Overdue Update

As usual. But I've Done Some Things. First I submitted Little X's citizenship application ($400 and a lot of messing about) and the I discovered, to my disgust, that she doesn't get an automatic bridging visa 😒 meaning she needed a full 12-month tourist visa ($500 more) and a temporary bridging visa (free, thank dog). Neither application has processed, weeks later. 😒

Fighting Medicare yet again. Seriously! Vaccinations on hold until they (again) believe she's allowed to have them. 💉 You know, just in case she has ceased to be a British citizen at some point in the past 7 weeks. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I am still cash stuffing ☺️ and still filming it ☺️ and while I'd never consider it YouTube Star material, it keeps me on track. I also gave home delivery a try for my groceries and while I do love the ease and the service, I'm blowing the food budget non-stop. 😭 It's just so easy to buy things I wouldn't lug home on the bus. 😭 So this week I am trying to eat from the freezer. 

The flat sale drags on. I bought a printer because of all the places needing paper forms... It's a bit ridiculous in 2026 to say the least. It isn't cheaper, but it's certainly easier than dragging Little X to the library or office shop. 

I've fought myself mentally over and over on what I'll do once I have the flat sold. Realistically the standard "buy a house" dream isn't likely to be within reach, so I'm currently weighing up the logistics of getting a caravan. The current options are tiny vs bigger, and stay put vs travel, and whether I also buy cheap land (can't camp on it long term anyway). Decisions, decisions. 

Stop Press: Medicare finally approved, but no sign of the card after weeks of waiting. We've both had a cold, anyway, so at least the missing Medicare card wasn't the reason for her next jab being delayed. 

The Loud Hush

It's been completely quiet from my solicitor now for an entire week. I paid for the info pack eight days ago and it takes the building manager 7-14 days to hand it over... So the buyer is also twiddling his thumbs, no doubt, wondering what kind of surprises might lurk in that pile of documents.

My fridge and sofa are in place 😍 and I'm thrilled to have both. But, me being me, I'm now focused all the "I haven't got" items and I'm thoroughly pissed off with the floor in particular. It's filthy dirty and I can't clean it. Our feet are always black and all I can feel underfoot are crumbs and grit. Little X then walks that completely across the bedsheets (since the mattress is on the floor and I can't keep her off it). My auntie has a mop which I'll be getting hold of in a few days, but my sister had ideas about giving me a Christmas vacuum - I can't wait weeks, I'll lose the plot. I may need to beg to borrow hers for a whip over the floor this weekend, before I go crazy.

Centrelink partly decided I exist, messed it up, and then took an hour on the phone to fix it. Not an hour in a queue, an hour of them typing, asking me to wait a minute, typing more, checking with a colleague, etc. Thankfully they also got my tax debt repayments paused for a few months. I'm still waiting for the second benefit to be processed. Hopefully it's before New Year. 🙄 The tax people, incidentally, decided my date of birth, passport, tax file number and address aren't enough proof of who I am, and have told me to post in a form. 🙄

These distractions are irritating but probably for the best, because the first anniversary of losing my mum is at the end of the week. We're going to sit with her then have lunch after. It'll be the first time I see her grave. I'm a little bit in a fog when I think about it all. 😔

Mile-Long List

In a sort-of order of urgency. Which is unfortunately not the order I'd prefer to follow. 🙄

• Fridge - on the way
• Washing machine (arrives January) 
• Mattress (got it) 
• Whipper Snipper to tame the grass - it's really hot and dry for now so it isn't growing, touch wood
• Vacuum cleaner (being gifted by a relative) 
• Mop and bucket (ditto) 
• Bed frame, quilt, cotton sheets (got the sheet) 
• Sofa (on the way) 
• Drawers and wardrobes
• Rug for living room

The IKEA order arrived. It's completely wrong. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I unrolled my new mattress, but it was the wrong one 🤦🏻‍♀️ and there were two more wrong ones on my patio 🤦🏻‍♀️ and no chairs, sheets, mattress protector or coffee table that I actually ordered. Unimpressed. 😒 They eventually got the right mattress out but still screwed that up - two identical ones turned up and the delivery driver had to be cajoled into only leaving one, and that yes, he did also have to take three incorrect ones away, not two. I cancelled everything else they were sending and dragged Little X out on the bus, in the heat, to buy a single stool and some bedding so we could actually function. 

Fortune then decided to shine on me ☀️ and the house down the street also threw out two outdoor chairs and a high-backed dressing chair. As you can see the chair is a mess of furniture chalk paint and it's coming off with a good scrub. It'll only have a vague black-scratched look. I think it will be great for hanging jeans etc that I want to wear again the next day.  

