The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

Thanks for checking in with me @lellybun, I appreciate it. The last week and a bit, I've been really tired and out of sorts. 

I had a great time at the spa break with my mum, but I came back absolutely shattered. I think when you have a nice break, you realise how tired you are. On the way back from Northampton, I was so disoriented that I drove through one of those pedestrian only low neighbourhood thingies in London. Got whacked with a £65 fine, as it was only vehicle access for local residents. I paid the fine as soon as it came yesterday, as knowing my luck, I would set it aside, forget about it and have to pay the full £130 after the 14 days, or even worse, it would go up to £195 after 28 days. These councils really do make a small fortune off motorists.

But on a positive note, I had a good heart to heart with my son about finances and budgeting and I've redone my whole budget to give him every penny of the child benefit and child element of the universal credits. He's now responsible for his travelcard/top up, money for college, paying for all of his subscriptions, spending money, clothes, take aways (outside of household take aways). It started on 1 April and I did a spreadsheet for him to let him know what is due when and how much he has to set aside each month to be able to pay for his EA Access and Playstation Plus annual passes in 2026 (as I've covered this year as I already had the money saved). 

He seems to be doing well, and it's nice to know that he won't be asking me for the odd bit of money here and there. We went to Tesco the other day and I was being lazy and got a meal deal. He asked for one too and I told him he can have one, but he'll be paying for it, as mine is coming out of my spending money. He decided to get some snacks instead and then asked me to drop him to the chicken and chip shop and brought their smallest meal, and used the drink he brought himself in Tesco, as he told me it was cheaper to do it that way. So I think slowly but surely, it will help him. Whilst he's still new to managing everything himself, I'll send him an email reminder 3 days before each subscription is due, almost like a utility bill notification, so that he gets used to being asked to pay bills etc. 

It means that I have to freelance more to counteract the loss of income, but I think it will all be worth it. And I've gone back to cash stuffing again and went to the bank today to get the money out that I need for the month. Being able to focus solely on what I need and what I need to do around the flat and stuff like that, has really changed the budget and taken a lot of pressure off of me. My brother has also spoken to my son and offered to give him a training overview of PAT testing (that's what he does for work), so that when my son finishes college, if he likes it, he can can get certified and start working with my brother. It's a weight off my mind in terms of him finding a job. And besides, he likes the idea of working for himself. And I can worry a little less about his future.

I've scrapped the idea of paying for my subscriptions for the year. So I cleared out those pots on Starling where I'd funded my contribution for Apple One, Kindle Unlimited, cleared out the money I had set aside for my son's subscriptions and put it all to better use. I've also cleaned out the buffer, and moved a bit out of the emergency fund. That last bit might sound counter intuitive, but accumulating all of that money has meant that I've been able to pay a chunk off my council tax, water rates, set aside the money for the rest of car insurance payments until it ends in August, plus put some credit on my gas and electricity, and rent account. This has all helped me to reduce the amount that I pay each month. All bills, including rent, insurance, subscriptions, utilities etc is now £989 a month down from £1,187. That's nearly £200 a month which offsets against some of the money I've diverted to my son. The biggest changes happened because I put the lump sums on the highest bills:

• Rent = £750 lump sum credit = monthly rent now £650 as I had credit in the account I built up over a few years of extra pounds each month, and the rent the new tax year is now cheaper than what I paid for the last tax year
• Council Tax = £500 lump sum payment = down from £95 a month to £49.55 a month
• Water Rates = £500 lump sum payment = down from £71.73 to £26.33 a month
• Gas & Electricity = £500 lump sum credit = payments reduced from £100 a month to £75 a month and may reduce to £50 when it gets warmer if the credit exceeds £750 (currently at £655.16)

Because I changed the way that I budget the income I receive due to making my son more independent, I wanted to reduce the pressure on me in terms of having to work too much as I feel rather run down at the moment. And the reality is that I am not althugh none of this was a financial emergency, having that peace of mind is priceless. It also means that I have got my overall budget down to £2,000 including replenishing savings (at £250 a month) and I now have a larger spending money budget for myself (not that I go anywhere really, but figured I could accumulate it to do something nice like go to the hairdressers or to pay for train tickets to see my friends that don't live in London). 

