Teetering on the brink

debtfreewannabe321

My nan had one of those @daisy_1571 it's what I used to sleep on when I would visit. I'd have a look on FB MP for a bargain....I literally gave away a very comfy sofa bed a few moves ago because it was the wrong size for the next house. It was an IKEA one - corner sofa and the bed was pretty good too, my son used it for almost a year on and off.

Cherryfudge

I'm so glad to hear you smaller dog got out of the wrapping okay! It's nice that she's feeling more herself but scary that she then got herself into such a twist.

Somewhere to sleep downstairs for you and the dogs would save you a lot of energy. Think of it as an opportunity to make life better for all of you - if it's planned as a dual purpose room more than a living room with sleeping space, it could be really nice - and much better than having to climb stairs.

EatingBeans

Thanks all.

Knowing that dd2 was off to work at 5pm yesterday I sneakily asked my brother to come around after work to do a bit of room shuffling. I know dd2 asked me not to bother him as she thinks she can do it all herself but I also know I am just not capable of helping, it really needs doing and there is an awful lot to move up and down our very steep rather lethal stairs which is an awful lot for one person alone.

Did I ever mention how absolutely wonderful my brother is? There are just no words to explain how grateful I am to have him! Not only did he come and visit to try and come up with a plan (despite being up since 4am to start work), but he also made a start. After me trying to explain what I was trying to achieve he also suggested one of those beds that folds up into the wall! I suppose it helps that I have an alcove that is just the perfect size for a single mattress. I think it is a great idea but for one they seem mega expensive but also I am always a bit concerned about building something fixed in our house because it has been through so many iterations since we moved in. At least with something like a sofa bed it can easily move rooms if need be. For now I decided to dismantle my single bed, store the mattress and wedge downstairs in the alcove so that I can just drop it on the floor if needed, and move the double to my bedroom. That’s pretty much where ‘we’ started (i.e. my brother started and I watched) and it was all going pretty well until it came to move the double mattress back upstairs. I know me trying to help do any of it would have been a very, very bad idea but it turns out I wasn’t wrong about it being a two person job. No amount of pushing and shoving could fold the lovely firm mattress in half and squeeze it through the doorway, around the corner and up the very steep, narrow staircase. Instead my brother decided the best option was to make sure I had a place to sleep tonight and offered to come back today to have another go. The fact that my brother couldn’t do it on his own means there is just no way possible that dd2 would have been able to. The difference being I know my brother will quit if he feels something is unsafe, whereas I am not confident dd2 has enough experience yet to recognise some of the dangers. Tbf she is almost certainly better qualified to tackle it compared to most 18yr olds nowadays as she has helped many times with room shuffles, but there are just somethings in our house that are particularly risky given both the steepness and narrowness of our stairs.

Whilst we didn’t get much further with any of the rest of the furniture and the house is now in more chaos than when we started, one thing my brother also did for me so we could use the downstairs lights again and see what we were doing, was make safe the faulty bathroom light! I had recently bought a new light and some wagos to sort it myself but just haven’t had the energy to do it. Rather than get too distracted we opted for just removing the old light and popping wagos onto the exposed wires to make it safe for now, actual fitting of the new light can come later. So, still no light in the bathroom yet but, for the first time in what has to be at least a year, we have been able to switch the downstairs lights all back on at the fuse box and we can see again! 🎉 Just as a precaution I knocked the lights off again at the fuse box when we went to bed but if they are all back on for a few days and no burning smell comes back I might even brave leaving it on. 😬 I know I was fairly confident that the burning smell was coming from that light fitting but having taken it off it is not obvious which bit was faulty so there is always the chance that I was wrong! 🫣

EatingBeans

Yesterday my brother came back and together with dd2 they shifted all the rest of the furniture around. I am so grateful because there is just no way I could have done it myself. The house is still chaos but now the dogs can stay downstairs so I wont be stuck trying to choose between letting the dog out and my safety again.

Lots to sort obviously, but now I finally have some space to do it in! I can’t wait to have it organised so I can start selling again. Now all I need is some energy to do it!

I haven’t managed work again today and now have an appointment with occupational health booked in for Wednesday. I am not even going to attempt to work again until I have spoken to them. I am going to try and use until then to try and recover a bit.

Little Dog is still separated from her brother and the sedatives are not at all effective anymore so she is just exhausting atm - I really wish they had been more upfront about aftercare when I asked! But still, just another week and it will be put behind us. 🤞

Very sadly, everything seems to have taken it’s toll on dd2 and we have started having conversations about how we can help her. The reality is I just can’t wish myself better and I don’t have anyone else who can help me. She needs her part time job as she needs cash to live and I don’t have it to give. That only really leaves college as a possible thing to change. So, after a bit of a chat and some googling we put together an e-mail for college asking if there is any way possible for her to split her A levels and finish two this year then do the final year of the third A level next year. No idea if that is even possible and we are waiting to hear back from college to find out but it would take the pressure off a bit I think. That said, she would no longer be classed as a full time student so it has further financial implications. 😞

