MeandO's money-shuffling

Honeysucklelou2

Well done on the weight loss…

Hope your parents and your OH are getting better health wise.

MeandO

Thank you HSL2 xx

MeandO

What a wild weather weekend. I hope everyone is safe and storm damage was minimal. I spent a day and a half trying to keep a large part of our garden boundary fencing intact via various bits of wood as supports and weighted items, just about got away without a huge repair bill. The weekend felt very full of stress and I feel drained and exhausted today. I've been trying to sort Christmas arrangements out with the ex again and that has just piled on the anxiety and stress. DS was also being very 'teenagery' and basically spent most of the short time I did see him either in his room or on his phone. I know it's normal teenage boy behaviour to withdraw from their parents, but it's not much fun and I felt really sad this weekend. I am missing him.

I've now finished the Christmas gift buying all apart from OH's parents, but OH can pay for that one. I wrapped 99% of everything this weekend too whilst bored and stuck in the house so that's a big job done. There is a balance on the CC from some gifts and the gym payment and I have been paying it down as best I can but I will clear it with money from the EF before I have to pay any interest. The EF will be down to around £1300 then. 

Today I have been trying to work out my budget going forward for 2025 which is a bit tricky as I'm not exactly sure what my new monthly salary will be post small pay rise and the impact that will have on the UC payment monthly.
I have estimated as closely as I can but will re-visit that in a few weeks when I get paid again and find out the actual amounts. We get paid early this month but I will ignore it until the date we normally get paid otherwise January is going to be extremely difficult, especially as I will need to buy birthday gifts for DS and OH that month.
I have upped both the Car/house pot and Birthdays/Christmas pots by £50 each for next year. The car will need a more expensive service next year and I guess house/car insurance is only going to rise. I always seem to run out of funds in the gifts pot at Christmas too, so need to save more into that next year and not dip into it.
I am considering not paying much into the EF next year as I need to be aware of the savings threshold for UC, plus I should build up a savings balance in the car/house pot for any household/car issues. I'm also continuing the £100 to the PB's monthly for a school holidays pot so that money will be there if I ever needed it for anything else. Instead of not building the EF up, I should be able to send £400 to the mortgage as monthly overpayments. I'm not entirely decided on whether this is a good idea or not yet, I'll have a think. I always find it hard knowing what to do for the best.
 

badmemory

Is there any particular reason why you think overpaying your mortgage may be a bad idea.  I know if it is in savings then it is available if needed, but once you get near that savings limit you will be on edge.  Also if things get really bad you should be able to reduce the mortgage payment rather than the term.  Reducing the mortgage will also help when your teenaged cost centre is no longer providing you with child benefit etc.  Mine is still a cost centre & must be 3 times the age of yours

MeandO

Thanks badmemory, it's not that I think it will be a bad idea it's just that I get really nervous about not having a pot of money to fall back on in case of emergencies or house disasters, of which I've had many over the years, unfortunately. I spoke to OH about it last night who is very good with money and in a great place financially and he helped me to sort the fears from the facts so I feel a bit better about it now. 

MeandO

Another difficult and stressful evening last night for various reasons  - more s*** from the ex which went on for a few hours, more anxiety over the thought of another upsetting and lonely Christmas and teenage moodiness from DS. I just wanted a hug from my Mum and Dad last night but had to just sit and cry it all out on my own for a bit. I can't seem to shake the sadness and tears off this morning but I'm trying so hard to pull myself out of it. I know I have a lot to be grateful for and Christmas is just one day to get through, it just hurts so much and I'm sad my life has gone the way it has. I actually love Christmas and have amazing memories of big family Christmases, I think that's what makes it so hard now. I thought I'd have that as an adult and be able to give that to my family too, but circumstances and a manipulative ex-husband means I don't and I can't.

