The Mental Debt Struggle...

Cherryfudge

Some really great slow cooker advice above! Ours is admittedly mostly curries, casseroles and 'roast' chicken (you don't get the crispy skin but the meat is amazingly succulent). In general it does best with meat as vegetables take a long time to soften, but that doesn't mean you can't do them. My particular SC is an Instant Pot so it also does pressure cooking, sauteing and yogurt as well, but not all slow cookers do these.

There's probably a slow cooker thread on the Old Style Forum somewhere.

Edited to add: I found this which looks hopeful.

Keedie

That soup sounds delicious @Sallyforth! I need to get a new blender, as I had to throw both my nutribullet and hand blender away when we had the Indian meal moths last summer. They were laying eggs in the nutribullet and I found one of the worm things in the drawer with the hand blender parts. So everything got thrown in the bin along with the toaster. I've since replaced the toaster but keep forgetting to get a blender. My son was moaning about this just last night as he wanted to make a milkshake smoothie (dunno what that would entail as we don't have any frozen fruit at the moment). It never occurred to me that I could blend soups though. Thanks for the tip.

My sisters are kitchen whizzes with their slow cookers @Makingabobor2, and do all sorts of meats and stuff and I do get a bit jealous because I just can't get myself organised. But I think putting things in there in the mornings and then just having to focus on things like rice or whatever will make all the difference.

I had a Google yesterday for slow cooker recipes and there is so much out there it was a bit overwhelming. But I have bookmarked the thread you've given me, thank you @Cherryfudge. My slow cooker is a Crockpot, and I really do need to stop staring at it and start using it 😂.

I can be a bit lazy today though, as my son and his girlfriend are making us lunch. Though I suspect she's doing most of the work. But not having to stand to make anything, even though we have the anti fatigue mats, is a nice thing. I'll even have a glass of diet lemonade 🤗.

Keedie

THE SUNDAY SUMMARY

(Week 3 ~ 20 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

The sinking funds focus has been whittled down even further as I am selling the car and so I've redistributed what I had in that pot to my other sinking funds. It also means that moving forward, I will have more money to put towards my savings goals.

The Big One - Save £5,000 emergency fund 31 December 2027
Progress Checker = £452.07/£5,000 (9.04% saved)
Nothing has been saved this week, as the standing order is for the 1st of the month, so this goal has not moved any further this month. But as the standing order is set to £50 a month, when I've completed some savings challenges, I should hopefully be able to add more to the account.

Goal 1 - 50 Envelope Challenge (£1,275) - due by 31 December 2025
Progress Checker = 6/50 Envelopes = £175/£1,275 (11.76% saved) 
I've completed Envelope 25 so I'm at 6/50 envelopes for the challenge now. It was a slow start, but it's good to see that it's starting to progress. As I've closed my car sinking fund, the £10 a week for the car can now go into the 50 Envelope challenge for the rest of April. 

Goal 5 - Penny Challenge ~ Monzo (£667.95) - due by 7 January 2026
Progress Checker = £53.56/£667.95 (up by £7 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 £1.03 as we're now in the pounds, and it's going to start getting pricey. But it will be over £60 his time next week! Yay.

Goal 6 - Bag It & Bank It (£720) - due by 31 March 2026
Progress Checker = £415.35/£720 (up by £12.61 since last week)
This is a cash version of the penny challenge, but I have to save the equivalent of each coin denomination that would fill a coin bag. And you do that 10 times and it gives you £720. So I set my change aside for the week, and then on a Sunday see what I've got, and this week it was £12.61.

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 - £2,000 for May 2025's Budget
Progress Checker = £1,643/£2,000 (approaching a Bronze Budget)
I've reduced the budget moving forward from £2,250 a month to £2,000 a month to take the pressure off me freelancing, and it'll just take longer to get to my savings goals, but that's okay. This budget will include all bills, variable expenses, sinking funds and savings challenges.