The budget is very new, and I have slashed the emergency fund right down to £450, but this feels like a kinder way to live. It may well blow up in my face, but for now, I'm much happier and less stressed. As I know that my essential spending is a lot lower, and I'm hoping that by functioning with cash more than card, I can reign in my spending and I won't feel like I've made a massive mistake.

lellybun

Good to see you back Keedie, but sorry to hear you have been feeling out of sorts.  I think you are right though about when you have a break, you realise how tired you actually were, as if your body and mind goes into some kind of replenishing phase.

Boo to the fine, that's annoying!

Sounds like you have been busy organising finances and setting your son up to be financially savvy.

I love the way you are constantly looking at and adapting your budget where needed to suit your circumstances.

Lelly 

beanielou

Your plans sound good.

Keedie

I always adapt the budget @lellybun, because life doesn't stay static. We're always morphing into new versions of ourselves as we adapt to changes in life. So that's why I'm always trying new things. Besides, I do get bored easily so that is also a factor 😂.

I'm glad you think the plan is a good idea @beanielou. It'll take some getting used to, but this afternoon we are going to Home Bargains to do a bulk shop for household stuff and some food and then popping to Lidl. I had saved £165 for me to do a bulky shop, especially for cleaning supplies, so that my grocery spend can hopefully be lower moving forward and I can meal plan things better. 

I'm fairly tired, but I've managed to paint and organise the hallways cupboard with those two units. I realised that two drawers were broken and not one, so that was a bit annoying. But the main thing is that the space is organised and we can see where we stand with what we need to get. My son was so excited that we can now open and close the cupboard without having to put our knee there to catch stray items trying to make a break for it. It took a whole week of painting in little bursts and resting, then I organised stuff this morning. So that we don't buy things we don't need or have space for. 

I got a new budget spreadsheet that I brought from a lady that I follow on YouTube, and it's fantastic. More along the lines of what I needed and the graphs are quite good. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning setting it all up and logging my bills and transactions since 1 April 2025. It's a google sheets spreadsheet, so I've also downloaded the app and logged into my email so that I can update it on the go as and when I spend when I'm out and about. It's more flexible and will sync so that I can pick up where I've left off, either in the app or on the spreadsheet on my MacBook. I'm aiming to track all expenditure, so that when I review the budget on 31 March 2026, I finally have a year's worth of data to work with and to plan for the 2026/27 tax year.

I've got my final payslip and P45 from my old employer, and so I can do my self assessment next week and work out my tax bill and make the payment straight away if I have enough money set aside. In the event that I don't, then I will pay what I have and then plan how to balance the difference by 31 January 2026. I think I have about £7 credit or something like that from the 2023/24 self assessment as I had overpaid slightly. So by mid-April 2025, I should know where I stand with everything.

Makingabobor2

Like the idea of a new budget spread sheet. I need to change the way mine is done I think.  

Keedie

Having the new spreadsheet has really helped me @Makingabobor2. I was able to go to McDonald's drive thru yesterday after I left my mum's and before I drove home, I was able to open the google sheets app and add it straight there. When I got home, I checked and it had all synced and updated. Very impressive. Tracking every day on this new spreadsheet is so much easier, partly because of the google sheets aspect, but mainly because it's more intuitively laid out. It even has a bar graph to show me my budgeted spent against my actual spend, pie charts, a summary of the top 20 most expensive categories. And it allows me to check off the each bill as it happens and I can determine whether my spending was in cash, or from a specific bank account. It's brilliant. £20 well spent.

I've been feeling a bit out of sorts at the moment, and I've been rather annoyed as I am struggling to walk properly. I know that I am fortunate to be able to walk, but sometimes the lack of mobility and fluctuating abilities can really grind me down 🥺. My son and his girlfriend have been really patient with me as my brain fog is awful and I'm making very little sense when I speak 🤦🏾‍♀️.

Anyways, budget wise, I've realised from using this new spreadsheet that I can have less categories to my budget and less Chase sub-accounts. So I've amalgamated a few to cover more than one type of expense coming from one account and it is so much easier to manage mentally. I also realised that I have one or two current accounts that have nothing in them and have not had a balance for a very long time, and so I need to make the effort to close them. I keep forgetting. But I do need a simpler life. 

