Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

I'm struggling to feel motivated this morning. I woke up and the bread had gone mouldy overnight and there was very limited options for other things, so I ended up paying for my daughter to have lunch in school which has done my survey savings from Tuesday night's endeavours. 

HOWEVER.

Last night I opened an account with Monz*. (Why do we blank out names when we write, can anyone tell me? It's a habit I've picked up from reading other diaries but I don't know why we do it!)

I have to say, I am very impressed. There's a really great category called "Total Upcoming" and I can set the month to refresh on my payday. The upcoming category lists all my bills that are still to go out before I get paid next, so I can make sure I've got enough in my account to cover my bills. And it tells me what I have left to spend until the date I get paid, after my bills are deducted!! This is game changing. I know YNAB does similar, and I know that I can track my spending myself, but I just... the ADHD really gets in the way. I always have great intentions and it very rarely becomes an actual habit. The fact this does it all automatically is amazing. 

My water bill is coming out on the 28th Feb, so that will be after I get paid again, so currently it's telling me I have £257 for the month. Now I know this isn't entirely accurate, as annoyingly my phone bill/ DH phone bill aren't being accounted for. I essentially need to sign him up too, so I can keep track of what is due to go out of his account. So it's probably a lot closer to £150. Which is still slightly more than I thought. Although I haven't paid my council tax last month so I should probably make some sort of payment towards that. I hate having to choose between things to pay. And I know this is one of the most important ones, but it's also one of the highest bills I have and I just would rather be able to eat. 

I've also set up a  2% savings "pot" to put my side-earnings into, and so far it has £7.75 (I used Qmee last night and there is no minimum cashout value for Paypal - yay).

So far this month I have spent

£298.25 on bills.
£167.95 on groceries (this is WAY over budget).
£147.07 on shopping - which is mostly due to me buying those clothes on Vinted (although one of the dresses arrived last night and it is beautiful and I am wearing it to work today and feel really pretty) & buying e-liquids for DH who has almost, but not quite quit vaping. 
£100 to DH for his phone bill and the family spotify
£98.93 on fuel - aaaaaaaaaaaaaarghh. 
£123.70 in Debt repayments - (first payment of payday loan, bip payment, electrician)
£27.10 on dog food
£24 for after school club
£1.68 on silly mobile games
and I have £58.12 pending - home insurance, school dinner, muscle food ready meals for hubby because they were on a really good offer, and another stupid in app purchase on a silly mobile game.

SO I would say that probably £100 of that could have been avoided. And actually, if I had spoken to stepchange sooner, probably £230 would have been avoided. So that sucks, but it's nice to see it laid out like that. The trouble is it also shows you your past spends broken down...

And apparently I have spent a LOT of money over the past few years. Basically burned through half my inheiritance buying cars that we then sold for much less than we paid for, eating takeaways regularly because I was too depressed to cook, trying to pay off some debts, moving house and paying for all the associated costs, converting the camper van, sending DH money, buying anything and everything just because we could, taking all of the kids abroad for a week, buying clothes, shoes, expensive food, alcohol, suriving covid with the children... I don't even know where most of it has gone... what a dreadful stupid immature waste. I'm so ashamed of myself. None of it brought me any happiness. It's like they say about lottery winners, and the percentage of them that end up bankrupt. I had zero impulse control, and zero control over my mental health. The only things I have bought that have truly bought me joy are my kindle, and my wedding. Everything else could have been done without. 

And the worst part is there is nobody else to blame. I got myself in this mess. So I have to get myself out. And hopefully learn several hard and harsh lessons along the way. 

Seeing all this laid out like that has given me some real determination to make sure I never end up in that position again. EVER. And that I don't teach my daughter that you can have whatever you want without having to work for it. I have let things get to the point where we are almost broken, but I have to keep going and I have to fix this. 

foxandflowers

PS. I understand if after reading that, nobody wants to comment on my diary any more. It was stupid, immature and selfish of me to be so profligate with my inheiritance and I deeply regret it. But if I can't be honest here, there is nowhere I can be.