For May 2025, here's the budget split for the different levels, based on necessities, wants and very nice to haves:

Bronze Budget = £1,675 (bills, carer, travel and food)
Silver Budget = £1,750 (guilt free spending money)
Gold Budget = £1,850 (gifts and home sinking funds)
Platinum Budget = £1,950 (holidays and snowballing sinking funds)
Diamond Budget = £2,000 (envelope challenge and savings challenges)

If I have any surplus above £2,000, then this will be set aside for the months when I don't have that much income, so that I can maintain this budget throughout the tax year. 

AntoMac

Great to see so many people offering you good advice Keedie. Just goes to show that there are a lot of kind people out there.
The one small thing I will add, and I’m sure you already know this anyway, don’t get too hung up with the 365 day penny challenge as it gets harder. I’ve done mine by picking a lot of the higher amounts off first, leaving me some potential leeway later on. Either way, it’s a good challenge and every bit saved adds up. 

Keedie

Yeah I love this forum @AntoMac, as everyone is so helpful and informative. It's guided and supported me in ways that I can never begin to describe. It's made all the difference financially and has helped me on a personal journey too, especially since I started this diary and all of the life events that has happened since.

As for the penny challenge, because it's being taken automatically by Monzo from my current account into a savings pot, it goes in sequential order, so I can't complete the higher ones first. I've realised that although the automatic part is good, it doesn't give me flexibility. So I might not bother next year, and just round down my accounts myself and put the money aside and cross off the relevant numbers. I can pause it if I need to, but when my sister did that, it took all of the money for the days that she had paused it, so that it caught her back up to where she should be.

I think the pressure moving forward might actually annoy me, so we'll see how it goes. I've worked out what I need for each month based on the date that I started. For May 2025, it's £39.99 and that is doable, £47.85 for June 2025, £58.90 for July 2025, £68.51 for August 2025 and by September 2025 I need £75.45. So it just occurred to me that I might need to rethink my budget so that I can leave enough money in my account to accumulate over the following months to cover the upcoming automatic transactions.

Anyways, it was my dad's 5 year anniversary of his passing and my mum's birthday (as he passed away on her birthday). So we all went to the cemetery yesterday and laid some flowers, tidied his grave and caught him up on how everyone is doing. Then we went to a nice Turkish restaurant to celebrate my mum's birthday, and she had a nice time and was quite touched and excited by her presents, cards and flowers. There were 15/17 of us, as two of my nephews were abroad for football, but it was really nice. The younger kids had a little circular table at the back of the restaurant and I could see that the 5 of them felt really grown up, even though I could hear the nonsense that they were talking about as I was sitting on the long table right near them 😂. It's always such a confusing day, mourning my dad but celebrating my mum's birthday. It leaves me a bit on edge and drained, but incredibly grateful for my family and to still have my family. I'll emotionally regulate in a few days, but for now, I'm a bit off kilter. 

But I've topped up my sinking funds and the envelope challenge. £20 went into the envelope challenge, and so it now has enough in there to cover another two envelopes, Envelope 3 and Envelope 47, so I've declared that on the Envelope Challenge thread. I also put £10 into each sinking fund for Homely Home, The Gift and Globetrotter. But then I realised that I hadn't considered the budget for the restaurant, so I had to take £50 out of the Homely Home pot, as that covers all expenses for me, my son and our home. So that's more or less been wiped out. But such is life.

Cherryfudge

It must be really difficult having two so-different anniversaries on the same day but having part of the day for each of them sounds a good way forward. I hope you feel better soon.

Keedie

It is really difficult @Cherryfudge, I won't lie. But we've started to develop a rhythm and routine over the years on how to split the day so that we honour both our parents. And to give my mum her birthday back. And it's always nice to spend time with my family. 

I'm super duper excited, as I've managed to get a space on a free digital skills bootcamp learning everything there is to know about video editing using Adobe Premier Pro. It's for 3 weeks in July down in Brighton, so I've reserved an Airbnb and paid a deposit. When I sell the car, I'll use some of that money to pay the balance, and it's due at the end of June. I've not been creative like this since I was at uni, so I must say, I am really enjoying my gap year so far 😂. One of my friends is also doing the course, so it'll be nice to hang out with someone I know. She'll be commuting from London everyday though. That's too much activity for me. I need to be able to retreat to a bed soon after and just unwind. 

