The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

Thanks for the advice and insight @daisy_1571. Sorry for the slow response, I slept most of the weekend and then I went to my nephew's birthday on the Sunday. That wiped me out even further, and I was barely able to work this week. I'm just catching up with myself now.

You make some really good points and it's a lot of really good advice. Foods that we think are healthy are often loaded with a lot of sugar or salt. So cooking more is definitely something that we should do together. Meal prepping and batch cooking is going to be the best thing moving forward, but we need a plan to get there. I think that he'll probably be able to find an app that can do something similar to your spreadsheet.

His main focus is getting healthier, improving his strength and losing weight. I need to get healthier and stronger. I'm tired of always being so weak and feeling fragile due to ill health. We're going to try swimming on a Sunday at our local pool.

Finance wise, I've got 7 weeks left of my agency contract and so I have been figuring out my next moves. If my calculations are correct, I'll leave work with £1,500 in my Abundance fund (which is used to supplement income so that my budget remains consistent). That should see me through to the end of the year alongside any benefits, if I am unable to get another job soon enough.

I should be able to stay afloat for a little while and get on track with my studies. Then that will help with getting another job, and more financial security.

Keedie

I forgot to say that I am only now focussing on one savings goal and one debt goal for 2026.

Savings = One Month Ahead fund of which I have £3,300/£4,000 (82.5%) to reach 2 months ahead. I'll achieve this by the end of the year due to the standing orders set up.

Debt = Career Loan £195/£3,000 (6.5%) accumulated. I've also decided to break this into 10 parts, so 10% at a time instead of 20%. So I have £195/£300 (65%) of the first lump sum to repay my mum.

Cherryfudge

Are you going to treat yourself to some time off once your contract ends? It might help you recover your strength somewhat.

Keedie

Yes @Cherryfudge, I'll definitely be talking the time to recharge and get myself organised with my studies. At the end of April, I also have the holiday for my sister's birthday, so that will be something to look forward to.

I underestimated the costs of having a kitten. Silver's absolutely lovely, although a little crazy with the zoomies. She's very slowly destroying all the toys I brought her and the sofa my sister gave me is getting scratched to pieces as she keeps running all over it. Really fast to the point where she's almost running sideways as it's a corner sofa and she seems to like the angle.

Later in the year, 'll need to get the living room updated anyways, as we've had the same sickly magnolia walls and battered laminate flooring since we moved in nearly 16 years ago. It all looks rather tired and needs to be redone. Luckily I couldn't afford to do the living room last year and get the sofa bed I was lusting after, as it was just so expensive. As I would be rather salty right now if I had got something nice and she scratched it to pieces.

But anyways, it will all have to wait until after the kitchen is done. I've still not replaced the cooker which is 18 years old and barely hanging on! The washing machine is acting rather odd, it's inconsistent with cleaning our clothes and so I'm still scratching my head on that one, as I can't figure out what is wrong. We've only had it a few years, like maybe 4 or possibly 5?

I've been trying to crunch the numbers on everything, and I'm going to DFS later today to have a look at sofas. So I can figure out how much to save and get some money set aside, so that when they have sales later in the year I can get a sofa. The cooker is getting critical, and costly, as it takes forever for the oven and grill to heat up, and so that may have to go on the Argos Card and when it's sorted, I can put more towards the sofa.

We're also popping to Ikea, and my eldest sister is coming with us. She loves eating in the Ikea restaurant and walking around and being able to touch the displays and not being restricted. I think she has OCD as well as autism, as she likes to rearrange things and she has compulsions to touch everything that fascinates her or catches her eye. So in Ikea, she can touch things to her heart is content. The only drawback, is that she sometimes runs back to an area we've already passed, to touch something she either didn't touch before, or didn't touch enough. And considering Ikea is a maze and I can't exactly run after her, it's been a stressful adventure. Then I realised that she just needs to walk in front of me and I need to stop whilst she gets fascinated with everything around her. So I'll bring my rollator, as not every display in Ikea has easy seating areas. And I need to have a look at the bathroom cabinets and shoe cabinets, and just hope that she doesn't photo bomb anyone this time, as she jumped behind some people taking a photo on a sofa once and I nearly p*ssed myself laughing as they were so stunned and she was so proud 😂.

