The Mental Debt Struggle...

Cherryfudge

I hope all went well today and your son will soon be as active as ever he was!

AntoMac

Keep battling Keedie - you’ve got yourself out of much bigger holes in the past, so you know you can get yourself back on track again. A big help will be getting your medication right. Good times will absolutely come again

Makingabobor2

hope you are ok @Keedie.

Sarahwithlove

I use Wiltshire farm foods for my clients at work, mostly because they do pureed as well. Always looks quite small. But you may find having something easy to bulk it with could work. I.e garlic bread, steam veg bags, bag of salad etc. M & S ready meals are quite nice otherwise I find. 

Keedie

Thanks for all your advice and feedback regarding food options everyone, I really appreciate it. The Wiltshire Farm brochure came and taking into account sizing portions, I dunno if it will be a good fit. But I might order a couple of items and see if I like the taste of it. They don't look incredibly seasoned so we'll see 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Anyways, I'm also going to try out Frive, as they have portioned meals that are fresh and I can also put them in the freezer. The aim is to have two drawers of frozen meals that we can utilise throughout the month, one drawer of frozen vegetables, potatoes, frozen fruit for smoothies etc and the final drawer will have junk food like chips, nuggets, pizza, ice cream etc. I'm hoping that this set up, along with staples in the cupboards will see us through. The aim is to cook two or three times a week, and the other days are flexible. I'll check out M&S as well thank you @Sarahwithlove.

My son's surgery didn't happen on Tuesday, as the surgeon said it wasn't worth the risk of operating as the abscess he had under his left armpit had not healed fully. The doctor said that as he had an active infection, he runs the risk of his bone getting infected during the knee surgery. So my son decided to wait a few more weeks and we went to the pub for breakfast as he was starving as he was nil by mouth for the surgery. The abscess occurred because he got a chemical burn from a new deodorant back in May, it kinda healed but he didn't listen to me about completing the course of antibiotics. So it then came back more pronounced and he didn't say anything until he could barely lift his arm. So I got him straight to the doctors and he was referred to the hospital the next day to have it surgically drained. Since then, we were going between urgent care at the hospital and seeing the nurse at our GP surgery, for his incision to be cleaned, packed with some fancy dressing that would encourage the cavity to heal from the bottom of the wound up to the surface of his skin. He had to do daily dressing changes for 7 days and then it was every other day, and I had to get dressings and stuff to take on holiday with us to Turkey at the beginning of July, and to do the dressing changes when we couldn't get to the hospital.

It was healing very well, but he went to Paris last weekend at the last minute on a solo trip on the Eurostar for one night, and we forgot to change his dressing in the morning before his train. So by the time he got home on the Sunday evening, it was weeping a little bit. But I didn't think much of it, and as I had told the nurse when they did his pre-op assessment that he had an abscess that was healing, and she didn't say anything about it impacting the surgery or rescheduling it, we went to his appointment on Tuesday and then he couldn't do the surgery after all 😬. Then the ironic thing is that he had an appointment yesterday with the nurse at the GP surgery for a dressing change and she told him it's all healed and he doesn't need to do anything else now. So that's a good thing, but his surgery probably wouldn't have led to any complications 🥴.

But everything happens for a reason. He's been able to work this week to get some spending money for Tunisia as we go on 10 August. Also, he can now fully participate in the water sports at the hotel, and make use of the water park. As last year he couldn't really enjoy the water park in Morocco as he was only 6 weeks post op in September and still using a leg brace, and when we went to Turkey last month he couldn't go in the swimming pool because of his abscess and dressings. So he'll have fun and they have given him another pre-op assessment on 20 August, so hopefully he should have the surgery in September... 🤞🏾. 

Cherryfudge

Oh your poor son! And of course poor you, coping with that situation. I'm so glad he's completely well now and able to get back to doing things for a while before the rescheduled op.

AntoMac

Glad that things have worked out for your son Keedie.
My Mum gets meals delivered at lunch time from the council. Might that work for you? A bit (not much) more expensive than Wiltshire Farm foods but she gets a main and a dessert, whereas a combined main and dessert would cost more from Wiltshire Farms. I wonder with your mobility issues whether you would qualify, or even whether that would interest you. 

Maybe the holiday will do you a lot of good. We often don’t realise how much we need a break until we get one. 

Going back to the subject of frittering your money away, do you have a way of putting a bit into locked accounts at all? Would maybe stop you dipping in when things get a bit traumatic?

One reason I’ve put some into Premium Bonds is that it keeps some of my money out of the way of temptation. 

