The Mental Debt Struggle...

LittleMissDetermined

Your son does have a sensible approach when it comes to the meds, given that the appointment isn't until Monday too. 

I have just started using the paper budgeting and I'm enjoying it so far, I still keep my spreadsheet but I think it will make me more accountable to write every spend down, especially with the rising costs, I need to be more aware so I can save as much as possible.

Keedie

I think writing things down makes all the difference to a budget. I always work things out on pen and paper first and then update information on my debt spreadsheet. I'm still trying to build the best budgeting one that takes into account variable income, and so the templates for paper budgets are really useful. Once I get a better handle on things, I'll be able to get better at tweaking the budget as money comes in and goes out. As I'm still fairly reactionary at the moment.

And yes, my son does have the more sensible approach to the medication and I've taken the first one this morning and have two more today as it's 3x daily, so I'll see how it goes by the time I have my appointment on Monday.

LittleMissDetermined

Glad you've decided to take the meds, no point suffering from the pain x

Sarahwithlove

I found having a break every now and then from pain meds helps with their effectiveness so try to only take when having a real bad flare up. So maybe try something similiar yourself?
Do you know what impact your wage increase will have on your UC? Or does it not effect it?
The cost of everything is just going up so doing it as OP rather than DD is probably best as don't want to leave yourself short. 

Keedie

That’s good advice thanks @Sarahwithlove regarding pain meds. I’ve had a 6 month break with no medication at all as I was on too many different things and the antipsychotic medication for the bipolar damaged my liver as I was really unlucky. I need to find a way of managing the flare ups better so that I'm not on continuous medication as my body is hyper sensitive to any medication, but I think not having anything in these last few months has meant that I've inadvertently ended up torturing myself painwise...

My wages increase does impact my UC, as does my self employed earnings. My change in salary will get automatically reported to HMRC and UC and then I declare my self-employed income on a monthly basis. I lose £0.55 for every £1 earned over the threshold for UC, so they disregard the first £334 of my overall monthly income. I've built myself a spreadsheet to do the calculations so that I know exactly how much my universal credit will be after all earnings are considered, and then I do my budget from there. My calculations are always correct as I studied the way UC did their payment calculations and I've built the spreadsheet to take into account self employed profit after allowable expenses.

Although I lose UC by earning more, I see my employed wages as my baseline for my budget and everything else is a nice extra, so the extra £224 will pay more of my bills, and my UC goes down by £123.20 so I'm still £100 better off overall. I'm trying to get to the point where my wages covers what I mainly need, and I live off the reduced UC as my monthly/weekly budget and the PIP will pay for the stuff I need to be mentally and physically healthy, and the self employed earnings will pay for my son's school fees and when that's repaid it will be used for debt overpayments and savings. 

I never know what may happen with the way the government deals with benefits, so I try to be as self sufficient as I can. I learnt my lesson by becoming reliant upon that extra £20 a week UC during the pandemic and was scrambling to get on top of things when it was taken away.  So if my employed wages can cover my essential bills and debt repayments (which this higher salary will now cover 80% of the two liabilities), I feel less stressed overall. As the rest of my income (self employment and UC) are variable each month.

Once I'm finally debt free, the higher salary will cover all bills and leave me with more disposable income to save for if my son goes to uni, and have a better work/life balance as I don't want to freelance like this for years. I'm feeling incredibly burnt out. I dream of a simple life whereby I have my part time job and my benefits top up and I can focus on writing, travelling and saving for retirement. Well that's the plan for now anyways ,

Mumoffourkids

I have been reading your diary avidly and I just wanted to comment about you wanting to get a monthly ahead with your bills. I did this and how I did it was I focused on one bill at a time. So the first bill I got ahead by was my water bill, then electric, then gas, then council tax and so on. The last one was my rent as that is my biggest bill. I wanted to get a month ahead as I get money in all over the place in the month, so by focusing on getting a month ahead with my bills means that any income I get in this month, goes to pay for next months bills. By focusing on one bill at the time, gave me something to work on and meant a smaller target rather than one big target. It may not work for you but just wanted to give an idea.

Keedie

That’s a fantastic way of doing it @Mumoffourkids! 

I didn’t even think of breaking it down like that I was just thinking of the overall amount. But having a checklist of the value of each bill and then focussing on the smaller ones and then go through the list as the months go by will make it much more achievable so thank you. 

And thanks for reading my diary as well, it’s just my word vomit most of the time, but it’s always nice to know others don’t mind reading and it’s good to talk to people as well 😊. x

Keedie

It’s such nice weather today 😊.

I’m  going back to London shortly and I’ve had such a great time just getting away. We had a nice lunch with our friend yesterday and had a two course Thai lunch from the set menu and a soft drink for £13.70. It was delicious and really filling. 

Last night we did vision boards whilst working our way through a bottle of rosé wine and it was really fun and insightful. I realised that I’ve been so focussed on my finances that I’ve let everything else fall by the wayside. So for the rest of 2022 I need to focus more on my wellbeing, creativity and completing my courses to future proof my business. I really hate working in HR and need to make that career change to proofreading, editing and copywriting. I want to get a part time job as a copywriter and freelance in that field instead of HR freelance. I’ve also convinced my two Kent friends to set up a writers group with me so that we can encourage and support one another to write our novels. So I’m excited about this. 

My minimum payment direct debit for £255.35 came out of my poor bank account. But I realised that I’ve paid off £1,188.60 off my Barclaycard since 01/04/2022 so I’m really proud of this. 

I gotta set up two new starters and work on some HR policies for my main freelance client when I get home, so the holiday’s over… 🤦🏾‍♀️.

LittleMissDetermined

Seems like it's just been the short break you needed to recharge your own batteries, sad that it's over but it sounds like it's given you a lovely little boost. 

Well done on the debt reduction so far, you've done amazingly well
LMD x

Keedie

Yes it really has made a difference and I think my son needed a break from me as well 😊. 

I’m glad that I now have a plan of things to achieve for the rest of the year. I may not do it all, but I’m definitely going to try. 

Thanks LMD, as I often feel like my debt isn’t going anywhere as I’ve been thinking too much about how far I’ve got left to go. But by looking back and seeing what I’ve able to in 4 months has given me a boost and I’m proud. My confidence is starting to grow as well. I actually feel like I might be able to pull this off