Still Vegan, mis-diagnosed Bipolar (actually ADHD) and Debt-free since 2020

evkizzy

So many years since my last post on this forum. I have been through so many transformations and leveled up my financial knowledge several times but I hit a sort of wall in my progress and decided to compare how I'm doing now in my so-called "struggle" with how I was doing back when I was in hard-core get-out-of-debt mode.

Big life updates

2018 got a full time job (temp contract) to speed up debt busting.

2019 - had my bipolar diagnosis removed and investigation started.

2020 (Jan) became debt free -I put 75% of salary into clearing it and living extremely frugally.

2020 (Feb) found out my contract would end early, put 100% of salary into savings for 3 months. And then Covid and the lockdowns hit. Was jobless in first part of pandemic. Was in private therapy (could only afford because of job but was investing in my long term health) but was able to continue with what I saved from last few months of job.

2021 -started to slowly go outside and started life modelling again in larger spaces with masks etc. (2021-2022 were great for me as lots of models retired in pandemic so I was getting a lot of modelling work, which I decided to focus on as a job).

Fast forward to now (August 2025) - I have been continually upgrading the professionalism of my modelling, contacting bigger galleries and institutions, having a website and setting my own prices. I have just celebrated 1 year of running my own life drawing classes almost weekly in a professional artists studio.

Me and SO still try to live on 1 salary (his- which has risen as he has climbed the corporate ladder) and I am committed to putting away half of all my earnings into savings and investments. (I still work part time but I get so burned out after lots of work that ai have to take regular breaks for my health to maintain my level of productivity).

I have been using monthly HYSA from Lloyds Bank (when it was 6.5%) and am only my 2nd year with First Direct's Regular Saver (7% and I put the max (£300) away each month).

When I got to 6k in savings, I started trickling it into investing (Nov 2024).

Got myself a tiny amount of BTC and ETH in 2022 as an experiment (I could afford to lose the £120 I put in each) and they're both doing well (BTC is up 189%).

To balance the risk I also put the same amount into NS&I premium bonds which I add to about once a year if there is spare money available.

My SO bought a house (I wasnt allowed on mortgage as I haven't been able to keep a job paying more than 12k a year for more than 2 years). The house (bought early 2021) needs major repairs but we're living in it so we're creating equity instead of renting and are close to getting the roof fixed (£15k through equity release-in remortgaging process now. Roofers are on standby for when we get the cash out).

Now I've written that out I'm going to feel rubbish admitting this but I've started using my CC again and it's entirely down to loss of expected Summer income.

I was so caught up in the excitement of "money can make more money" that I overstretched the amounts I was locking away into "untouchable" savings and investments and then put more into investments than I should have (I'm glad I did as it worked out in my favour in terms of "buying the dip" and lowering my averages for future me to enjoy but I'm now left with depleted accessible savings and disposable income is now 0 until I get paid again in 2 weeks.

I confess I was feeling pretty unstoppable. I had a friend got an unexpected huge charge from pandemic and couldn't afford rent so I paid it for her (which felt pretty amazing to be able to help) but since then there has been one mini emergency after unplanned problem after another.

I spent £100s on vet bills (all on CC as I knew my savings were looking small). I'd lent rent money, bought a new vacuum cleaner, I paid a deposit for a weekend retreat and had a few really good (£££) nights out for the first time in years.

Then I had the first month of not doing well at my studio (Summer holidays, folks get busy with family and going away), resulting in cancelling a session that meant refunding everyone's ticket money (that I'd been paid 2 months before and already spent on the above).

There's no real point to this post, dear reader, if you got this far, other than to say I feel like things are falling apart and I'm not on track or hitting my career/financial goals, but after typing out how far, I've come since I was last on this forum, things suddenly don't seem as dark when I look at how far I've come.

And if I can turn my life around in 5-10 years then so can you.

-£10k to +£15k in 10 years