Keedie

It's been a rough ride I won't lie @Cherryfudge. But not having the surgery seems to have helped him as he's been working and that's keeping him busy. I do feel really depleted by everything that has happened in the last few months. And I keep having vivid dreams that are bordering on confusing night terrors. My mind is a jumbled mess. And I keep feeling really tearful. I feel like I've not really had a break since I stopped working in January. It's just been one thing after an another and I feel incredibly overwhelmed. I still have odd dreams and barely any sleep. So it'll get better. This Too Shall Pass 🤞🏾.

I'd not thought of meals on wheels @AntoMac, but you're right, I might qualify. I'll see what my local council does and what the criteria is. I have meal prep and food shopping as part of my care plan that social services draws up on an annual basis, so I'll see what the deal is. My next review would be around October 2025 I think.

But financially, I think I've turned a corner and that is helping me and my anxiety is slowly reducing. I've worked out a flexible budget of sorts, and that is helping me. Looking back over the last 6 months, I average a combined income from benefits and freelancing of £1,875 and it can be up to £2,000 on a really good month. It's not a low income considering that I am not working lots and lots of hours, as my PIP and disabled element of universal credit really helps me. But for London, as a single income household, I'm finding it a bit tight at times. But I think a lot of that is due to poor money management, so I'm hoping that by having a laser focus (like I did when I was clearing debts), it will help me to get back on track. So I've been thinking of how to manage it all so that I can get back on track with my money management. I'm budgeting each month as if it was a 5 week month, and as most months are 4 weeks long (based on a 'week' commencing on a Monday for me), then it means that the money for the fifth week can be used for extra savings.

This is what I've come up with so far and the pots that they sit in:

Digital (stays in the bank/electronic transfers) = £1,550

• £1,000 = The Burden (bills and fixed expenses, like rent, utilities, insurance etc)
• £200 = Super Saver (£150 emergency fund in Natwest Digital Saver and £50 Help to Save)
• £200 = Golden CareCuffs (direct payments for my carer and a small incrementally building surplus for any disability aids)
• £100 = Digi Foodies (for big online food shops, eating out/take aways)
• £50 = Trek Travel (for petrol, train fares, parking etc)

Cash (split into 5 equal portions of £65 a week) = £325

• £40 = Foodies (weekly food shop, take aways and family meals)
• £10 = Keedie Spendy (my guilt free spending money)
• £5 = KeeMari (sinking fund for home expenses, beauty, medical or anything needed for me and my son)
• £5 = Cruise Control (car maintenance, MOT, service, tax)
• £5 = The Gift (birthdays, Eid, Christmas and special occasions)

On a four week month, I will put the £65 allocated to Week 5 into savings challenges and have a game day. The savings from the game day, are for my Bills Parachute fund, as is the 50 Envelope Challenge. The Bills Parachute is to offset against my fixed expenses to keep them low from 2026/27 onward. This year, due to the money that I received from a family member, I was able to clear my debt and overpay on my gas and electricity, my rent, council tax and water rates. It's meant that I have been able to keep my expenses for bills as low as possible, as £1,000 a month including rent is quite good for London. So I've decided that is where my savings focus will be. I'm aiming for £3,000 by 31 March 2026.  That will allow me to get ahead on a few more bills so that I'm able to have consistently low fixed expenses for years to come, if I can continue to get ahead.

I have a better financial month and I'm able to have £2,000, then the £125 above my normal budget will be split between additional spending money for me, more into my sinking funds and a little extra for game days to boost the Bills Parachute. 

What do you think? Any advice on how to do things differently, or what would you do differently if it was your budget? I'm trying to use cash more as I've noticed that electronic money just disappears from my bank account. I'm not always conscious of what I'm spending as tapping away is a slippery slope. 

Keedie

I forgot to say that although I burned through my savings and bank account when I wasn't well, I did not touch the Natwest digital saver that is my emergency fund, nor did I touch the Help to Save account. Neither of them are locked, but they have a definite purpose in my head, so I forget they exist.

The digital saver has £1,064.57 including £14.57 interest since it opened in February 2025. The Help to Save account has £1,550 in there and the final bonus is sitting at £175 so far. I think I need to look into premium bonds @AntoMac, as a layer between me and savings or accounts, that makes it harder to access will reduce the impulsivity hopefully. 

There is one thing that I have started this week that I am proud of, is doing a savings challenge with my cash food shop money. It's a coin flip challenge that saves either £5 or £10. And that money will steadily go towards a big bulk shop. I found that when I did that a few months ago, it made everything cheaper in the weekly shops as I didn't have to worry about household items etc. So when the challenge is completed, I'll set that money aside. There are 18 plays, so the minimum I wills save is £90 and so far, after the first go, I have £5 set aside. 

Makingabobor2

That's a good amount of interest for a savings account since Feb