A Lifetime of Debt - F, 40s, autistic, parent, professional

thelibrarian11

Yep I think they all are, but son is unwilling to try anything at all. We did eliminate gluten for daughter and it made no difference though. She refused a blood test as well.

thelibrarian11

mitch2509 said:

Hi

have you thought about marriage counselling because you are not definitely not on the same page and need some help. Maybe he will see the bigger picture then

Anxiety is the pits and makes you question everything be kind to yourself x

I can't afford marriage counselling. I've made some progress, I pushed him hard over the weekend to think about career development, and he's agreed his first step is to get a driving license. That's more money we've not got though.

I'm thinking about a DRO today, just for myself. If I time it right, when my car finance finishes in the summer and my car value has dropped to below 4K, I think I'm eligible. This will be my 2nd DRO, my first was more than 6 years ago. Then he's only got 4k of unsecured debts which we can let default and settle at a discount.

thelibrarian11

I put a post on my original Qs about self managed DMPs from 6 months ago, and I've just copied it here. This is what my brain is going over and over at the moment.

I've been reviewing how I've been getting on over the 6 months, and I think I have a change of plan. What has prompted this is that I've had no freelance work in Jan and Feb which is unusual but always a risk, and I've had a bit of anxiety over it which I've channeled into looking again at solutions. I work full time and do freelance work on top of it which is how I've been servicing debts, until I underestimated my self assessment return and then ended up in a mess which I addressed 6 months ago.

Now I'm thinking I'd like to do a DRO as I think this is right for me, it might be best if I just say step by step what I'm planning. I've had a DRO before and it was more than 6 years ago.

1. I will have another year's self assessment come this April which will add to my overall debt. Currently I'm paying £400 a month towards what I already owe as self assessment to HMRC.

2. My car finance will be paid off in July, and my car is definitely worth less than 4K. I'm currently paying £300 a month for it.

3. I'm thinking a DRO in August, just for myself not my husband. If I stop paying the above that means an extra £700 spare a month.

4. With that extra £700 and some extra tweaks and reductions I can cover all our monthly household expenses from my full time wage + child benefit, and I have less than £75 available.

5. My husband usually gives me £1000 for household expenses and I try and make £1000 freelance to save for big things, birthdays, christmas, holidays etc. I won't need that £1000 for bills now because I can cover everything myself. I'm thinking he keeps it for those big purchases, and I won't need to work freelance.

So that's why I think a DRO is right for me now.

I have a few questions

1. If I wanted to work freelance during my DRO year (I don't, I've done 3 years of more than full time hours and I'm really tired), am I right in thinking I'd have to average out the money I get and if it means I've had more than £75 spare my DRO will fail? Could I do something like, say my expenses went up like a school trip here and an exploding washing machine there, and there's no overall difference?

2. If I did work freelance during that year, obviously I'm racking up a tax debt again for the next year - am I right that it's not included in the DRO because it's not been issued at the time I applied for the DRO? Could I say my freelance money during the DRO year will go towards that future tax bill and add that to the school trips exploding washing machine etc I'm still under £75 spare?

3. Is it really true that HMRC self assessment debt can be included in a DRO? It seems mad that I can earn the money and not be taxed on it. It all went into the air trying to keep up with unsecured debt and I didn't keep any aside for tax. 

4. I'm sure I did this last time, the DRO was for me only and my husband's finances and car weren't considered at all. Will they expect to see a contribution from him for the household expenses? I'm sure they didn't last time but it was so many years ago I can't remember. Does it being a tax debt change any of this at all?

Thanks for all your help again. Anything you can tell me is really helpful, I struggle with overthinking and I've made myself a bit anxious recently with this. I'd love to just be able to get this all straight in my head and then my brain can put it down for a bit.

thelibrarian11

I'm still here, still going. I'm having a difficult day at work, with someone pointing out I'd already been told something but still done it wrong, only for me to realise I hadn't understood the unclear language properly and then having to disclose I was autistic when I didn't want to, to escape a b*llocking about it. And it's Neurodiversity Celebration Week too, yeay party about that for sure, woo.

Anyway, I'm cheering myself up by looking at how far I've come, and I've calculated the percentage of my debts I've paid down so far, and I'm on 21% which is a nice motivator. This is off my car and HMRC debt, nothing off unsecured debts just yet.

I've had a quiet few months with barely any freelance work, which has reduced my income a bit and I've been worrying, but there's not much I can do about that. I've used the extra time to do 2 things: 1. get some exercise for the first time in years, which has done my chest pains and blood pressure and anxiety the world of good and 2. look at other freelance stuff I can train in, because I kind of like this portfolio career I've got going on, it makes me feel in control and less at the whim of interview panels. There's loads of stuff I could do, if only I had more hours in the day. How do other people survive with the hours they have? That all remains a mystery to me.

Something I'd like to do is to connect with other neurodivergent people on here, I've seen a few recently saying they are and that's why they're in bad debt. That all makes me feel better, never mind this doo dah head at work.

Also, I learned something, are you ready? So, I've been working freelance for 3 years on top of my job, trying to up my income and using it to service all my unsecured debts. I didn't put tax money away, thinking I would pay that in the future when it comes up, which I now can't afford to do because my freelance work has gone right down. I can't service the unsecured debts any more and I've got no extra to pay the HMRC debt. I'm in a right mess with it.

