The Mental Debt Struggle...

AntoMac

THREE teens @crazy_cat_lady
Good luck with that! 

Really good to see you spending a little bit on yourself for a change Keedie, although those socks sound more like a need than a want so you were hardly being self indulgent imo.

Keedie

That is a lot of teenagers to cope with @Crazycatlady2 😳!  But it sounds like you've got a great handle on things. Your eldest is keen to go back to his old school as a teaching assistant 😊. It's good though, I'm from a family of teachers and they always say that having younger people interested in education makes a difference to pupils as they can relate to them.

The GCSEs year is stressful when thinking about next steps. I feel like it's a lot of pressure and exams aren't for everyone and I've had to reign in my own anxieties about it all. I sometimes regret trying to fix everything and signing my son up for the online school considering how much he hates it and how much it cost. But then I think of the alternative, with him having nothing much to do and I know that I made the best decision with the options available at the time, but it's so stressful I find. Dealing with special needs definitely has its challenges. My eldest sister is autistic and it is hard meeting her needs and she can write her name and couple of words, but she was never able to study in the traditional sense. She loves to learn though, and one of my sisters who is a teacher does phonics tuition with her, but her memory is really poor so although she requires routine and repetition, it's very rare that she remembers what she has learnt the day before. Does your youngest go to a special needs school? My sister in East London is a SENCO and works at a special school and she loves it.

Thank you for kind words, reading my diary and your support. I will definitely keep swimming 👍🏾.

I am definitely getting into the habit of focussing on myself more @AntoMac, very slowly but surely. But I'm afraid I did splurge on the socks as I was so excited - 1 brought 3 sets of heat tech sock (soft fleece room socks, black thick ribbed socks and normal thickness black socks). I don't regret it though, I tried them all on and I love them. I've decided that it's best to have a lot less stuff but of a better quality that enhances my life. Because my body is sometimes hypersensitive to touch, sensations and textures because of the fibromyalgia, I have to be careful of the fabrics that I wear and which surfaces I walk on.

So I will slowly over time replace my socks and buy thermal underwear (I've seen some long sleeved heat tech tops and matching leggings in Uniqlo). There's also some loungewear fleece type pyjamas that I had a good feel of, and they'll be comfortable so they've gone on my AWE list along with a heat tech hat to match my gloves.  I've seen some little slippers with fleece inside them that looks like boots, so that will keep my feet and ankles cosy this winter. Heat the human not the house and all that. 

I put £6.29 into my travel fund, so that's slowly building up, and I've got £32.49 in there now. My PAD pot is looking great as well, as I've got £27.70 in there. So that will make a nice extra payment to MBNA on Monday, when I empty the PAD pot at the end of the month on Monday.

I saw a news article that the second cost of living payment for those on universal credit is coming between 8 to 23 November, so that will help as well with food shopping. It's just creeping up more and more and the quality is going downhill. My fridge doesn't stay very cold, so I'm going to have to put some of that upcoming payment in the emergency fund, as I know that it will need to be replaced within the next 6 months at the latest. It won't survive another summer as my flat can get quite hot and stuffy as well. At the moment, I've noticed that fresh food isn't lasting as long, especially meats, but my sisters said that they've noticed that too since Brexit, as they think the food standards have dropped. Neither of them have old fridges, so maybe there is a quality control issue that's being made worse by my fridge. I don't want to rely on credit to get it, and I wouldn't be able to use my Curry's account to pay it off in 3 payments, so I need to definitely boost my emergency fund to accommodate this. The space that I have is not that wide, but I need to find one with a decent freezer size, as the current one is too shallow. It was my dad's old fridge freezer that I took when we were clearing out his flat after he died, as my fridge freezer and microwave all died within a week or two of my dad dying. So the microwave and fridge that I have are his, but neither of them are very good or modern, but they're making do for now 😁. In my fantasy alternative life, I have an additional freezer as well because I batch cook when I am well and this takes care of us when I'm struggling. That fantasy freezer would have to go in the living room though as I have galley kitchen and no space for more than the basics.

badmemory

I don't think your "not lasting as long as usual" food problem is just your problem.  Everyone is having energy cost problems & that includes the supermarkets etc.  I used to shiver when going through the chill areas of supermarkets but I don't now & I am sure nothing about me has changed to make that happen so that means the fridges are not as cold.  Also my local Tesco has turned off a couple of their freezers.  But if things aren't being kept as cold before we even get them, they won't last as long.

