She stripped the bed and I noticed that she just changed the flat sheet and put the quilt cover and everything else back on the bed, although they needed changing. I didn't notice until I was going to bed. Arrgh!

The difference with my old carer coming to help me declutter, is night and day. I can talk to her, she is quick and actually respects my space. I have no clue how it works to set up direct payments, but it will make a big difference. I won't feel on edge in my own home and frustrated that people who should be helping me are just doing their own thing instead.

I know that I will have to financially contribute to direct payments, and that will cost more than what I have now, but it really is long overdue. I actually can't deal with these new carers. I find myself cancelling them so that I don't have them here, but then I just end up struggling. It's a bit all over the place, but it definitely needs changing.

PennysIntoPounds

Absolutely get an idea of what direct payments involve and the financial cost to you, but none of this should be happening. Before you commit to spending extra money, please write down everything you've just told us, send it to the agency, and ask for someone 'better suited to your needs' to be sent instead, commencing immediately thanking you! 

Cherryfudge

I absolutely second everything PiP says: this woman shouldn't be allowed back into your home. She isn't even honest. I'm so sorry to hear your Dad's photo has been damaged.

KajiKita

I’m with PiP and CherryFudge - please do send the summary of issues that you have written above to the agency. I know you don’t want her back but it may help support someone else who is struggling with the same carer but is less confident in being assertive about it. 

She sounds like she has a fundamental lack of respect for her clients and that she ‘knows best’ … 🙄
So sorry about your dad’s photo 🥺

Sending hugs x

KK

AntoMac

Great advice above Keedie. Sorry to hear you are being messed around like this and not getting the care and respect you deserve. Most carers are fantastic salt of the earth types, but unfortunately there are always going to be the odd dodgy few. 

One of your biggest strengths is your willingness to review and change your plans, rather than stick rigidly to one plan. All the hard work you have previously done in reducing debt has allowed you to be more flexible in the here and now. 

Keedie

I'll definitely make a note of things to report it, thanks for that tip @PennysIntoPounds. Thanks for the advice and encouragement everyone. It's so easy to let lots of little things slide. But it's too much to ignore. I'm not happy. And I don't want to feel uncomfortable in my home. Ironically, the carer with the new agency is much better than the others that have come. She's the best of a bad bunch, but that doesn't make her great. She means well, but she's inattentive and I think she's used to doing what suits her and it not being challenged 🤷🏾‍♀️. 

I'm really sad about my dad's photo, but luckily, there were two passport photos in each slot. I checked and the photos at the back are not affected. But it made me really angry. His birthday is in a few weeks, and he would have been 83. So I'm missing him more. I don't even know when the photos were damaged, as from my bed, looking at the bookshelf, I can't see the damage. It's only because I went over to the bookshelf to 'see' him that I saw the streaky damage and I was distressed. I thought it was the sunlight at first, but then I realised that made no sense and I saw the liquid damage 🥺. 

My son is very excited about the fact that his child trust fund has matured. I've explained to him that they government put money in there when he was born, but I barely had any spare money to put towards it, so it's not like it benefitted from any top ups. But hopefully he'll have around £350 if it was one £250 payment they made, or around £600 if it was two payments. I can't remember what the scheme was, as I was in single parent survival mode for those first few years. I forgot it even existed until he mentioned it a few months ago. But I got the letter from the government, as I did one of those tracing the trust fund things, and now I can't remember where I put the letter 😬. 

Things are still a bit chaotic financially, and my son has somehow accidentally broken the screen of his Macbook Air. And there's no Apple Care cover in place 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️. But I've managed to get him a job doing data entry at my brother-in-law's business, so he'll be replacing the screen. But because he needs the Macbook for college work and to do the actual job, I'll need to front the cost of the repair and he repays it once he has been paid. The cost of the repair is around £300 from what I can see on the Apple website, and he will be earning £225 a month, so we're looking at a couple of months to pay off the screen. There goes the emergency fund and freelance money that I am due to receive. But hey, at least it's not going on a credit card.

But I've got my budget all sorted for November. Most of my nieces and nephews seem to want money, so I don't even have to make a big effort to find presents which is a bonus and it buys me more time to save for the actual Christmas money. So there's that I guess.

Keedie

THE SUNDAY SUMMARY

(Week 43 ~ 27 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)
There has been no debt repayments this week, so the amount repaid has remained the same. 

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)
My fixed payment of £150 is due to be paid to Barclaycard tomorrow. The prospect of clearing this 0% deal by 31 January 2025 seems very unrealistic now, given a change in my life circumstances. However, the money that my siblings owe will continue to repaid to the credit card, as that's where it came from, but I won't be putting anything extra myself. I'm owed £1,135.32, but I won't be sending the £0.32 as having odd balances give me the ick. I've received £20 this week from my sister, so that's £20/£1,135 to go back to Barclaycard. And I'll have to do another 0% balance transfer for my remaining part for the £1,126. And I'll get that sorted around Christmas time.

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 = £120/£500 (24% saved)
Well this is all a bit awkward. The emergency fund is about to be vanquished. I'd saved £3.75 in cashback and tidying up my account by rounding down my balances and I had £220 saved, so nearing the 50% mark. But then I gave my friend £100 towards her sister's medical expenses as she needs surgery following her car accident in Jamaica. Zero regrets there. But with my son's broken Macbook Air screen and fronting the cost for that, the emergency fund will soon be at zip, nada and zilch 🥴. For now it sits at £120, but the repair needs to be booked in and then when paid for, it will be £0. So that will be my priority to trump any debt accumulation and pay off. I need to get back into a position of strength and zero emergency fund makes me feel queasy.

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 - £2,675 for November 2024's Budget
Progress Checker = £2,675/£2,675 (100% accumulated)
I did a budget review and realised that I need £2,675 a month to cover the things that I need to cover. That exceeds my salary income, PIP and child benefit, but I've got a freelance project that will take me up to March 2025/April 2025 and that will give me the shortfall required. The £25.60 child benefit came through this week, and so £25 went towards November 2024's budget and the £0.60 went into my buffer pot in Monzo. My wages came through at £1,914.62 and so £1,914 went to November 2024's budget and the £0.62 went to the Monzo buffer pot (that now sits at £5.58). 

Freely Debt Savings - £300 Goal for November 2024
Progress Checker = £0/£300 (0% saved)
I managed to exceed my target budget amount, even with it increased to £2,675 instead of £2,500 for November 2024. Mainly because I had forgotten that my wages had increased in line with my hours increasing. I don't know how I forgot this, but it just shows my mind is all over the place. But anyways, for the November 2024 budget, I had £854 last week and with the total of £1,939 that came in this week, I had a total of £2,793, which would have given me a surplus of £118 for Freely Debt Savings. But I chose to spend it getting on top of food shopping for the half term as October's food budget is depleted, and the rest will go towards the Macbook screen repair. I think at this rate, Freely Debt Savings will commence in December 2024 or January 2025 😬.

FacelessNumber

Things will always crop up, and the fact that you're able to rejig things a bit to cover them is brilliant!

The run in to Christmas is always a big one for the budget so well done for keeping on top of it. 

Cherryfudge

It's great your son is working, both because that will eventually pay you for the screen repair and also for the experience it will give him (and possibly further work opportunities?)

Nudge him to get a screen protector too!

Good work on your budgeting. You are juggling so many things, you do very well to have such a handle on it. And as for the extra pay coming in, that's a nice surprise!