Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

Hmm.
I don't think either of us are ready to entertain the idea of having another dog in the house currently, however temporary. Not a bad idea going forward though, we have done dog sitting before and it was fun. 

The last week has continued to be horrendous. On Friday the exhaust mount snapped off the van and we also needed new tyres on the back. Luckily it was payday... £161.74 later for the tyres and welding, all was looking good. Mr Fox left the house to pick me up from work, got about 500m past the garage, and the engine mount snapped.... So back to the garage for another £100 worth of welding.  Sooo because I only had managed to save £70 in the van fund before disaster struck, I am £190 out of pocket and that has come straight from the food budget. Adding to the £400 of debt repayments to family & friends for their support during the Ronnie crisis, has left me in a very very crappy situation for the month ahead. 

Have spoken to Ronnie's previous vets who didn't want to deal with the insurance until they had permission from the breeder to disclose his info. Ended up getting his phone number, and having a lovely chat with him. Such a sad situation all around. Hopefully the insurance have everything they need now so they can process the claims. They've updated his cause of death to Kidney Failure. It would be such a help to have the money back from what we paid for Ronnie. I would genuinely feel so much more at ease having some money in the bank that would get us out of a jam without having to rely on anyone else.

I've calculated the cost of moving jobs from this one to the other council job and it is varying wildly between £37.60 a month loss and £137.52 a month, depending on when the job starts, when the council agrees its pay increments etc. And I'm not including the market supplement because I don't think we are getting that any more, which probably from a financial standpoint would have been enough to keep me here... Let's call it £138 a month that I would lose. If I stopped getting takeaways that would pretty much cover it. My current job have made it clear they are not happy with me (they are not very good at dealing with neurodivergence) and have essentially said there is no guarantee I will be allowed to work from home. It would be quicker for me to change jobs, go through probation there, and then WFH than it would to stay here and wait for them to 'allow' me to WFH. 

Mr Fox and I sat down the harbour on Sunday morning down the harbour with coffees that we brought from home. We discussed everything budgetary, and it feels like we are very much on the same page. This month is a bit 'cooked' to borrow a phrase from the kids, but going forward the plan is to be as frugal as possible, stick to a meal plan, delete takeaway apps, sell all the excess stuff cluttering up our home, and try and end the month with a positive bank balance. 

PS. Budgetwise (if it ever manages to be stuck to) the income divided as follows:
Debts 10.4%
Savings 2.5%
Expenses 15.4%
Bills/Food/Fuel £71.8%

birdsfoottrefoil

That rubbish about the van fox!!! Hopefully the insurance will progress now.

What is Mr Fox suggesting can be done to help with the finances? 

foxandflowers

Thanks - it was pretty rubbish! A lot of bad luck in one day. But my friend gave me a stern talking to when I suggested I might be cursed. She said that there are a lot of people expending a lot of energy into the world and the idea that I am being deliberately targeted was over the top, and there's no such thing as bad luck, just unfortunate events. I sort of had to concede the point.

The insurance have agreed both claims, so 3-5 business days and I will have £1000 land in my account. £650 to savings immediately, £150 to pay my friend back, and then some for food shopping and buying Mini Fox's birthday presents which are currently sat in my Amazon basket totalling £97.

We are supposed to be going to a family picnic this weekend as my BIL and his wife are having their adoption of their little girl finalised and are having a picnic at the country house after to celebrate. It's about 2.5 hours drive away from us, but it will be nice to see everyone, and I'm sort of hoping the money clears on Friday so I can pick the little one up a present and buy some picnic food. 

Mr Fox's suggestions were takeaways are banned, he will move to vaping instead of smoking, he thinks we should be putting more aside in savings each month to offset the regular disasters we find ourselves in, he wants to do more around the house and be shown how to use the washing machine etc so I am less stressed, he wants fortnightly budget meetings to make sure that we are on the same page, and thinks any purchase outside of the budget should be discussed before purchasing. He also said that it would be really helpful if we could make our budget meetings away from the house and kids, so that we can both focus on what we actually need to talk about. I was rather impressed to be honest that he had been thinking about it so much.

SuzeQStan

Fox - does Mr Fox have any ideas for his own employment as that could mean you wouldn’t have to stay in a job where you don’t feel
welcome? I’ve been worried reading your updates about how you are feeling and being treated in your current role.

Your mental health and general well being would surely benefit so much just from a small amount of support. Mr Fox could also benefit so much from self respect that comes from meeting his responsibilities.