I also had some bad news about a friend last night who has suffered a brain haemorrhage. She is a lovely lady I met through the fitness classes earlier this year. She's a lot older than me but we just clicked and have struck up a lovely friendship. She's been a bit like a surrogate Mum to me and we've cheered each other on ever since. Bad things seem to happen to the loveliest people.
I'm trying to eat well today, keep busy and have music on loud to drown out my negative thoughts. I have a nice weekend with friends planned so I'm trying to focus on that. I'm going to give another friend a call for a chat later too. I haven't spoken to her for a while and the pair of us usually manage to put the world to rights or at least offer tea and sympathy to each other at the state of our lives...

On the finances front, I have my hair cut and colour booked for Friday but have put funds aside to cover it. I popped to the supermarket this morning for milk and a few things we were running low on and bought a pair of trainers/pumps for myself for £16 to replace my worn out ones. I have big feet so was surprised to see a pair in my size so snapped them up for that price.

I've ordered another £50 of school uniform for DS as he has grown out of yet more of it. The £80 I had in that pot is now down to £30 so I'm hoping he won't grow out of anything else until I can build the funds back up a bit over the next few months. I've allocated £50 a month to it from now on.

badmemory

A friend of mine with a similar problem about Christmas just used to pretend that Christmas day was the 27th or 28th & ignore the 25th.  Not easy but it used to help her through.  One of the times I wasn't annoyed with my exH as when he went he was gone out of our lives.  I don't think it would have made any difference if we still lived in the same town, but he moved 120 miles & I moved 200.  At least I will never bump into him.

FacelessNumber

On the subject of Christmas, if you're on your own there's a group who organise Christmas hikes for people who would be on their own on Christmas day, don't know if that would be your thing but I read about it on BBC news the other day. I'm sure there are other things on too, distraction might help?

MeandO

Thank you badmemory and facelessnumber. I’m feeling a bit better about things now and trying to focus on the positives. I’ll always get sad and anxious about Christmas, but I’ve decided I’m not going to stress anymore over one day. 

Last week brought a lot of concern after my lovely Dad had an accident and was quite badly injured, being rushed to hospital. Thankfully nothing was broken but he is very bruised and sore and had to have stitches. He seems to be on the mend now thank goodness, although is still black and blue. I wish I could do something to help. 

I had a nice weekend with OH and lots of our friends. We went away for a night and then had a meal out in a lovely pub for 12 of us and generally had lots of laughs. Trains were cancelled so we went with friends who wouldn’t take any petrol money, but we paid for parking instead which was about £15 for 24 hours. We had a lovely time, but getting home and downtime with OH was also lovely and much needed, we’re both pretty tired at the moment. 

I paid for a Christmas social event for DS today (£20) and had to pick up a few bits in the supermarket (£18ish). I’ve been looking at prices for the next weight loss jab if I continue with it and have managed to find it for £40 less than my current provider, plus I found a code for an extra 10% off, so around £58 cheaper. I’ll decide what to do in a week or so but I could really do with losing another stone and a half to get me into a healthy weight bracket and I’d still be at the higher end of the recommended weight for my height.

MeandO

I actually found an even cheaper jab provider with a code, so I've decided to go ahead and order for the next month.

I've not been feeling great this week which I think is due to over eating at the weekend on our trip away and indulging in some really rich food. I've also not really got back into my healthy eating mojo since being away and it's taken its toll. Tomorrow I plan to pop to the shops and stock up on the cheap Christmas veg offers to make lots of soup which is what I'm craving at the moment. 

DS and I have watched a couple of Christmas movies together this week which has been lovely. I cherish every minute we do things together and every second of time he wants to spend with me these days now that he's a teenager.
Christmas shopping is done for me now and I don't need to buy much in the way of food for Christmas, just some party food/buffet bits which we'll have Christmas Day evening when DS is back with me. I picked up a few YS party food its the other day which I froze so they will save a little bit of money.

Annoyingly, a vinted sale doesn't look like it's going to be collected from the collection point by a buyer. They have been sent a notification and I have sent a reminder which they've ignored despite being online yesterday. It was £23.50 so a fair chunk of money which would have been helpful now. I very much doubt I will get the item returned before Christmas either now which won't help reselling it now in January.