Road To Financial Recovery

FootyFanDan

Wide awake club, as I fell asleep this afternoon for a few hours, really not ideal as I have an early start with football today.

Yesterday, I spent sorting out and decluttering our room, again something that has been on the to-do list far too long. We now are in a place where I know what needs taking to the tip, I am determined to make the best of this place and can already see positive steps. We went out and had a coffee whilst little one went to a pottery class, then a walk and pub lunch.

On the countdown to work, not sure really what to expect as I fully disengaged over my holiday, which is not normal for me but I felt it was needed badly. I have actually done a bit of plan for what I need to do when I get back and also started a knowledge base and templates in onenote which I am hoping to build on and helps me a bit. A lot of my stuff can be pretty repetitive so I just need to put in some structure of what I am doing.

I am hoping to start running again over next week or so, and trying to get outdoors abit more

All direct debits have now come out of accounts, and all pots topped up as needed. 

daisy_1571

Trying to get some daylight is a good start, much easier now as we begin to see the hours of daylight slowly lengthening again.

I think its a positive that you haven't been thinking about work.  Work should be done in work hours.  Home life, personal life, life.. whatever you want to call it is done in all the other hours. 

Remember that nobody at your workplace has ever sat down and said the best worker can do this much of this job title in one day, one week, one month, one year.   They just create a job, have a rough idea what they expect the post holder to do then over time working practices change, one aspect gets quicker, one aspect gets slower, one aspect is only done every 6 months, one aspect now needs to be done weekly, one aspect increases complexity, one aspect decreases complexity or disappears entirely,  a new task is created, someone leaves and tasks are redistributed etc etc until no one has any idea if the job as it now is can actually be done in a day, a week, a month, a year.  Its up to each post holder to now decide and if they keep working more hours, doing work at home or over holidays then they just feel inadequate and the bosses have no idea the job has expanded and is no longer (if it ever was) capable of being completed in 37 hours or whatever your paid hours of employment is. 

Try to remember this when you automatically assume you are !!!!!! at your job cos something didn't get done.  You aren't, you are good, managers and colleagues are happy with your performance.   


Dxx

Humdinger1

@FootyFanDan I've felt the same.  Every family is different though so this might not be relevant.   I felt that 'I' was being crowded out by organising, working, dealing with my exH's anxiety, being a parent.  Partners can contribute in other ways than financially: I think your partner doesn't work but there can be good reasons for this.  I realise that this may be a sensitive question, but perhaps this decision could be reconsidered? If you're  finding yourself run ragged,  a discussion about allocation of workload could help enormously.  If you burn out, then what?  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

lucielle

Not sure really. There’s a stressful ongoing situation I was hoping would be resolved before 2026 made an appearance. Maybe when it is sorted it will provide clarity. 

L

FootyFanDan

@daisy_1571 - Thank you, I really needed to read that, . I think my role has never really been defined and has people have left I have ended up taking most of the slack of that work load. This has resulted in me just juggling at lot some successfully, some not so much. We are going through a lot of change at work, I need to try remember the good success stories as well as the lessons to be learned. I do think I push myself harder than I need to, putting in many extra hours where I just need to step back, I am making a concious effort to restrict how much I do outside my core hours ( I am not against doing extra time if needed but far too many times the laptop is on way longer than it should. I want to focus on becoming a bit more stronger to be able to kick back on some things. I did have a chat with my manager today and expressed some (many) of my concerns about the way the extra load as affected my own performance and its something we are working on. I dunno maybe I need to give my self a break and not be my own biggest critic.




@lucielle  - I hope the ongoing issues can come to a conclusion and allow you to move forward and reclaim some inner peace.

@Humdinger1 - nope I am all for sharing, I think my diary reflects a daily battle I have so mainly no real subject out of bounds ha...we decided a long time ago that we felt it was in our best interest that my partner did the stay at home mum and to be honest I have no regrets over this. We had very little family support and at the time the cost of travel plus childcare meant she would have been working a pretty stressful job for about £40 a month. Of course, an extra full time wage would help, but then this would be wiped out by child care, out of school clubs and various other bits. I know some do, but I have absolutely no doubts over what my partner brings to the table other than finance, she has done every school play, trip, school club, dental, hospital appointment and everything in between. The injury to her knee has certainly changed up stuff bit the last few months but I believe that a partnership should be a team effort and in general it is. Having said that, she does want to get her career back on track once little one goes to high school so we shall see. In general we have managed to (once we committed to paying of debt) live to the income, it is only recently that has increased and given us a little bit more room to manouvre. But yes, I think when you feel you are doing everything it can be very very exhausting, so I feel your pain having to go through that.




Thank god that day is out of the way, overall not to bad of a start back to working week. A few outstanding issues resolved and a honest chat with my manager about where I am at with things. I must admit knowing there had been a few mess ups over the xmas period I was not looking forward to going back but it passed without incident so hopefully I can now jut get back into the swing of it. Hope everyone else getting up early for that first alarm in a while survived it.

Nothing major to report finance wise. Yesterday I filled up the car, and there are no long journeys planned this month so should only need to fill up twice, possibly three times. I have also done a food shop and managed to stick pretty much to a budget. No takeout coffee and also managed packed lunch and breakfast.

FootyFanDan

Been a hectic two weeks - savings draining due to upcoming planned expenses, everyone in household been ill last week, work stress...ugh gotta say this journey does have some demoralising moments. I know the savings have been built and then used for what they should be but seeing that figure slowly decrease is a feeling I need to turn into a positive somehow.

Budget is looking in decent ish shape so no real major hiccups, went over budget on food shop this week, but a more voucher and discount brought it down a fair bit. I did also save a month on my phone bill, as there was some credit so that is a small win. 

Also need to look at the theme park tickets for when we go away, I bought them pretty early to give us plenty of time to pay for them, however now they have come down by about £500 - so i need to decide whether it is worth going through cancelling (free), waiting on refund and then chancing that deal will still be available, or just suck it up and just carry on as we are. I think that can be the weekend's problem

Hope everyone is well - sorry for the downbeat update but felt needed logging here to look back on. Hopefully next few days improve

Rhyddid2026

Not downbeat at all, I'd say honest and true!

Dakota_Rose

This is real life and I think so many of us will feel like this at times - I certainly relate. It’s the keeping going and small steps that make a difference long term though isn’t it? 

I don’t know how hard those ticket
offers are to come by, but I’d certainly be tempted with a £500 saving. 

FootyFanDan

Dakota_Rose said:

This is real life and I think so many of us will feel like this at times - I certainly relate. It’s the keeping going and small steps that make a difference long term though isn’t it? 

I don’t know how hard those ticket
offers are to come by, but I’d certainly be tempted with a £500 saving. 

Absolutely right. In my mind I do know that the way I am doing things now is the right approach, but seeing that fund slowly empty is rubbish 😂. I need to hyper focus back in on the small wins. 

Yeah, I agree regarding tickets and I have dropped them a message to see the options I have. It has to be worth it for the £500 saving.

FootyFanDan

Rhyddid2026 said:

Not downbeat at all, I'd say honest and true!

It is a tough balance isn't it, I totally get this is a debt free place and a way to battle through that,but if I am being honest with myself I need a place to start getting a lot of things back on track and right now this little internet space is the one place I religiously visit daily so it makes sense. Although I do worry about diverting off topic too much