If Mr Fox is struggling to find work there is advice available - he could sign up with a recruitment agent in his field and let them do the hard work of job hunting for him even! I remember you saying there was not a lot of opportunity in his area of expertise.  

He may be very pleasantly surprised at what is out there work wise for him - but he owes it to himself and to you to try

xx big hugs xx

kayannie

It's all very well for Mr Fox to suggest putting more money into savings, but where does he thinks the money's coming from?!! 

I'm pleased to hear that the insurance claim has been successful - so often you hear that they don't pay up. 
KA

Kim_13

On Discovery+, if this is a must for you, there is an offer on at the moment (an Olympics special offer I believe, open for sign ups until the 11th) for the tier above basic at the price of the basic tier for the rest of 2024. Cancel and sign up for this offer in either your or your husband’s name (whoever’s name the account isn’t in at the moment.)

Can your husband not collect any Amazon parcels from a collect location, as this means free delivery without needing to have Prime or have a £35 order. You can only make use of one streaming service at once at the end of the day, so paying for Prime all year round feels like a false economy.

Your husband’s phone isn’t much cheaper than yours without including a handset. Some providers will allow you to lower the data allowance during the contract period. See if his will do this. No one needs unlimited if they have WiFi and aren’t commuting on public transport.

Purplelady65

Hi I’m sorry to hear about the difficult time you’re having. Hopefully the payout from the insurance will ease things a bit. Re your current job you’ve said:

My current job have made it clear they are not happy with me (they are not very good at dealing with neurodivergence) and have essentially said there is no guarantee I will be allowed to work from home. It would be quicker for me to change jobs, go through probation there, and then WFH than it would to stay here and wait for them to ‘allow’ me to WFH. 

Before you apply for a job that will involve taking a pay cut you say your employers have made it clear they’re not happy with you. There’s no need to share the feedback here but is there anything you could do differently within the workplace? Have you been given feedback on what they would like to see change? Is there any support being offered to you in relation to this? I think you said you left your previous job and got your current one because you said your employers weren’t happy with you. Is it likely that the concerns being raised now might be raised in a new job? What would be different in a new job that this wouldn’t happen? I’d just carefully weigh up the risks before you rush into applying for any other jobs. Also what guarantee would you have that you could WFH in the new job? 

foxandflowers

Discovery+ has been cancelled - I mostly only use it to watch 90 Day Fiance and Hoarders haha. I can get those on my laptop for free so it's gone. Thank you for the tip though  
It's a good point about his phone, I will speak to Vodafone this weekend and see what can be done. It's definitely too high. 

@Purplelady65
Oof. Yeah it might be me a bit. I find the office environment very difficult in terms of sensory overload. I had a breakdown last summer which led to me then being unable to get myself motivated workwise and things were a bit precarious. Since my diagnosis I am trying to be kinder to myself, and allow myself down time on lunch to go off by myself and read, or let Mr Fox cook dinner while I sit down rather than trying to do all things for everyone all the time. I am not by nature a sociable creature, so the time WFH is incredibly helpful for me to concentrate and recharge. I have been struggling in my current role, mostly due to the way I feel I am being treated, which is largely with indifference. I do not expect everyone to be my friend, but I do expect some measure of civility, and perhaps an understanding that there are accommodations that would make my life more bearable, ie. wearing Loops during busy office days. They essentially want me to knuckle down and produce a large volume of work on things that I have not received enough training on and therefore do not feel confident doing quickly. When I have explained this it has been met very dismissively, even though I have asked for extra training. On Monday the head of the department kept saying that "am I being clear? I know you've been saying you don't understand us" which isn't what I said at all, I had explained to my Team Leader that I prefer communication to be direct and not hidden in euphemisms, as sometimes I can misinterpret that and I don't want to get things wrong. The other job has set office days, which are two a week, so after training I would be doing that. As the wage stands as its below £25,000 the money I would save in transport costs and student loan contributions would mean that the difference would be about £80 a month. And then when they finally agree a pay offer, it would be about £26 if the council accept the £1290 that's been put forward. 
Annoyingly I've had a good week so far at work, aside from Monday's disaster. 

stymied

How is step son’s new job going? Did you find out if he’s paid weekly or monthly?

cafelady

Hi Fox. I’m not an expert on this and you’ll want to check it out, but shouldn’t your employer be putting in reasonable adjustments for a health condition? Have they done an occupational health assessment to see what adjustments could be made for you?