Debsnewbudget

My daughter buys base layers for work from Decathlon and they are very reasonable.
not sure if you have one near you.

Keedie

Now that you mention it @badmemory, you're right. Supermarkets aren't cold anymore. Just chilled. My hands used to hurt taking things out of the freezer and I'd get that iced chill going right through me. I didn't even notice that isn't the case anymore. But if they're not being kept very cold before we buy them, it makes sense that they don't last. I've become more mindful of energy consumption, but businesses haven't had any caps on unit price so they would need to trim what I can only guess is a rather large overhead.

I remember when I was a child and there was one corner shop that my mum said we weren't allowed to buy milk from unless we were desperate and ran out of milk before the milkman came (there was 7 of us including my parents so this happened more often than she liked), as the milk always went off before the best before date. So we were told to only take the milk from the back of the fridge as at the front it wasn't cold enough (and it was one of those open fridges). We could never figure out the problem, but during one of the numerous 1980s blackouts, my dad had gone to get some candles from the corner shop and got talking to the shopkeeper about all of his produce going off if the blackouts kept happening and my dad was told that he turns the fridges down or off at night and puts them on again in the morning because they're expensive to run so it didn't make any difference. Needless to say we stopped buying anything from those fridges after that! My mum wasn't happy as she'd brought some bacon and couldn't trust it after hearing that and so it was a waste of money. I can't remember whether or not she had a go at the shopkeeper (but knowing her this is something she would have done 😂). 

My friend works in a school as a School Business Manager and so she is in charge of the finance, HR, admin and building premises and she said that it usually costs £10k a year for their electric, but she budgeted £30k for this academic year and she doesn't know if it will be enough! I saw an article pop up on my Apple news on my phone and it was saying that of 600 state-funded schools that were surveyed, just 2% think that they have enough in their budget/funding for the 2022/23 academic year to see it through to the end of the academic year without a deficit 😢. Some schools are turning off the heating earlier in the day or only putting it on when it's absolutely freezing and some have dropped languages from their curriculum to save money and are increasing class sizes. The cost of living crises has more far reaching consequences than we think and I don't know much about economics or anthropology or stuff like that, but I think the ramifications will be felt for a while. In the same way that pandemic and lockdowns has impacted some children's social interaction skills as those baby and toddler groups didn't happen as we couldn't mix with one another. 

I can definitely get to a Decathalon so thank you for the tip @Debsnewbudget, and I've had a look on their website, and that is much better in pricing so my PIP will stretch further 🤗. It's unusually warm for the end of October, and most people are in jumpers and t-shirts and lightweight coats. So hopefully if that continues it buys me more time to get some base layers and warmer soft clothes before the weather really changes.

I put £2 into my sealed pot challenge, only £498 to go until my target. I don't know whether or that's feasible, but I'd like to try. I'm hoping that I can get enough money together to pay for my flight or the majority of it to get to Kenya to see my friend in 2024. That's dependent on vaccine and covid restrictions status at the time as I've not been vaccinated as I knew that I'd just become very ill from it (I can barely tolerate paracetamol let alone anything else), and Kenya's quite strict in terms of their entry and exit rules. I don't know if I am simply not processing the information on the government website correctly, but it says you can enter Kenya without a vaccine if you have a negative PCR test, but you can't leave Kenya if you've not been vaccinated. I don't understand and I could be wrong. But I've not seen my friend for years and so I would like to visit her, and her daughter will be 6 by then and I've not seen her since she was 6 months old. So hopefully I can go in the latter part of the year and see them. But if not, then I would definitely like to have a holiday in 2024 for myself, that has been saved up for.