Does anyone know much about electric bikes? My son is getting a moped and is doing his CBT training on Saturday. I'm happy enough to be on public transport once the car is sold, but if I need to move a little quicker, an electric bike might not be a bad idea. I looked at Halfords website and they do free 30 minute test rides for electric bikes. I've wanted one for years, but couldn't justify buying one. And wasn't sure if I would even really use it. I have a bike shed parking space, so the bike would stay on the ground floor a street away from me in one of them green bike storage units. I used to love cycling, but as I got sick it got too tiring, so I'm hoping that maybe with motorised assistance, it is easier to navigate. It'll be the cheapest model with a short frame, as I'm 5 foot 1, so it won't be a big bike. I'm going to see if an electric bike works as an alternative. If it's still painful and tiring with the test drive, then I'll stick to the original plan of selling the car and using the money towards cabs where needed.

Baileys_Babe

This article on ebike hire in London is a couple of years old, but it might be useful. If any of the schemes operate in your area, you would be able to try incorporating ebike use into your daily life without a high financial commitment. Hiring would also mean you could use your money more flexibly for transport needs, depending on the weather, your health, other plans that day or week, with no guilt that you have an ebike you are not using. If you own the ebike you are responsible for the maintenance, charging the battery, and finding somewhere safe and secure to leave the bike when you are out and about etc

Keedie

You know what @Baileys_Babe, you're a genius! I see the ebikes everywhere, even on my estate, so that makes much more sense. And it does take away the pressure of maintaining a bike or the guilt of not using one. I'll be able to concentrate on just getting around as I see fit on any given day without worrying about being responsible for a vehicle or bike. If I use ebikes enough over the next year, I may consider getting one next year. I told my son about your advice and he has offered to show me how to get the app and use the Lime ebikes. 

I had physio today at the hospital and I went on the bus so that I could get used to getting around without the car. And boy was that a mistake. It was peaceful to be on the bus, but I misjudged the time to leave and they were changing drivers, so I was late for my appointment. But luckily the lady still saw me and put me down for the upper limb physio class. It's at 08:10 on 27 May, so I need to really figure out the journey so that I'm on time. I forgot how much longer things take on the bus, just in general because it stops all the time, but also because I walk like waddling snail. Maybe I'll get faster the more I get used to walking from A to B. I need to go back to the GP though, as I've got a lot of pain at the back of my right knee and I need to see the podiatrist for my tendinopathy. That's starting to really aggravate me more since I'm trying to be more active. But I'd much rather be in pain, waddling along at a snail's pace than have to sit in London traffic and drive around in pain and stressed out about being on the road. I was able to read on the Kindle app on my iPad to and from the hospital and that was really nice. Definitely worth all the hobbling around to be able to bypass traffic by being in the bus lane.

On the finance front, I've been paid some freelance money and I've been repaid some money that I'd lent a friend. So I've met my Diamond Budget goal of £2,000 for May 2025's budget. I'll be setting aside the excess as my universal credits is going to be lower due to the freelance earnings. There is so much in the news about changes to benefits eligibility, especially around PIP criteria and the government wanting to spy on people's bank accounts if they've been overpaid a benefit or had fraud etc. I don't like feeling anxious or vulnerable. And right now, I am heavily dependent on benefits as it is my main source of income. So I'm going to try and stick to my budget as much as I can and ignore any excess money I can accumulate on a monthly basis. Over time, I should be able to build up to a Bronze Budget. Hopefully by the end of 2025 if I'm lucky.

Baileys_Babe

I pleased to hear you have Lime bikes nearby and your son can help you with the App.

Around here park at or near the hospital is very scarce which adds both time and anxiety to all hospital appointments. Trying public transport now to see how you need to adapt is a wise decision.

When are you planning on selling the car?