The Mental Debt Struggle...

badmemory

The more I read about other peoples bosses the more I realise how lucky I have been in mine.  The worst one was in jail for the first year I worked there & I got out soon after they did.  My sister thinks I have led a boring life.  Isn't there a curse about living an interesting life! 

Aimingforthegoodlife

Hey Keedie, I am so sorry for all you have been going through! I, like the others am incensed at what those buttholes have put you through and feel that taking them to task over it would be good, but, like the others and yourself, I can see how that would be totally overwhelming as well. Great idea keeping the evidence, as three months is a long time of healing to see if it is worth it!

Love the plan for your son and budgeting, wow! He is going to be such a money savvy adult! 

You are wonderful and I really hope life starts to give you a break

Keedie

Sorry for the silence everyone, this week has been all over the place. I crashed hard with a fibromyalgia flare up! I think all the stress of the last few weeks have just caught up with me. I woke up on Thursday and I just felt utterly depleted. I've been starting to feel like myself more and more as the days go by. But I'm still struggling with my mobility, the pain and my hands are stiff and swollen so dexterity and typing is a bit iffy. Doing some two fingered typing right now 😂.

Thank you very much for all the kind words and support 🥰. People definitely do leave managers and not jobs. And I'm glad that I have prioritised my mental and physical wellbeing over financial stability and staying in an incredibly toxic situation that had left me so deeply unhappy. And the gaslighting was just too much... My ex-friend/manager had the audacity to corner me as I was leaving on Wednesday, asking if we'll be friends - after all she did and how she has behaved!? I told her that I can't come back from how they treated me, and I don't think she's a bad person as we used to be friends but she showed me who she truly is, and she needs to be mindful of how she treats people. And the fact that I've resigned with no job to go to or savings, rather than work in that environment, should tell her all she needs to know about wanting to be friends with her 🙄. She's feeling the tension, as people at work are appalled by the behaviour of management and angry that it has led to me suddenly quitting. She wants my friendship back and for me to forgive her so that she feels better. I don't see how I benefit from that. And so I'm not talking to her, and she will remain blocked on my phone. As she did not care about my feelings or how I felt when she was on a power trip, and enjoyed watching me get berated my head of service and gleefully joined in. She just didn't expect me to quit over it. And she's left feeling embarrassed and awkward, as everyone knows why I've left and it doesn't make her look good. 

Also, I was very grateful to be given a £100 Amazon gift voucher from my team, it really touched my heart. And they gave such nice messages on my leaving card too. I've wanted some wireless headphones for ages, so I can now treat myself. And there's some self help books that I keep seeing all over TikTok, and I've had them in my Amazon basket for a long time too. So I'll definitely make good use of it. And I'm definitely glad that I was able to say goodbye to the colleagues that I wanted to see and spend time with. And some of my colleagues were very kind and gave me personal presents as well, that I have put under the Christmas tree. I also received a Christmas present via the post from a dear friend, and I was very touched and excited. That one is pride of place under my little tree in the living room. This is the first time ever that I've actually got more presents under the tree than my son. He's a bit put out by that. But he said that I deserve it. So that was nice of him, even if he was a little salty when he said it 😂.

I received the financial care assessment paperwork @Sarahwithlove, and realised it was all based on my benefits, so there's zero point in getting reassessed. But thank you for clarifying, it helps. It does seem like a backward process, but it is what it is. I've redone my budget to include the fees, and I'm now £150 over instead of £225, so I'll definitely be doing some side hustling. Or I just cut out the sinking funds (£125 total) and I'll be £25 over, and I can always reduce my spending money from £100 a month to £75 a month to break even. But the way that I have the budget at the moment works, as I'd like to have some money to do things for myself during the month, and the sinking funds each week will help future me with things like car maintenance, birthdays, Christmas/Eid etc.

For the care contribution, rather than setting aside £225 for a 5 week month, and £180 a 4 week month, I'll just set aside £200 every month. That way, the £20 from a 4 week month will accumulate to then cover a 5 week month when they roll around. The first 5 week month for me is March 2025. I think I was lucky that my local authority has been too lazy to do any financial assessments in the last 4 years, so I've had a good run with not contributing, so I can't really complain now can I 😂? It was just unexpected and I was notified the day that I had handed in my resignation, so I had a moment of utter panic and anxiety about my budget increasing when I was losing my income. But I'm over the anxiety of it all now, and after looking at the financial breakdown and seeing how it all comes about, it has helped.

I've been trying to figure out other ways of maximising the income that I will have. And I found out that I qualify for free estate parking as I have a blue badge. At the moment, I am paying £22.41 a month for street parking as it means I can park directly downstairs and don't have to walk too and from the car park. And I can park in some parts of the borough (but I can do that with the blue badge as well to be fair). I'll keep that street permit going until it's a bit warmer, and then in the spring, I will switch to the free annual car parking permit. I figured I'd treat the parking like I do my heating - seasonal expenditure. So if I park in the car park during the summer months for free, when it's warmer and easier to do all the walking to and from the car park. It'll coincide with when I switch my heating off in April to September. Then I only have to pay as you go for the street parking right downstairs from my block from October to March, as it's on an auto renewal until you cancel. I'll still keep putting £1,200 a month into the bills pot all year round, but it means that when it's warmer, I am building credit with Octopus for the gas and electricity and accumulating a small surplus to sit in the bills account to help when the bills increase every April.