Keedie

So I've been trying to organise my savings goals and challenges and figure out what I'm doing with myself. And I brought a penny savings challenge from Etsy, that has each denomination on its own tracker, with the equivalent of the amount needed to fill one of those coin deposit bags. So for example, 100 little circles for £0.01 and so that's £1 and if you do it 10 times, you'll have £10. Or 50 x £0.20 will give you £10 and if you do it ten times you'll have £100.

Anyways, it saves £720 in total, as you'd fill the equivalent of each denomination bags 10 times. I've not made it to the bank as yet, so I opened my three money tins and painstakingly counted how much I had of each denomination. I had £398.67 in total! When the savings challenge arrives in the post, I'll be able to cross of the relevant number of each coin, so that I can continue tracking it every time I get some change. My tins will probably be full by the end of next month, so I'll bank it the Natwest machine as it takes mixed coins, and then withdraw it in notes. It's quite exciting to know that my lack of motivation for going to the bank and being disciplined with saving my change has paid off. I'm over half way through a challenge I didn't even know I was completing. Hopefully I can finish it by the end of the tax year, as all this change has been accumulating for more than a year. So we'll see, but it is motivating to see it building up.

As I'm also doing the Monzo penny challenge, which is £667.95, the two challenges will be a total of £1,387.95. I don't like odd numbers, so I'll have to find a way to round it up to £1,400. And that money will be used to book a holiday somewhere for me and my son. It all goes to show that my dad was right, "every mickle, makes a muckle" (as in look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves). I've been beaming all night and I'm very excited to fill in the savings trackers when they arrive.

I don't see myself being patient enough to accumulate 1,000 pennies to have £10. So once I have completed a tracker for that relevant denomination, I will set any surplus aside, and then regularly use that value to cross off the other trackers I'm missing. As I don't need to actually fill the coin deposit bags, as the machine takes mixed currencies, so it doesn't matter to me. The main thing is reaching the actual monetary goal.

Keedie

I'm off to a careers fair today, which is being run by the NHS mental health trust. There'll be a few employers there, which I'm not really focussing on just yet. But they have some workshops that I'm really looking forward to. There were 6 in total but you could only choose two as there's so many people going. But anyways, I chose one about 'managing work worries' which will focus on the anxiety of working and how to navigate/support mental health in the workplace. The other one is 'workplace rights, discrimination and stigma' and that will focus on discrimination and stigma and what legal rights and protections I have and how to utilise them.

I think considering all of the awful experiences I had at my old job, those two workshops were the most fitting. The other 4 workshops were focussing on job searches, figuring out your career, reasonable adjustments at work and understanding benefits and the impact of returning to work. I'm not ready to look for work, I understand benefits and working, I've had reasonable adjustments in the past (for my physical disabilities) and I've kinda figured out my career options. So I didn't sign up for those ones, but I'm looking forward to the ones that I have registered for. 

My NHS trust also has Recovery College, and I'd done most of their workshops about twice and they really helped me when I was unwell. But they've brought out some new ones, so I've signed up for 10 different courses over the summer term. Some of them are about things like creating an emotional toolkit and emotional regulation, managing my mood, the basics of the Mental Health Act, a book club, dealing with hoarding, managing self employment and another one on job hunting and one about recovering our purpose. It's a nice mix for the next few months with some face to face and others online. I feel like I'm finally finding my footing work wise.

Also, I figured out the savings situation. I've reduced all my savings categories and figured out my ideal savings target and then cut it in half to make it more realistic. I figured over time I could build up to my ideal amount. For example, if I had £3,000 in my Cruise Control pot (car fund), this would cover insurance, MOT, service, car tax, breakdown cover, maintenance and repairs and have some surplus towards a new car. So rather than be overly optimistic initially, my aim is £1,500. My insurance is due for renewal in September 2025, so I won't have what I need to pay it up front, so this year's budget will focus on the other bits. I have my MOT and service due today, so I'll drop the car to the garage before the careers fair as their a couple of bus stops apart. So budget wise, we'll see what happens there. I have £400 saved, and once that's sorted, I'll see what I'm left with and then I can start from there.

Keedie

THE SUNDAY SUMMARY

(Week 2 ~ 13 April 2025)

I have amended the week count to coincide with budgeting on a tax year basis, instead of a calendar year.