LittleMissDetermined

Hi @Keedie, I've spent some time over the past few days catching up on your diary and I'm sorry you've had a stressful time. I hope you're feeling better now and that you're enjoying Silver (who is gorgeous by the way 💕)

Take care and be kind to yourself x

Keedie

Thanks @LittleMissDetermined, I am okay. I've just been rather overwhelmed with life at the moment and didn't want to update my diary and depress anyone. I've not had a chance to really read anyone's diaries and I keep meaning to, but then I get easily sidetracked.

I'm definitely leaving work next month and so I've been trying to figure that all out budget wise. I've had some long uncomfortable conversations with myself about my ability to keep working. I'm so mentally and physically drained and struggling to cope, that I think work is doing more harm than good. I'm not sure how to reconcile not working, as it is rather large part of someone's identity. People always ask, "what do you do?" when you meet in social situations. And besides working incredibly slowly towards my bookkeeping qualifications, I have no idea what I am doing. I just know that being in constant pain and not being mentally well isn't helping me. So I've decided to stop working or looking for a job in the foreseeable future and see if it makes a difference. I know in my heart it will, but I don't really feel fully comfortable to stop working for an indefinite period, hence I've been pushing myself beyond my limits.

I think I've got it figured out budget wise. But my spending spree wasn't exactly over like I thought it was. So I'm mopping up the aftermath of that and trying to recalibrate my finances. I need to simplify all of the budget stuff as I've been getting a bit annoyed with myself and had to realise that my hyperfixation with trying to make it all perfect is because I was becoming hypomanic. I'm trying to regulate a bit more, but it's not easy. So things are a bit up in the air financially in terms of working and budgeting/spending.

I think I need to maybe stop trying to budget and track spending etc, and just be a bit more fluid with my finances. I'm not quite sure how to do that to be honest, but that may be what is needed. As I feel so financially stressed out all the time. And it is probably all a bit self inflicted.

But I guess one financial savings grace is that I no longer need to save for the balance of my holiday for sister's birthday at the end of April. My other sister pulled out and so by trying to move the booking from two people to one person, and with the time taken to get it all sorted, they were charging an extortionate amount of money. They wanted £825 for one person for a 4 night holiday to the Algarve! They said that they would use the £120 deposit we paid to reduce the overall balance, so I would 'only' have to pay £705 by 1 April 2026. My original booking was £475 each which was a bit tight but I was making it work. I can't justify spending all that money, so I've had to pull out as well. It's not financially viable. It's a shame, but holidays are clearly just too expensive and they're a lovely luxury, but not a necessity. So we'll have to do something nice with our sister to celebrate her birthday before she goes away with her friends.

Keedie

But on a good note, look how big Silver is getting! She seems to love posing for the numerous photo shoots that my son insists on undertaking 😂.

beanielou

She is just so beautiful. 😻

Makingabobor2

She really is a lovely looking cat

Keedie

She is such a lovely cat as well. She has a great temperament and is good company.

I ended up getting pet insurance in the end, for £18.59 a month. My sister's cat got accidentally locked out and went missing for nearly 3 weeks, they managed to capture her with the help of a cat catcher person. She's now very ill after surviving outside for so long and she's been hospitalised and all sorts and it is costing them thousands! That frightened me into getting pet insurance. Along with the fact that Silver keeps trying to eat every things she shouldn't like the carpet, cardboard, wires, my bedding and I caught her trying to eat my laptop monitor and a plastic bag 😬. I'll see how the insurance goes after this one year term. Hopefully she doesn't hurt herself. As she was fascinated by the toilet bowl the other day and tried to jump in the toilet!