Crazycatlady2

Yes my son goes to a special needs school, he has since he was 3 as it was evident then he would not be able to stay in mainstream and he is very far behind as he has severe learning difficulties/delays and is non verbal also. 

Daughter has mocks this coming week and is started to decide what A levels she is aiming for and us torn between 2 settings…it’s so hard for them with all the pressure 

Keedie

I think a lot of special needs provisions are definitely a good thing, as I remember when I was in primary school and there wasn't really anything, and what there was available wasn't very good (especially in my borough). I hope your son is happy with his school, and it serves his needs properly. I think mainstream schools are very stretched and having specialist provisions and EHCPs in place allows parents and children to access what will work best for that individual. A lot of the kids at my son's online school have special needs and are on the spectrum or experiencing mental health challenges and the flexibility of online learning works well for them. 

My sister is 52 now, and she has always gone to some form of day centre and now she also goes to a gardening centre twice a week and is quite a keen gardener. Her needs are still quite high, and because of her challenging behavioural issues, she's not allowed to go to events at her social group like the pub or theatre unless she has one to one direct supervision, so she has to have a carer with her. I remember when she was in her late teens and early 20s and those days were hard as she was quite frustrated a lot of the time and her ability to communicate is very limited and she doesn't understand the majority of what we say to her. She got annoyed all over again when we had kids as they were loud and messy and she craves peace and order, and they couldn't understand personal boundaries. They kinda still don't 🤦🏾‍♀️.

My son's mocks are on 23 Nov, 25 Nov and 2 Dec as he only has them for the online school in November and the college from what I can gather, takes place in March (as they are teaching a 2 year programme in one year so it's very intense and they're currently blitzing through Yr 10). It's a lot of pressure, but I don't think in the grand scheme of things the results really matter, unless you're trying to do something very specialised. As life experience counts for a large part of being employable and I've only just realised this as I am a self-confessed Nerd and always thought that academics ruled. But seeing what my son has been through and knowing that he can still have a bright future despite doing things in a non-traditional way has made me accept that there really is many ways to skin a cat and different paths are okay. So if your daughter works out what she wants to do, and that changes, then she'll be okay in the long run 🤗.

Keedie

Last day of the month and things haven't gone too bad considering that with our joint birthdays, it's been very spendy and my mood has fluctuated more than I would like.

I will do a proper monthly summary later on this evening, but my final PADs for the month were declared, with my normal direct debit of £275 to Barclaycard, emptied the PAD Pot and paid £28.55 to MBNA and dumped some change of £4.15 in the sealed pot. That was a total PAD of £307.70 and I'm excited to see what my final totals are repaid for this month as it's been massively helped by getting that refund and paying money to my mum. 

Have a good day everyone xx.

Keedie

I forgot to say that with my sealed pot, I actually have two physical pots this year plus a virtual one for the penny challenge. 

Sealed Pot 1 = for 50p, £1 and £2 coins (this will go towards my holiday in 2024)

Sealed Pot 2 = 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 20p (this will go towards debt as a separate year long PAD Pot)

Virtual Pot = I am going to try again to do the penny challenge and save what I can and I am not sure how that will be spent just yet. It'll probably boost my emergency fund or something.

LittleMissDetermined

Hiya @Keedie.  I did the penny challenge backwards this year.  It hurt in January when it's ALWAYS a tight month, but the run up to Christmas is easy, so much so that I have completed it early (in line with the SPC dates). Some people split it equally into 12 monthly payments too. Just do whatever works for you  

I like to know what's in my sealed pot so I have a tracker as part of my spreadsheet and I separate the coin denominations in bags until they are full and then I take them to the bank to deposit and then transfer it to my Monzo pot. It worked really well last year so I'm taking the same approach again.  It also means you don't get 'change fingers' when you're having to count up loads of grubby coins  

Lots of luck with your potting this year, you've already made a great start!
LMD x