That process, that was effectively me transferring an unsecured debt to a secured one, or at least, a worse one with consequences. I paid off loans with money I should have been putting away for tax. I know not to do that, but didn't realise that's what I was doing. I should have let all the debts default 3 years ago, kept tax money aside and anything extra after that goes on the unsecured debts. I could even have got away with not doing all this extra work and having no tax debt at all, I just got scared with all the cost of living crisis stuff and I had the skills to go for it so I did.

Anyway, bit late now. Today is a tough one. But 21% in six months, give me 2 more years at this pace and it's all over at last.

WelshmansDaughter

Just popping in to say hello and offer some thoughts: 
If you are looking for ND folk @savingholmes, @cherryfudge and myself have diaries. 

I have found that the anxiety about debt does go once you have found understanding about why you spend the way you do. 

For ND folk it can take longer to get out of the pattern of thinking that comes with any stressful situation. 

Your black and white thinking seems quite bad at the moment which for me usually means exhaustion and emotional buildup. 

Managing money is possible with autism but needs to be done in a way that is meaningful to you. Help with practical skills might be useful (I see an occupational therapist but youtube has been just as good).

thelibrarian11

WelshmansDaughter said:

Just popping in to say hello and offer some thoughts: 
If you are looking for ND folk @savingholmes, @cherryfudge and myself have diaries. 

I have found that the anxiety about debt does go once you have found understanding about why you spend the way you do. 

For ND folk it can take longer to get out of the pattern of thinking that comes with any stressful situation. 

Your black and white thinking seems quite bad at the moment which for me usually means exhaustion and emotional buildup. 

Managing money is possible with autism but needs to be done in a way that is meaningful to you. Help with practical skills might be useful (I see an occupational therapist but youtube has been just as good).

Hey cool, can you link me to your diaries? 

For me it's less spending, I don't do anything impulsively or anything, it's more I was on such a low income and didn't really understand what I was getting into when I started using credit. I was very vulnerable to pay day loan companies, and I've never got out of the cycle of it. This time though I will, my earnings are finally decent enough to do it.

I can do rigid thinking, but I have a combination of being rejection sensitive (which is the wrong name for it, it's more like I see hostility where there isn't any) and I've had such bad experiences I'll be scared of that for the rest of my life. To me, messing up at work like that means being fired and back to a low income and not being able to feed my kids. It's the fairness thing as well, like it's not my fault, it's the unclear communicator. I do a pretty good job of controlling myself and masking it all, I've lived with this brain long enough now to know what it's gonna do and how it's gonna react.

Cherryfudge

Hi @thelibrarian11, sorry this is the first time I've come across your diary but I'll bookmark you. Thanks @WelshmansDaughter for the mention. My diary is here.

I find there are lots of ND people around on the forums (foxandflowers is another of us) - my theory is it's easier to communicate when there aren't faces to read, background distraction etc - and time to process what we have to say, so we gravitate towards a format like this.

Lots of good wishes as you set things right.  

WelshmansDaughter

If I had to define it, I would say that you are not managing your money, it’s managing you. Your SOA is full of areas where other people spend a lot less. Now, Im not saying you have to spend the same amounts as others, the whole point of money management is to make sure you are spending money on what is important to you.
Your SOA says your priorities are Food, Technology, Transportation, Insurance.
If those align with your values then that works. 

If not, then an interim budget is needed until you can change things to better meet what you want to spend your money on.

thelibrarian11

Some updates from me:

1. We're in a bit of a family crisis. My mother in law had a heart attack and my husband has been with her a lot in hospital and looking after his Dad, which means I have no after school childcare and my work productivity is about to go right down.

2. The freelance company I get the most work from has gone quiet, and the other 2 I work for, 1 it's not unusual for it to be quiet which it is right now, and 1 has decided they think my work is below par and is giving me a bit of a hard time about it, which is really surprising and never happened to me before.
3. I applied for and got a contract with a new freelance company so we'll see how that goes. I also asked that first one with loads of work if they had anything else for me and I'm trying out a different type of work for them. They think my work is amazing, it's so weird the difference.

4. Because of all the above, I've decided I need to be able to cover everything just from my full time work without freelance, and have the freelance just be extra money.
5. To get through the next few months, I told HMRC I can't afford to pay them as much. This is risky as I might get a late payment penalty, but I'll have to take it and just respond when I get a warning. This way, I can pay for my kid's birthdays without freelance, usually I cover them with my extra work. But it needs to be the opposite, kids first, then the extra work goes on my debts. I'm hopeful I'll get more work and not actually reduce payments by that much but we'll see.
6. When I hit August, my car is paid off, and I want to start saving for christmas birthdays and holidays out of my wages, and freelance goes on debts, not the other way around.
7. I'll have to get some other bills down to do this, my mobile contracts and my electricity bill and shave off a tenner here and there on everything else... but let's go for it.

Cherryfudge

I'm sorry to hear about your mother in law, I hope she is back to good health soon. What a worrying time for you all, and you could do without the extra stress of juggling child care.

That's very odd about the freelance work. Perhaps it's a matter of personal opinion, or they just spotted one thing they didn't agree with and that coloured their judgement?