The Mental Debt Struggle...

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations on your achievement in paying off so much last year.  Hopefully you will reach your targets this year too and good you managed a nice break with your family. 

Keedie

stitching_witch said:

I don’t think I have heard of the50 envelope challenge. Is there a link for it at all? 

You can see the explanation for it on Money Magpie @stitching_witch, https://www.moneymagpie.com/save-money/the-50-envelope-savings-challenge.

But essentially, you label envelopes 1 to 50 and you put money in each envelope equivalent to the envelope number, so £1 goes in Envelope 1, £24 in Envelope 24 etc. By the time you've put money in each envelope, then you save £1,275. I don't know if it's on MSE, but I've been watching a lot of YouTube and Tik Toks and people have been doing this challenge. I won't be saving it 50 weeks in a row, and I will do it in a random order. I'm hoping to complete mine by 31 March 2024.

I've just brought some plain dinner money envelopes off Amazon and I've found an image of a tracker on Google images, so that I can colour in each envelope as I complete them. A lot people seem to be paying for fancy envelopes and trackers on Etsy, but I'm not having any of that lol.

AntoMac

I wasn’t expecting a proper laugh out loud on a bleak January Tuesday Keedie, but your unexpected description of your son’s  little accident properly tickled me 
How frustrating with your heating and your fridge contents. If there is a positive, you’ve likely coped with it way better than you would have several months back.
There does seem to be bugs everywhere at the moment. Hope you are able to recover well. It’s great that you had such a good time away. That will do you all a World of good. Financial guru eh? Another positive sign of how far you’ve come in the recent past 

LittleMissDetermined

I am also doing an envelope challenge, as suggested in @BlueJ94's diary. 52 envelopes though, one for each week of 2023.  Perhaps I should start a challenge? Let me know what you think. 

Glad you had a good time away, but it sucks about you having a bug and goodness me, the fridge/freezer   how awful, you have my sympathy Keedie, it's crazy how much it costs to fully stock a fridge freezer, even with just the basics.

Humdinger1

@keedie yes frustrating re the fridge but you are handling it well: elegantly, I'd say! Fab that your sister can see what a guru you are and we all agree.  This year will be a good one for you, I'm sure. Congratulations on helping your son get to such a positive place.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Keedie

Well I had to stifle my own giggles @AntoMac as I could see he was not impressed with the turn of events, but I couldn't hold it in when my sister slipped on the same hill as we were leaving the archery tent (an activity that the teens were angry about being signed up for but absolutely loved...typical).

I think doing an evelope challenge thread would be amazing @LittleMissDetermined and I'd join and I know that many others would too! 

I don't think I'm a financial guru @Humdinger1, but I would like to be. I'm working on creating a financial planner that will help me to keep on top of my finances. So maybe in a few months, I'll be a baby guru lol. I've been helping my siblings to sort out their finances, and passing on all my lessons learned.

And yeah, that fridge freezer hurt, but it's done now. I just need to keep moving. I got a refund from Butlins for £39 as we cancelled the high ropes course as the kids weren't in the mood, so I used that money to sort out the fridge contents. I'll slowly replace things, but maybe this is a sign to eat better and meal plan to save money.

I paid my first debt payment of 2023, with £72.67 going to Creation Finance for our mattresses. So I've been able to note on my signature that I've paid 0.73% of my £10,000 debt clearance for 2023. Yay.

LittleMissDetermined

I did it! I created the challenge and you can find it here if you would like to join in

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6414621/2023-cash-envelope-saving-challenge/p1?new=1 

Keedie

Thanks @LittleMissDetermined, I'll sign up now.

Keedie

I don't quite know what is wrong, but I feel rather spaced out today. And very overwhelmed. The work is piling in and I just had to crawl into my bed and stay there for a couple of hours, then once I dropped my son to college and came back, I was able to start work. But by that time it was 2pm, so I had to work until 8.30pm. They owe me around 26 hours, so I used around 1.5 hours today as I worked 6 hours instead of 7.5 hours.

But they were painful hours!

I think this time next year I definitely need to try and be in a new job. I'll stay with the university as I need to be employed until December 2024 to clear my debts and have savings. But I don't know how I can get to September doing my current job. It's so tedious but stressful.

But on a better note, I've filled in the calendar dates for my planner that I got from my mum for Christmas. And put in all my paydays and ordered some stickers to sort out my planner and I've been looking at different YouTube videos and trying to create a better budget spreadsheet than the one I currently have. I found a free zero based budget template on Vertex42. It's all in $ so I need to personalise it to £, but it's a good start.

I need to find a way to learn some more excel habits, as I know that it's a great tool and it can do waaaaay more than I know what to do on there. But I'm hoping to condense my trackers so that I have A4  sheets that I can print and use. This year I will be doing some trial and error with my budgeting, tracking and accountability to see what works and then I plan for next year to be using my own budget planner and diary, as the one I've got is good, but illogical in some of its layout and doesn't fully fit me. Also, I get a bit irritated that the stickers it came with have $ signs everywhere 😂. 

LittleMissDetermined

Hope you're feeling a bit better today Keedie.
LMD x