WinterWarrior

foxandflowers said:

PS. I understand if after reading that, nobody wants to comment on my diary any more. It was stupid, immature and selfish of me to be so profligate with my inheiritance and I deeply regret it. But if I can't be honest here, there is nowhere I can be.

We have all been varying degrees of silly with money here. No judgement at all. This is a safe space to get back on track. Many yrs ago I wasted a £15k inheritance paying off debts of my now XH and trying to buy his happiness (it was never going to happen). The only thing I have to remember it is a gift I bought for myself with a tiny % of it. I also remortgaged several times to bail him out and then lost half of the tiny bit left in the divorce. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way…the point here is that you are learning and moving towards a better situation. None of us can change our past. 

foxandflowers

WinterWarrior said:

foxandflowers said:

PS. I understand if after reading that, nobody wants to comment on my diary any more. It was stupid, immature and selfish of me to be so profligate with my inheiritance and I deeply regret it. But if I can't be honest here, there is nowhere I can be.

We have all been varying degrees of silly with money here. No judgement at all. This is a safe space to get back on track. Many yrs ago I wasted a £15k inheritance paying off debts of my now XH and trying to buy his happiness (it was never going to happen). The only thing I have to remember it is a gift I bought for myself with a tiny % of it. I also remortgaged several times to bail him out and then lost half of the tiny bit left in the divorce. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way…the point here is that you are learning and moving towards a better situation. None of us can change our past. 

Thanks for this. I sort of think that if it had been only £15k, and I know that's not an only figure, that I might be able to forgive myself. But I mean, double it and add a zero and we are getting close to the amount I've spent. And there is nothing to show for it but extra debt.

I have also been there trying to buy love. My first marriage was emotionally and financially abusive, and I spent a lot of money I didn't have trying to make exH happy. It was an impossible task. And it's taken me a long time to heal from, and learn that I can be loved for being myself, and not just a cash cow. It was a very hard lesson to swallow, and probably a portion of the debt this time around is from not learning that lesson faster. 

I really am hoping this will be the year I grow up finally, and get my house in order, before all the cards fall and bury me. 

Sarahwithlove

I think we all make stupid decisions in haste without realising it and that's why most of us are here. Just focus on looking forward and what you can do to make a difference. 

CL21

Be kind to yourself @foxandflowers - as WinterWarrior says, we’ve all been stupid with money at some point. That’s why we’re here and all trying to be better. The amount doesn’t really matter. What matters is, you realised the problem, you want to change and you’re showing up every day and trying x

foxandflowers

Morning everyone

I am SO proud of myself this morning. I spoke to the garage yesterday afternoon and they agreed to let me split payments on the car. And we came to an agreement regarding the i.d. situation, because the part that is required is security based, they wanted to see my i.d. before they ordered the part (I guess to make sure I hadn't stolen the car?) and now they're saying I can bring it when the car is fixed and as long as the vc5 matches my license they will release the car to me. Which is a relief, because they are 45 minutes away one way. But it means that for £91 upfront they will be fixing my car! 

Okay, so my bank account has taken a hit but the good news is that soon we will have a working car again and not have to take the enormous van everywhere. And once the private plates are swapped back, we can sell it and get a car that is cheaper to run and use some of the money to pay things off. Yay.

I ended up taking half a day of flexi yesterday afternoon after I spoke to the garage, so that I could ring Stepchange in peace without the dogs climbing on me, or my daughter asking questions. I was on hold for almost an hour. And then I spoke to a lovely Thai lady who set me up for an additional 5 debts for a total of £115 a month. So that's my JD Williams, Bip, Capital One, Post Office & Marbles card added to the DMP. And my DFD is May 2042... so 19 more years. Christ, that's awful. 

So the debts I still need to pay on top of that are... 

