The Mental Debt Struggle...

Cherryfudge

That sounds like a mega-stressful day, I'm so glad that you can put it behind you now (and have some cash to show for it). You don't need to decide straight away how to spend it.

daisy_1571

Aha, apologies, I must have been mixing them up with another company who did let you put a bit more detail in but also tried to knock money off when we got there.

Glad you got it sorted and its overnight 👌 👍 😀 that sounds like a good allocation of the funds.

Remember you'll also have spare monthly funds from now on as you won't be saving for yearly costs of tax, mot and insurance plus no more running costs like fuel and repairs/servicing

Dxx

Keedie

Yeah it was a very stressful day @Cherryfudge, but it's all behind me now 💃🏽.

Nah I don't think you're wrong @daisy_1571, WBAC maybe does ask more details, but I think with the cookies on my Macbook and the fact that I've been checking the prices, it probably just remembered me. I checked Cash for Cars and they initially offered £545 then when I spoke to them over the phone and they asked about all the issues, they dropped it to £300. Motorway started at £1,825 even with the loose details about the damage, but I knew that they would want a bunch of things I couldn't produce (like a MOT certificate), that would make it cost effective and attractive to their pool of trade dealers. And I just couldn't be bothered to get the car cleaned and take pictures from a multitude of angles so I just gave up on that one. That was the same issue with another one that I can't remember. And the Redcorn scrap people were offering £166.

I spoke to my brother just now and he congratulated me on being free of driving and being able to just enjoy the freedom of public transport. He told me that my driving has been questionable for years and so it's good that I'm finally off the road 😂😂😂.

Physically, it has hurt to drive for a long time. But mentally I think my reaction times were slowing down and I found myself getting confused, to the point where I barely touched the car. The other week I drove to Tesco around the corner from my house. It was warm, I had the window down and I put the blue badge on the dashboard as I didn't have on an on street parking permit (who wants to pay the council approximately £350 a year when the estate permit is around £38 for the year???).

Anyways, my son wanted us to go to the pub to get something to eat and he went downstairs ahead of me as it takes me awhile and I gave him the car keys. When I got downstairs I asked him why he opened my window all the way down when it's not warm. He said he found it like that 🙈. Which means the window had been down for 8 hours! I don't know what miracle happened that the blue badge was still just sitting there, but I am grateful.

And you're right Daisy, no more running costs for a vehicle I don't want. I'm going to use that money to save for travelling instead. Me and my brother were working out some of the logistics to our big family trip to the Philippines in April next year during the Easter holidays. I don't know if my son and big nephews are coming, as they're adults now and doing their own thing. But I think around 11 or 12 of us will be going. So it'll be an overwhelming logistical nightmare, but I am looking forward to seeing my brother again.

Cherryfudge

Just a thought and I really don't want to do you out of a holiday, but it might well be cheaper to pool your funds for your brother and his wife (have I got that right?) to fly over here. Even see if you could get ultra-cheap Christmas flights and bring them over for Christmas? You could all get an air B&B or something so you could have time together, but it would probably be less stressful for you.

daisy_1571

OOh fabulous idea cherry fudge

Makingabobor2

Agree with @Cherryfudge . Would be a much better idea for you.

So glad you are finally rid of the car

BTW, have you remembered to inform DVLA you have sold it? Think you have to do it online these days.

AntoMac

Hopefully one stressful thing off your mind with the car gone Keedie.

I’m also liking the idea of the big family meet up being in the UK

Keedie

It's a good suggestion @Cherryfudge and definitely cheaper! But my new SIL is not well enough to travel to the UK, as she has had a stroke and the travel would be too intense, so we have to go there. And I would like to see where my brother lives and what his life is like in the Philippines.

Also my nieces who will be 14 and 17, are going to Australia to visit their grand aunt, and so they're going to the Philippines and then on to Australia for a week and then coming back to the Philippines to meet us. And I think my sister said her and her husband will go to Bali for a few days to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

Because my family always meet up as a large group, we don't really need a reunion as such. On 1 January every year we all go to my mum's house for dinner. Everyone makes something different and we all have a big buffet, we catch up, listen to music, hang out with each other and the kids run wild around the house (it's a Victorian house so lots of levels and places to play hide and seek, or for the tweens and teens to distance themselves from the younger ones). And we usually have a big family meal when it is someone's birthday so we get together a lot. But my brother is missing all of those meet ups because he's not here. So he's buzzing with excitement that we will be able to recreate something similar over there.

I'll have my own apartment and will only share with my nephew who will be 12 by then, for a week when his mum comes back home. So I'll be getting a 2 bed apartment. And if my son goes, he'll have his own apartment. I'll be keeping to myself where possible so that I don't get too overwhelmed. I think the plan is to go for 2 weeks and in that time, I will spend a lot of it not doing very much at all.

My brother said that he'll be guided by my pace with everything and I've told my family to more or less stay out of my face when we arrive as I'll need to emotionally regulate and recover from all that travel. Travelling 18 hours is likely to send me hypomanic, so I need to carefully figure out the travel times. I need to arrive when it's daylight, and they'll be 7 hours ahead, so I need to do an overnight flight to whichever country will be the layover. I'm incredibly anxious, about all it, but looking forward to seeing if this is something that I can do. I'll need to keep cool as much as I can in that heat, so that I don't get a fibromyalgia flare up.

But yes, really glad that the car has finally gone and my insurance refund came through this afternoon which was a proper surprise! I've set it aside with the rest of the money. Actually that's not fully true. I brought a shopping trolley on Amazon that I can push like a pram. That way I have support when walking and I don't need to carry anything from the shops. I need to see if my neighbour downstairs will let her twins help me take stuff up the stairs if I give them pocket money, if my son is ever not home when I've been out. It has a cooler bag at the back, so I can just take that bit upstairs so things don't get warm/melt. But I'd never buy much anyways, as most things would be online or via the new carer.

I got an email from the DVLA on Saturday as soon as the sale went through @Makingabobor2, which confirmed that I had sold it to a dealer and I'd get a refund of car tax within the next 10 days. They'll probably send a cheque, as that's what they did in December 2025 when I paid for the year, but got confused about the 50% charge. I couldn't work out half of the tax despite being given a tax reminder which showed the full yearly amount 🤦🏾‍♀️. The brain fog was beating me something fierce in the run up to Christmas 😂. Oops.

Keedie

This is the shopping trolley I got

AntoMac

I might be showing my middle agedness here Keedie but that trolley looks like a lovely bit of kit 👍️