To try and make sense of things I went to see the CAB again this morning. It seems that most things hinge on me getting PIP and the advisor was convinced that I cant have a valid PIP claim open if I didn’t submit the form. When I get some energy I’ll have to give them a call but right now I am not up to it. The suggestion was that if I lose the job I would get about £400 to live on and I could then get lower rate tariffs for water and electricity etc but when I pointed out that £400 wouldn’t even cover the mortgage and asked how a person was supposed to actually live on that, she said well you just get into more debt! Seriously?! Apparently as I am the disabled one (as opposed to having a disabled child etc) I basically get an amount that they know wont cover even the most basic of bills. Apparently they could give me food vouchers! Yeah ok, that’s great but that wont stop me losing the roof over my head. 😞 Yeah, it wasn’t the most positive of meetings. I honestly don’t know why I ever bother with the CAB as I always come out feeling worse and knowing no more than what I’ve learnt from Google. She has said they will book me back in with the debt advisor but having thought about it I don’t think I will bother going. Maybe they are better dealing with situations when it has already all hit the fan and bailiffs are at your door or something but trying to avoid that in the first place just doesn’t seem like something they can help with.

So, back to plan A. Try my dammdest to keep my job, support dd2 to go part time if that is an option and she feels it would help, and sell everything I can to make up my shortfall in wages over the next couple of months whilst I am on a phased return.

Debt wise I am going to do something I never thought I would say when starting this diary - I am deliberately going to add to what I owe by buying things now that will make my life easier going forward. A dmp is a dmp whether I owe £30k on it or £40k on it. I see no benefit to scrimping every last penny at this point, if I know I am going to have all credit options taken away from me then probably best to have made myself more comfortable by stocking the cupboards first before I start defaulting and if that means I add the cost to the debt then so be it.

Priority job for tomorrow is to produce a cashflow forecast to work out when I will run out of money. In an ideal world dd2 would stay in full time education until I get PIP so I can still get universal credit over the next few months but hey, if she has the option to reduce her college hours and it will help her, I will support whatever she decides and the money will just be whatever it will be. Some things are just more important.

ellenvan

For what it's worth, I agree with your strategy. Keeping a roof over your head and DD2 is the priority. Work out the minimum for food, mortgage, electric, council tax, so that you know what the basics cost.

If you can load your electric in advance, it would also take the pressure off when it rises in January.

If at all possible and they let you reduce hours try and keep the job. It will be easier to increase hours in the future if your health improves.

I think you probably know all the above. But sometimes useful to have another opinion.

ellenvan

Just a thought, but does DD2 job pay more than the universal credit you get. If not if you lose it, does the family income increase or decrease?

EatingBeans

Universal credit is not impacted by dd2’s part time job, it only goes on my income because she is classed as a dependant while in full time education. Currently she pays me towards the bills she impacts (so excluding council tax while she is exempt and the mortgage which is more a debt than bill in my eyes). The principle being we split things like water and electricity etc into two now there are two of us living here, I use the child benefit towards her contribution and then she pays me the balance. She also pays for her own food, transport, mobile etc. If she left full time education I would ask her to cover the missing child benefit amount and the amount the council tax goes up by because that is effectively the impact of her making that decision. If I am working full time I don’t get any Universal Credit so the way I see it, any change in that falls on me. If I don’t work there is just no way dd2 plus any increase in UC could even get close to what I would lose from losing my job. I really do need to stay in work if at all possible.

TheCheerleader

I am sorry in advance if this sounds harsh, I honestly don’t want it to sound that way, I just feel so desperately sorry for DD2.
I have never heard of a teenager having to pay a half share of water or electricity bills before, let alone paying for their own food etc. I appreciate money is tight, and you are very concerned about keeping a roof over your heads but you are the parent. You make the decisions, you recently received redundancy, you bought and renovated a van as an investment into working, which was done in good faith and I know is not really working out and I really do empathise but couldn’t you now invest in your daughter? Take over paying all of the bills and starting a DMP and allow your daughter to drop the part time job and concentrate full time on her A levels.

Dakota_Rose

Is DD2 registered as a young carer? There may be some good emotional support available for her through that channel.

EatingBeans

No worries about it sounding harsh, but the reality is dd2 is now an adult and I don’t have spare cash to fund her decisions. Even if I did, I would not change what I am asking of her as I believe it is the best way to parent her. She pays half the bills because that is what she uses. I believe it is important to make sure she has a firm grasp on the value of money and the reality is I would cut the usage a lot more if she wasn’t living here, but I don’t because I try and keep her comfortable.

My leavers money did not go on the van (the only exception being the power bank, a bit of sound deadening and some insulation which is a tiny fraction of the cash and was my one gift to myself). As mentioned before the van is not complete and is nothing like a usual ‘van conversion’. The bed is made out of foam from two old dog beds, the flooring was an off-cut from the 99p flooring I got off ebay a year ago to cover the bathroom floor, the stuff in it is old camping gear etc.). Instead, the leavers money went on paying bills and paying down debt that had accumulated from keeping the roof over everyone’s head over the past 4 years and also making sure the girl’s, while they were children, had fun and did not go without. I grew up poor, they most certainly did not.

