Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

Monday morning.

Bad things first:

I've had a hideous weekend and I am basically not on speaking terms with my husband or my daughter.
The logbook for the car never came, so we were unable to sell it. I haven't had a hot shower in two weeks. If social services came round they'd probably take my daughter off me, given that I am unable to provide her with the basics, like heating and hot water, or clothes and shoes that fit after her most recent growth spurt.
Had a full on meltdown and had to explain that every time we argue and he shouts it triggers trauma responses in me. And that I never argue back because my past experience is that if I argue back things escalate, and I end up getting... 'hurt'. So my instinct is to grey rock every time there's a problem, because it's safer.
It didn't go down well. 
Then I had a whole load of flashbacks and had to go throw up.
And my daughter refuses to listen to a word I say, and I feel like I'm speaking to a brick wall that just wants to stare at a screen and ignore everyone and everything.

And I cannot cope. 

Good things: 

My payslip is up and my income is actually a bit different than I was expecting. New breakdown is as follows: 

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1642.03 (£124 more than I expected)
Benefits................................ 87.20 (£5.20 more than I thought, it's been almost a year since I checked the actual figure)
Other income............................ 120 (child maintenance) 
Total monthly income.................... £1,849.23

So almost £130 better than I thought it would be, which is nice. And on Saturday I decided to finally burn some cardboard that has been lying around for literally MONTHS and clean that side of the garden up a bit, and as I went outside and got started, a car slowed down outside my house. Turns out it was prospective buyers, and I showed them around the garden (not the house) and the husband fell in love and said they would be looking to put an offer in a letter through the postbox so we didn't have to deal with estate agents. I have no idea if they actually will do, but I have fingers crossed.

Valli

if you have your house listed with EA check what the agreement is…if the EA has exclusivity then you won’t be able to sell yourself.

Great news on the income. 

foxandflowers

The car is sold! Woooo! It went for a bit less than I was hoping for, but that's okay. The money was in my account within 15 minutes. 

I did spend a little more than I wanted on clothes and shoes for my daughter, but we got some nice things, and that should see her clear for a while (bar needing to still get school trousers!)
We had a nice meal for dinner, and toasted to my mum on what would have been her 70th birthday, and bought 200 litres of oil for £189. Fixing the van was £380. 

Today will be spent chasing up the uni refund, and starting to repay a couple of debts. And getting the ball rolling on the house move. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that things are moving forward and we are not quite on the bones of our assessments anymore. Hopefully it is not just temporary. 

I've moved £1000 into the bills pot, and £500 into savings. I feel slightly sick at the prospect of being in charge of so much money, even though realistically we are talking about £3000, it feels like a fortune. 

Valli

looking forward to seeing your signature update

foxandflowers

Hi everyone.

It is Wednesday afternoon and things are dragging at work so I thought I would hop on and update. I did write a huge essay on Monday, but the internet crashed and lost it and I just didn't have the heart to type it all up again. 

In the best laid plans of mice and men, my stepdaughter is now living with us full time, sharing a bedroom with my eight year old. I've had to do an additional food shop that I hadn't accounted for, because she is pescatarian & fussy, and we went when we were all hungry, which was very stupid. We stocked up on dog food too, although I have no idea how long it will last, I'm hoping it is at least two weeks. And my hoover died, so I bought a Henry for £130, that I used the savings fund for, because I hate having a dirty house. 

I've been able to pay off both the electrician and the chimney sweep so far, and I've made another £91.46 payment to Bumper, and the last £80 overpayment to the water company.

Total amount paid off is.... £860.16 

My uni refund has gone deathly quiet, so I'm hoping to hear something from that soon. I have about £1700 left, and there are still bills to come out of my account. I am starting to feel myself slipping off the debt repayment bandwagon, and I really don't want that to happen.  So I'm going to start trying to post here daily again. 

It is really nice having the eldest living with us again, even if it is more expensive. It makes us feel more like a cohesive family unit, and we sat down and ate dinner all together for the first time in ages yesterday.

My daughter was off school today with toothache and I managed to get an emergency appointment for her tomorrow afternoon. I need to see about getting my own tooth sorted, after a chunk of it broke off a couple of weeks ago, but I will wait until the end of April I think before I tackle my own. I don't want it to look like I'm overusing the NHS dental line. No Brownies outing for her tonight then, she is always particularly clingy when she doesn't feel well. I will be WFH tomorrow. 

Pizza and a movie night tonight I think, and I need to stop at co-op on the way home to pay in cash from the scooter I sold. 

Vinted is finally slowing down, but we made about £500 so far. More things to list, so will do that tonight too if I get the time. 

