Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

Hi everyone, 

I've been lurking on MSE for a LONG time desperately trying to ping my reluctant brain into some form of lightbulb mode. My life is imploding around me and my ADHD brain is constantly seeking dopamine and for years that has been through the form of impulse purchases, which obviously has caused me some huge issues. 

I have just been offered an actual adult job with the local council, and in an effort to try and make my life worth living, whilst supporting my family on one income, I have decided to come clean about my myriad disasters and hope that you can all keep me accountable. 

I was previously working in sales, and living WAY above and beyond my means. I'm sure we've all been there.... I've had a bad day = takeaway! I've had a good day = takeaway! I've worked really hard today = takeaway! Or alternatively, replace takeaway with suspiciously rustling bag from the charity shop, where it doesn't count as spending money because it's a bargain!

Anyway, I woke up £106 overdrawn (with no overdraft facility!) and four credit cards that are maxed out. And decided today was the day to actually face up to my irresponsibility, and try and figure out where I am actually going wrong. 

I downloaded an expense tracker, plugged in every single thing I've spent money on from the 1st October - now, categorised it all, and now I want to cry. I'm so ashamed at my own foolishness and stupidity. I have managed to spend, roughly,

£732 on utilities and priority bills
£685 on fuel (a large contributor of this was that my job was far enough away that my husband was doing 450 miles a week to get me there and back - I hope this comes down this month!!)
£677 on..... Arg*s and Amaz*n.... I have no idea on what really. This is where the dopamine receptors kicked in and ruined things. 
£431 on food shopping (reasonable, I think. We are a family of 3 during the week and 5 on weekends).
£414 on takeaways and eating out and buying lunch at work... absolutely NOT reasonable
£380 to my husband for.... I'm not sure what?
£279 in debt repayments
£258 in subscriptions (two were yearly prices so hopefully again this is lower)
£188 on clothes??? HOW?? 
£162 on the dogs, one of which is fed raw and the other one is 14 years old so needs special food
£92 on afterschool club and school lunches
£81.17 on vaping (I quit this morning, my husband has not) AAAAAAAND
£61.41 on miscellaneous hobbies and stupid Apple subscriptions that I DO NOT NEED. 

ALL FOR A GRAND TOTAL OF £4448.00 WHICH WOULD HAVE PAID OFF THREE OF MY BLOODY CREDIT CARDS. I AM SO ANNOYED AT MYSELF. AND I KEEP MOANING THAT I HAVE NO MONEY. AND I SOLD MY CAR AND NOW I'VE WASTED ALL THE MONEY I HAD FROM SELLING MY CAR. ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHH.

Okay so going forward, a realistic budget and a NO SPEND MONTH should look like this:

£750 BILLS
£400 FUEL
£400 FOOD SHOPPING
£300 DEBT REPAYMENTS
£100 SUBSCRIPTIONS
£150 DOGS
£100 AFTER SCHOOL CLUB
£40 VAPING

Maybe, give or take. I guess I will see what happens when I update my budget tracker thing.

I also owe the electrician £500 and the sewage company £710....
And have been borrowing off my friend to make ends meet so she needs paying back ASAP too. 

Basically I am a terrible person.

I'm going to go and look at the direct debits and see what I can come up with as step ONE for sorting this mess out. 

gd55

Well, first of all, you are not a terrible person.

You have taken the most important step of realising there's a problem and committing to dealing with it, so you get a BIG gold star for that. 

Keep that spending awareness going and you will soon see those debts come down.

Good luck!

Misslayed

Congratulations! You've taken the first big leap and you're on your way to being debt free. So many Wise and Wonderful folk here, ready to help you every step of the way, some with real life experience of everything you're going through and happy to offer you the benefit of their journey . Good luck! 

Four_Seasons

Hi, will be following your journey and cheering you on.

CRANKY40

I have ADHD too. The thing to concentrate on is getting that kick from paying down debts instead of buying stuff. Maybe meal planning will help too? You could incorporate a much smaller allowance for takeaways until you get into the swing of it and can make takeaways treat meals instead of regular weekday meals. If you try to change everything at once then you run the risk of not being able to keep it up then you think you've failed so may as well carry on with the bad habits.... Good luck

sunshine_raincloud

Hello.. just wanted to say you are not an idiot or a terrible person at all! Everyone here will have similar stories and you have done something amazing by taking the first steps to getting it sorted! It's really great that you have sat down and seen where all the money has been going, for most people (including myself) it is eye opening! Wishing you luck on your journey

GinoOhGinoGinelli

Hello @foxandflowers, I wanted to echo what everyone else has said - you're not a terrible person!

It's so so easy to slip into the habit of one-click online orders and tempting takeaways. I was particularly bad for this during lockdown/Covid and I've found it such a difficult habit to break. 

It's great that you're taking control and you have a plan - good luck with your debt-free journey! 

foxandflowers

Hi everyone. 