Electrician £350
Mayglothling Waste £930
Friends £6,320 (hahaha oh I am a terrible friend.)
Chimney sweep £100
Payday loan £210 (this should have gone to Stepchange but I can't find the details for it)
Bumper £460 (payments for fixing the car - interest free!)
Ramsdens £300 (to get my pawned jewelry back )
Vodafone £300 (including early exit fee for internet) 

Okay, so some notes on the above.
- Luckily there is no formal arrangement for any of the "friends" loans, those can be paid back as and when, so these are currently of the absolute lowest priority.
- I would like to see if I can add Mayglothling Waste to the Stepchange, although I would need to speak to the company first to see if they would be okay with that. If not, I need to set up an official payment strategy for them. 
- The electrician is... really overdue. I would like to work towards getting this paid off ASAP. I am currently doing £50 a month. 
- I am yet to pay the Chimney sweep... anything. 
- Bumper is £91.40 for the next 5 months.
- Jewelry is safe until May, but the longer I leave it the more I need to pay back.
- I have tried to speak to them about splitting the payment from the internet and the phone bill, but so far they have not been too receptive. I will try again today, as it stands they are due to take the whole amount from my account on the 20th February, and there is no way I can afford that. 

Obviously if we sell the car, I will clear the electrician, chimney sweep, bumper, payday loan, ramsdens and vodafone, and one of my friends (the one with the lowest amount - £200). That's about £1920, which would leave £2k for a runaround car, plus £500 into an emergency fund. DH has lost THREE stone since December 1st, so he is running out of clothes that fit, so he will need some to be purchased (second hand is fine). The money I'd be saving on the payday loan/electrician would then go towards mayglothling. 

If we don't sell the car... I will have to keep plugging away at these debts, the way that I am trying to do now. I am reminded of the amorphism of trying to empty a lake with a teaspoon. It might take years, and I suspect it will, but eventually the lake will be emptied. 

WinterWarrior

Excellent progress, Rome wasn’t built in a day! 

Your husband needs to buy his own clothes with a small portion of his first pay check, this can’t all be on you! This may encourage him to get moving. I would also ask him to list his too big clothes on vinted to make some of the money back. 

foxandflowers

WinterWarrior said:

Excellent progress, Rome wasn’t built in a day! 

Your husband needs to buy his own clothes with a small portion of his first pay check, this can’t all be on you! This may encourage him to get moving. I would also ask him to list his too big clothes on vinted to make some of the money back. 

Hi Winter, 

Thank you for your kind words. 

My husband has agreed as of last night that all of his clothes that no longer fit can be listed and sold, and he will buy things out of the proceeds of the sales. So now we just have to go through the entire wardrobe, photograph and list everything. Might end up being a bit of a project on Sunday, because I know there are a couple of Fred Perry polo shirts in an XL in the attic that can go, and plenty of supermarket clothes that can be listed for £1/£2. Then if ten things sell, that's a tenner towards new clothes. At least, that's the plan. There are two or three large storage bags of clothes in the attic, and two or three black bags of clothes in the shed, so this might be a bigger project than expected. Anything too badly stained will go in the textile recycling bins, and anything that doesn't sell after a month will be donated to charity.  I was going to try selling things on Twig, but the reviews are terrible. I desperately want to make money, but I also don't want to live surrounded by clutter. 

I spent an hour in the cabin last night sorting things that had come over from the storage unit and there are a couple of board games and clothes and curtains in there that I can list tonight, along with some handbags I won't use. I keep trying to persuade myself I am a handbag person, but I'm not. 

I wish someone would invent something that meant I could list all my items simultaneously across the board of second hand clothes. 

While I've been typing this I've just had a phone call from the estate agents booking another viewing in for next Saturday. Fingers crossed. 

SuzeQStan

Sarahwithlove said:

Just think of it as less to have to move. 

Exactly This!^^

Hi OP - just to add to what @Sarahwithlove said - we moved a 4 bed house to a 3 bed and spent small fortune to do that. one year after moving in we had gotten rid of most of the furniture and carp we had paid so much to move. 

keep your chin up - sounds like a positive viewing you have had on the house and the spring boost to viewings is imminent!

your plans to move somewhere more convenient to work and cheaper to live sound wise. 

You are fortunate to have the entire equity in your home - this puts you in a stronger position than most. 

EDIT - just a thought but if you could purchase your next home for under £250,000 then you would avoid any stamp duty. 

I know you say you want the kids to all have their own room - but children do grow up and move away from home (eventually! 😉) - so make sure that this home suits YOU first.