Hope you are all doing well. 

-Fox.

WinterWarrior

Sorry about all the tooth problems 😢
is your step daughter still in education? If so, please remember to get the child support, or whatever payments you get for having a child in education, redirected to you towards the food budget and extra expense. No matter how lovely she is you can’t really afford another mouth right now unless something is coming in for her. 

Has your husband started looking for jobs? 

How lovely to have paid off the chimney sweep on your signature…this will be the first of many wins you’ll see on there as you go along. Don’t take your eyes off the debt free prize 🏆 

SuzeQStan

Hey Fox great to see you posting again - sorry to hear about the teeth problems - I wouldn’t wait for yours just in case it gets a bit painful.  If you need treatment then you need it - these things don’t happen at convenient times do they! 

Please keep posting - really love your diary and am cheering you onwards and upwards (and the debts downwards 😉). It’s not a race - just don’t give up xx

Debsnewbudget

Hope everything is OK 

foxandflowers

Hi everyone. 

I'm still alive! 
And in classic neuro-spicy adventure time, have managed to avoid updating anyone about anything here, because I managed to forget the whole diary existed for a bit. And obviously in doing so, went off the rails a bit with my spending because there was nobody to hold me accountable. So I'm back. And planning on staying back. I can't believe it's been almost a month. 

So there is probably a lot to catch up on... 

Firstly, I have managed to avoid taking out any additional lines of credit, and have been spending my Vinted earnings etc instead. So in a way, I'm not in any worse place than I was, just I've wasted a lot of what I made. I haven't actually BOUGHT anything for me really though, which is frustrating. Instead I've done things like, take the kids for a meal out, bought food that isn't pasta and cheese, bought clothes and shoes for the little one that actually fit her... and actually, most of it has probably gone on food. I have to start meal planning again, as a priority. Food is an absolute weakness of mine, and I have monumentally messed up here. I currently have £41.51 across my accounts. F#&!. 

So March/April breakdown. I've just checked my Monzo 'trends' and I have apparently blanked out most of my spending from my mind. So that's fun. And also awful seeing it in black and white like that. So I will copy it here, so you can all judge me too. 

Groceries £739 / £1087
Bills £1142 / £868
Transport £348 / £488
Husband £238 / £480 
Shopping £804** / £351
Eating Out £238 / £190
Entertainment £597*  / £130
General £19 / £130
Dogs £89 / £120
Holidays £15 / £89
Charity £12 / £2

* buying 3x festival tickets for stepson's 18th / stepson's 14th birthday presents.
** sorting out child and husband clothes that fit. still zero excuse for it to be this expensive.  

Jesus. There's a pit in my stomach typing that out. I have learned NOTHING. 

Obviously, there are enormous cutbacks to be made. And my SOA is totally wrong. We need to budget for holidays. Husband took the children camping in Snowdonia for 4 days over the Easter holidays, and they had an amazing time. But again, I hadn't planned on it when I did my SOA so it's all wrong. Sigh. I guess it's back to the drawing board? 

I don't even know where to start at this point. 

- Fox. 


Ps. We sold our house, for £320,000 and that means we don't need to do the bridging loan. We will have about £120,000 after legal fees / moving costs. We took my father in law with us to look at the outside of the house we've bought on Saturday, and unfortunately, all the double glazing has blown. Which has inspired me to write a list of what will need doing with my £120k. And it doesn't make for pretty reading. I think the house is going to take YEARS to get finished. 

List as follows: 8 windows & front door replacing. fencing for garden. carpets/lino. paint. bathroom refurb x2. garden - patio, pathway, turf, hardstanding, outdoor electric point. summerhouse with shed. extension and new kitchen. remove sinks. masonry paint. heating system - upstairs new radiators, downstairs underfloor or skirting heating?  
Investigate : crack in side of house. wiring. damp proofing. new stairs. missing roof tiles?? 

Anyway, sorry that this update wasn't more positive. I'm drowning and fed up of ignoring that I'm drowning. Attack plans gratefully received. 

foxandflowers

Oh, and the school have told me they think it may be helpful to have the little one assessed for autism. And her dad continues to be absolutely USELESS, and didn't collect her this weekend just gone. She is too young to be asking me why her daddy doesn't want to put her first. 

I wanted to write about how selling my house means grieving a part of myself that I thought I was, but it turns out, I'm not who I thought. And that I've been trying on personalities all my life, and none of them seem to fit properly. And I'm tired of trying to figure myself out, and I don't even know what I like, what I've co-opted, and who I am. And then I realised I was too tired to write about it anyway.