Debt Regrets

Goal 1 - 100% repayment to Argos Card - due 30 April 2025
🎉 Achievement Date = 7 February 2025 🎉

Goal 2 - Clear Barclaycard Plan 1 (£1,506.20) - due by 31 October 2025

🎉 Achievement Date = 9 February 2025 🎉

Goal 3 - Pay £750 off my MBNA balance in 2025 - due by 31 December 2025
🎉 Achievement Date = 9 February 2025 🎉

Goal 4 - Pay £2,500 off my overall debt balance in 2025 - due by 31 December 2025
🎉 Achievement Date = 9 February 2025 🎉

Saving Grace

I had to have a big think about what sinking funds I am working on, what my savings stretch goals will be and how I will get from where I am now, to where I want to be - realistically. My sinking funds will fluctuate, but I will have a maximum cap on them, so that I will know if it is 'fully funded' based on the needs of my household. And so I decided not to focus on them here (partly because I am still trying to figure out exactly what my comfort zone cap should be), and instead focus on 3 saving challenges at a time (excluding The Big One which will take an age to complete). If I can complete my 3 savings challenges in this tax year, then I will add another one. The savings challenges will be used to top up my sinking funds.

The Big One - Save £5,000 emergency fund 31 December 2027
Progress Checker = £452.07/£5,000 (9.04% saved)
This is now an ongoing goal until it is achieved. I've decided to make the £5,000 limit for the Natwest Digital Regular Saver as my goal for the emergency fund. Eventually, I would like to have 6 months of essential spending saved, but as that is light years away, as is this goal, I'm just focussing on maxing out the limit of the regular saver whilst the interest is still high at 6%.

Goal 1 - 50 Envelope Challenge (£1,275) - due by 31 December 2025
Progress Checker = 5/50 Envelopes = £150/£1,275 (11.76% saved) 
I'm aiming to try and complete this by December 2025, so that I can do the challenge in tandem with the participants on the 52 Envelope Challenge thread that is run by @LittleMissDetermined. I finally managed to save one of each note with the Queen and King, so that was two £50 notes (one of each), two £20 notes and so forth. That comes up to £170 total, but I fill the envelopes two at a time to add up to £50. So I've completed envelopes 1 & 49, 2 & 48 and envelope 50. And I've got £20 left over that I will add to each week, so that I can build up another £50 and cross off two more envelopes. I hope to put £10 a week into this challenge.

Goal 5 - Penny Challenge ~ Monzo (£667.95) - due by 7 January 2026
Progress Checker = £46.56/£667.95 (up by £6.51 since last week)
This is being done automatically via Monzo's Penny Challenge and they move each consecutive daily amount from my current account balance. Today's amount was £0.96, so we're fast approaching deposits of £1+. It will be over £50 by this time next week! Yay.

Goal 6 - Penny Challenge ~ Cash (£720) - due by 31 March 2026
Progress Checker = £403.19/£720 (up by £4.02 since last week)
I have given up trying to get so far ahead on bills and so I am concentrating on just having fun saving. I had so much coins in various money tins, and I counted them all in the week and it was £399.17 and I have just cleared my purse out and there was £4.02 in there, so the total amount is now above £400. I'm very excited and I hope to finish this long before March 2026, but the bulk of the money was sitting in the tins for several months, so I won't get overly excited and just see how it goes. 

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 - £2,250 for May 2025's Budget
Progress Checker = £1,600/£2,250 (approaching a Bronze Budget)
I've set my budget for 2025/26 tax year, and it will be £2,250 a month including money for sinking funds and savings challenges. But I have split my budget into different levels, based on necessities, wants and very nice to haves:

Bronze Budget = £1,725
Silver Budget = £1,875
Gold Budget = £2,025
Platinum Budget = £2,125
Diamond Budget = £2,250

The best case scenario each month is to land between a Silver and Gold budget, although that will be a stretch for me. Anything above that is just very fortunate! But the main thing is to reach Bronze level as that covers all bills, food, travel and priority savings. In the unlikely event that I have a great month of freelancing, and I exceed the Diamond Budget target of £2,250, then it will be set aside to balance out months where I'm not so fortunate.

Newstartforme

Hi Keedie , I'm relatively new on the forums , your diary is 1 I most look forward to reading , you are very talented at writing and explaining everything so well . I'm also doing the penny challenge,  it's amazing how it grows so quickly . Good luck for achieving all you need for your budget for May