Over time, as the dd’s grew up, I’ve gradually asked them to take more responsibility for themselves, as, like it or not, I consider that good parenting. They’ve been buying their own food for years as I considered it good for them to individually learn how to shop and cook on a budget. Them ‘buying their own food’ hides the fact that I gave them the money to individually budget their shop and I took them to the shop so they could get their food whilst I was getting mine. Yes, it almost certainly costs more to shop this way and added to the debt, but I was teaching life skills not just letting them go off to uni at 18 and hoping they worked it out for themselves. It was my intentional choice to do so and I considered it a cost worth paying as I wanted them leaving feeling confident they could be independent. Most importantly to me, both dd’s are very happy with my parenting choices and we have a great relationship. Neither dd ever went through the typical rebellious teenage phase because they just never needed to. We worked together as a team and made decisions together until they were happy enough to make decisions for themselves and I was confident they were making well considered choices. It is actually way more work to parent this way but worth it imo to give them life skills. I even banned the word ‘should’ from the house to stop me from just telling them what to do. Trust me, this was not the easy option!

It is probably worth adding that dd2 could have been at uni this year, but SHE chose to repeat a GCSE year so she could do the A levels she wanted to do rather than compromise. I supported that decision, I just ask that now she is an adult she pays towards the extra costs of her living here, which would not have been incurred had she have opted to go straight to A levels when everyone else did. She knew that would be the case when she made that decision. A DMP would not change that.

As I said before, the CAB have informed me that I would get ~£400pm to live on if I have to give up work. Exactly how would you have me take over the bills on that? It wouldn’t even pay the mortgage let alone pay for my other bills or the cost of hers. I get Child Benefit whilst she is in full time education, that is £108.20 every 4 weeks. That does not cover the cost of keeping her. I use it to pay towards what she uses in terms of utility bills, but that leaves £35pm short for the direct debits, so I ask her to pay that. It is not a lot. Yes, she also buys food and transport too, but that is because she chooses to work more so she can get a bus pass and eat whatever she wants, rather than live on cheaper food and walk or use the bike that I bought for her. Like I said, she is a grown adult who is making her own choices. The fact that the government no longer funds her for things like prescriptions and dentist visits etc, should tell you that it is not just me that deems her to be a fully fledged adult now. I am still there with lifts if something goes wrong, and I still buy more than enough food for me as I inevitably end up filling gaps where she hasn’t quite got it all sorted yet but that is part of me light-touch supporting her whilst she is learning. I’d much rather her make mistakes whilst she is still living at home and I can help, than do it all for her until the day she leaves and then let her sink or swim at uni.

I can tell you think as a parent I should be making all the decisions but as they are now all adults I just plain disagree with you on that one. Sure, when they were little it was indeed my job, but now they are grown, my parent role is to guide and support their decisions, not fund them indefinitely. dd1 decided to work through her A levels and she chose to also run a car. dd2 decided not to spend the money given to her on her 18th birthday on learning to drive or running a car, she chose instead to bank it and now has over £4000 sitting in the bank (personally I see that as evidence of success in terms of my plan to teach her the value of money!). I could have just kept that money for myself to cover the bills, told her not to get a job and made her focus on her A levels only. Personally, I don’t feel like that was in her best interests and even money aside I believe the job has helped dd2 as it has really helped bring her out of herself. Rather than be all controlling and make the decision for her, I chose to treat her like an adult and let her choose. The reality is if she so chose she could still in fact give up her job, use the money in her bank account to pay to cover her living expenses and have more time for her A levels. SHE is deciding to work more, keep her money in the bank and is now asking to split her A levels over two years. As she is an adult and I can see she has thought through what is best for her (not me), I will support HER decision even if it costs me financially (which it will), and even if it is not conventional and people consider me a bad parent for not forcing her to fit the conventional way of doing things.

I know everyone will see this differently but I personally worked from the age of 13 and left home at 17 with no money (half way through my A levels). I was very much loved but my mum didn’t have the money any more than I do now. I never expected my kids to get a job while they were school age but asking an 18 year old to learn to stand on their own two feet a bit is not being mean imo, it is good parenting.

Everyone is different. That is just my way and I wouldn’t change it regardless of if I had more money or wasn’t sick. I am very glad my mum taught me to be independent at a young age, I am merely passing on a more moderated version of that gift to my own children. I am very proud of the people they have become. 🙂

Oh and if by chance anyone is interested in where I looked for how to manage my teenagers without the word ‘should’, I can tell you I drew a lot of inspiration from a book called ‘Turn the ship around’ by David Marquet. It is actually a book about intentional leadership through the lens of a true life story of a submarine captain, rather than anything to do with parenting, but I found the principles very useful in strengthening communication, encouraging them to think for themselves to build confidence and yet still having guardrails that keep them safe.