I appear to have had all the best intentions as per usual, and then deserted this diary. Oops. 
Anyway, here I am again.
Full floodlight stadium lightbulb has gone off. And I actually sat down last night and added up all my income and expenditure, and then all my debts, and it was absolutely HORRIFIC. I have had my head firmly in the sand for the last two months, working on the basis that if I ignored the problem it would go away. 
The problem has not gone away, in fact it has multiplied expotentially. And now I am in real danger of everything blowing up in my face. 
My proper adult job didn't materialise a start date until the beginning of January, so I had to rob Peter to pay Paul, while stiffing Percy along the way. My debts are going up and up, and so are my outgoings because of the debt payments. So it's time for a real reality check, and I'm going to post up an SOA, which I'm sure will get me torn apart. But it's no good hiding from this any more, and if I'm not honest with myself, nothing will be fixed. 

We have six kids between us (two are almost adult and three are part-time, and one full time), have been married almost a year, and have a huge dog, a small dog & a hamster. 

SOA incoming. Thanks for putting up with me. 

SueP19

Hi @foxandflowers

Sometimes we have to wait for the flicker to go to floodlights

Looking forward to the SOA and your journey

I've been there done that, worn the t-shirt at least 4 times with debts up to 30k ish at one point, never learnt so I guess I'm an idiot, more shameful is the fact I'm an accountant!!!!

We are all products of our childhood, marriages, adult lives and experiences so no censure 

Stay bold and brave, you got this 

foxandflowers

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 6

Number of cars owned.................... 2 (one is currently in for repair, once repaired under warranty, I will be selling via webuyanycar for approx £5k)

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax................ 1518

Partners monthly income after tax....... 0

Benefits................................ 82

Other income............................ 120[b]

Total monthly income.................... 1720

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage................................ 0

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0

Rent.................................... 0

Management charge (leasehold property).. 0

Council tax............................. 200 (including repayments for tax year 23/24)

Electricity............................. 120

Gas..................................... 0

Oil..................................... 80 (i actually need to set up the direct debit for this)

Water rates............................. 106 (including repayments until April)

Telephone (land line)................... 10

Mobile phone............................ 80 (both on contract, device plans end in April)

TV Licence.............................. 14

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 99 (Sky Glass, our other TV broke in a spectacular fashion)

Internet Services....................... 48 (we live rurally, i had to pay this much to be able to work from home)

Groceries etc. ......................... 300

Clothing................................ 0

Petrol/diesel........................... 300 (weekly commuting, plus weekends driving the kids places - they live 2 hours away)

Road tax................................ 25 (car & van)

Car Insurance........................... 66 (car & van)

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0

Car parking............................. 0

Other travel............................ 0

Childcare/nursery....................... 120 (after school club so i can work)

Other child related expenses............ 0

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0

Buildings insurance..................... 15

Contents insurance...................... 0

Life assurance ......................... 0

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0

Haircuts................................ 0

Entertainment........................... 60 (netflix, spotify, brownies subs)

Holiday................................. 0

Emergency fund.......................... 0

RAC..................................... 9.5 (a must as our van is 15 years old)

Storage Unit............................ 150 (hoping to have this emptied and gone by the end of the month)

Total monthly expenses.................. 1802.5

Assets

Cash.................................... 0

House value (Gross)..................... 330000 (this is up for sale currently, i'm hoping we can move somewhere cheaper)

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 5000 (again, this will be up for sale as soon as it's fixed)

Other assets............................ 0

Total Assets............................ 335000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts    -please note I am currently in work and don't know the APR for these debts. some are 0 repayments, because they are with Stepchange which I need to reactivate and include in monthly budget, some are 0 because they are to friends and haven't got a set schedule.

Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Marbles........................3040......200.......0

Capital One....................200.......25........0

Capital One (P.O.).............1250......50........0

Moorcroft......................1006......0.........0

NCO/Arrow......................1784......0.........0

Vanquis Loan ..................1973......0.........0

Asset Collections..............12002....0.........0

PRA............................3530......0.........0

Friend Two.....................500.......0.........0

Friend One.....................5320......0.........0

Electrician....................400.......50........0

Mayglothling Waste.............930.......40........0

JD Williams....................900.......50........0

Council Tax....................1200......50........0

Welsh Water....................230.......60........0

Student Finance................2200......5.........0

Bip............................900.......40........0
Chimney Sweep............100........0........

Total unsecured debts..........37465....570.......

Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income.................... 1,720

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,802.5

Available for debt repayments........... -82.5

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 570

Amount short for making debt repayments. -652.5

Personal Balance Sheet Summary

Total assets (things you own)........... 335,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -0

Total Unsecured debt.................... -37,465

Net Assets.............................. 297,535

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com. 

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]

foxandflowers

So now I've done that... I don't even know what to say. I think my priority has to be

a) pawning my jewelry at lunch to get food and fuel for the weekend because we have the kids and while I don't mind not eating, the kids need feeding. i also need to pay £30 to afterschool club by sunday.

 and b) phoning stepchange and adding everything I can to that. although they probably won't take me for a DMP unless I fudge the figures slightly, and I can't go down the IVA/bankruptcy route because I work in finance... THE IRONY. 

I will use this weekend to see what I have left to sell. I already sold all my extra electronics to get Christmas presents for the kids. But there has to be something left I can sell. I'll put the contents of my admittedly not fantastic wardrobe on Fleabay, and hopefully that will get me another £100 until payday next friday. I have a woman coming to buy a dining table tonight or tomorrow for £60. 

I just really really need someone to tell me it will be okay.