When my final salary is paid, I also need to see if I can qualify for some council tax support to see if the bill can be lowered a little. As my son is finishing college in August, he'll no longer be a student, so I'll lose my 25% single person's discount as he's 18 now. But if I can get any help towards the council tax before he finishes studying, it'll help me to save the difference between any support and the current amount that I pay, for when I'm no longer eligible for the 25% discount as the bill be increasing.

I've got to get up early tomorrow and go and do a proper food shop for the week, and my son can carry things up the stairs. We have snacks for Christmas but no actual proper food in the house, as we've eaten through what we have whilst I've been out of commission the last few days. We're eating at Harvester on Christmas day after we visit the cemetery to see my dad and place some flowers on his grave. So for Wednesday, I just need the stuff for my son's fry up, which is a bit of a tradition of ours. He's excited for me to add pancakes as well, so I'll have to remember that. I won't be able to eat brunch and then eat at 4pm like my son can, as I get full and nauseous so easily, so I'll probably just have a bacon sandwich or something. 

Sarahwithlove

I'm glad you had a nice goodbye with your colleagues and that it shows they at least appreciate you and all you do. 

Hope you feel better in time for Christmas. It seems like you have a good plan in place financially and hopefully you might be able to make some extra money. Do you do any surveys etc? 

KajiKita

I am properly impressed by all your £cial strategies and organisation. You are going to be fine. 

You made the right decision about your ex friend. She needs to learn from this. 

I am so pleased that you got that voucher and presents from your team - it show you just how much you are worth to them. I have been chatting by text to some ex colleagues and tbh, it’s only now that I am starting to understand what a positive impact I had on people. 

Good luck with the food shop and I hope you have a really lovely, relaxing and and peaceful Christmas and may 2025 bring you hope, joy and good health. 

KK x

badmemory

Have you considered whether you should get some tax back if December is your last pay day as you will only have used three quarters of your personal allowance.

Keedie

I think I overdid it in Lidl and Tesco. It was waaaaay too busy, crawling with people and the queues were so so long. I'm never food shopping at this time of year again! All that standing around and loading and unloading the shopping trolley and the car, has meant that my hips hurt and I've aggravated my dodgy right shoulder. But at least we won't need food until well into next week. It's definitely a new year's resolution to get on top off meal planning and a large online monthly food shop that can be delivered to my actual front door and not the communal door. Then the rest of the food budget can go towards weekly top ups and fresh fruits etc.

It was definitely nice to feel appreciated by my colleagues. I've loved working with them as they're people, although I've not actually enjoyed the actual work that I did for the most part as it was repetitive. And I've disliked the management structure, especially in recent years. It's good to see how you've positively impacted your ex-colleagues @KajiKita, that's always a feel good realisation isn't it? Thank you for being so kind about about my financial wranglings @KajiKita. I'm trying to find a good balance of living in the here and now, and being prepared for the future.

I'd not thought of the tax situation to be honest @badmemory. I don't know why that didn't occur to me. I get paid until 10 January 2025 when my notice period ends, as at the moment the university is shut until 1 January 2025 and then I'm on leave thereafter. They also owe me 12 hours of annual leave. But I think because I've done some freelancing, I'll probably have used up the personal allowance by the time I do my self assessment in April. As I won't have to wait for a P60, I'll be able to the tax return as soon as the tax year ends. I've been putting aside more than I need to for tax, so I suspect, I won't see any benefit within the current tax year, but by the time I do the tax return, I'll have a balancing payment of a lot less than I have saved for the 2024/25 tax year. So I think it might be a delayed gratification thing with not using all of the tax free allowance due to leaving my job. I've got £1,103.10 saved for tax so far. And I'll keep setting aside 30% of any of the freelance income I get between now and March 2025.

For the freelance handover work that I'll be doing in January to February 2025, when the money for that comes through, I'll fund all of my business expenses for the remainder of 2025. So that'll cover things like my Instant Ink subscription, Canva, Monzo business account fee etc. That way I'll know everything is covered and I won't need to push myself to find work, and I can just concentrate on getting myself into a better mental and physical place.

And yes, I do surveys @Sarahwithlove, though not very consistently. But I think I'm going to try and source some more market research, mystery shopping style things, so that I can out and about and get paid a higher amount, rather than doing lots and lots of surveys for a few pence here and there. That'll be on my to do list for 2025 to figure out where those opportunities are...

AntoMac

Sounds like you’ve earned yourself some rest and relaxation time over Christmas Keedie. What an end to the year. You did right by letting the friendship with your former manager go. 

I trust you haven’t given yourself too much more to do over the next few days and will be able to relax and recharge

Keedie

Thanks @AntoMac, I have had a good Christmas thank you, I hope you did too? I was a bit too relaxed yesterday though and forgot that the cemetery closes early on Christmas Day 😬🤦🏾‍♀️. Luckily my dad's grave is right at the entrance, so I wished him a Merry Christmas through the cemetery gates.

I've got no plans until I go to Brighton on 7 January. And that's rather glorious. Well actually, I've got to tidy my room and do some paper shredding so that my room is clutter free. Plus I need to do laundry so that I can pack my suitcase after the new year. I'm looking forward to my solo break and coming back to a clear space and being able to enjoy my room as a sanctuary.

It's starting to sink in that I am going to be unemployed when my notice ends on 10 January 2025... it's such a scarily freeing feeling. Life is now full of so much possibilities, that it is a bit overwhelming. That's why I'm glad I've got my trip to Brighton coming up. I can have the mental space to consider my next chapter in life. 

And in financial news... I've finally managed to figure out my budget so that everything fits into my benefit income, including the care charges. So rather proud of that. 

beanielou

Well done on your SOA. I am struggling with mine.