I am still waiting for Medicare and Centrelink to care that I exist. They take forever and are grossly ineffective on the phone - you don't get to speak with the ones who make any decisions, and whether they'll accept my mixed load of documents is always a guessing game - and if they don't, they do not tell you, it's up to you to call and say, hey, is everything OK? No, no, it's not, try sending this and then call back in 3 days to see if it's acceptable. Too bad for someone who was actually homeless and penniless, right? I have the roof but until yesterday was sharing a blow up single mattress with a toddler and had nothing to sit on... And was seriously thinking my first rent payment might not get made... I actually thought I'd be cooking up luncheon meat for every meal this week (and I shopped for it accordingly). Yes, it's all Ritz luxury around here. 🙄

Fortunately a payment I'd been waiting on arrived, and I'm just going to add that my sister gave me a huge bag of food, unasked. 😍 So I had enough to order my sofa and to cover food for another ten days. And also, I made the most delicious dinner today with luncheon meat. 😁 

The Seven-Day Fog

I don't quite know how, but we made it. We've been here a week and it's been a roller coaster. The plane ride was exhausting but surviveable. We've been out every day since chasing up papers and forms and and and.

The accommodation didn't work out (filthy and they asked me to leave as Little X was too loud at night... Yes thanks I will have that refund). My sister has kindly taken us in. 

Income support won't even be processed for another 3-4 weeks. 😔 We have money to get by, but without that regular income proof, renting is near impossible. I applied for a place that looked great, but as expected we were turned down flat. I suspect that's going to be the first of many. I'm putting more applications in every time I see a good place.

Cannot relax at all. I'm in someone else's home, Little X never stops moving and I'm continually worried she'll break something or hurt herself. I'm so primed for our own place. I really just want to be hunting down furniture and establishing a routine. 

Holding Onto Potential

It occurred to me I'm doing this in so many aspects of my life. I have successfully decluttered more than 90% of my holdings, items that crowded up my flat and my life for years, things I kept because they were potentially worth money. I was holding them all while not addressing the reality of who I am, which is: a person of more optimism than action.

I've found the last 10% quite difficult. I've made mental excuses for weeks. Even the last bit of the painting, which will be a hallelujah moment, I have delayed. I haven't felt "ready" for what it will mean (dealing with the floor) which is in turn a delaying tactic on selling my flat. Because selling now feels like I copped out. The flat wasn't renovated to get the maximum profit, it didn't meet potential, yarda. I don't even want to deal with the floor because again, maximum potential would be new carpet and I can't afford that... More lost potential. And all of it, summed up, is lost potential on the money I will (won't) have afterwards which, I fear, will not be enough to do even basic existence.

I've decided I will go back to Australia. Day-to-day living, while expensive, is far less punitive to families with children. Even given the exchange rate and cost of living, the UK is keeping us in absolute poverty and Australia would double our standard of living. Thus is the realisation I probably can't afford to buy any kind of housing with the sale proceeds of this flat. And the hesitation in eroding even 1% of that by not renovating as best I can.

But reality demands I go back to two things: I'm going backwards financially week-on-week, so renovating only gets harder and the deadline for overdue maintenance fees only gets closer. And two, I am a person of more optimism than action.

So the tack has stepped up a gear and now I'm not decluttering 90% in order to move house, I'm decluttering 99% in order to be reduced to three suitcases. It is really, really difficult. Send mojo. 

Feeling Super, Super

Super, super sorry for myself. Yesterday I was flexing like a boss for being on track with my painting deadline, decided to get ahead while Little X was having her daytime nap, and... one shoulder began screaming, which called a halt. Today I got another patch done before my legs began wobbling (I have learned to stop climbing ladders with the wobbles). 

On top of that I've got horrible hayfever with sneezing and crying thrown in. Related: absolutely exhausted and trying not to fall asleep all day. I have absolutely rotten physical fitness and zero stamina. I need to remember the aim. To live in a place where I actually want to walk down the street, where I've got a space for flowers of my own, and where I actually do those things (walk, and garden). I just need to keep my feet going forwards and more tasks ticked off my mental list. ✅ 

Good Stuff stack sorted ✅ but still too much of it and hard decisions need to be made. Next up will be more paperwork and some "crap boxes" to sort.

Two more bank defaults. ✅ That's 9 out of 11. They've locked me out of the apps so I will have to set up token payments manually. 

I cashed out £80 from Testerup 👏 and found another gaming rewards app too, so I'm trying that out. 

Spendy McSpenderson: clear pouches. There are loads of little things I want to sort through and not bin, so this will let me corral them and see what's inside. I also bought loads of things that were sat in my checkout list for weeks - I did actually think carefully and take my time before buying! 

Flex: I added some more money into the moving fund and it felt good. 

Mojo Recovered

So in the past few days, I have Done Some Stuff™ and while each of them is actually ridiculously minor, collectively I have been kinda busy. At least busy enough to legitimately declare that I've got my mojo back, at least for now.

I have:

• Emptied two kitchen cupboards, discovering five exploded lager cans 🤢 (which have effectively destroyed the under-sink shelf). I also poured out five more which were years out of date. I don't even like lager, they were free from my old work and I never got around to giving all of them away. That's what I get for not wanting them wasted! This level of "rescuing things" has got to stop. 
• Found and corralled loads of cleaning supplies 
• Sawn down a black tub to make an under-sink recycling bin - hey, it works well when the shelving is fubar'd! 
• Painted a door frame and skirting board
• Moved a wardrobe and chest of drawers (making space to move the bed, to paint behind) 
• Disassembled and given away a desk
• Listed my office chair to give away
• Disassembled and listed my cage shelving for sale

Unfortunately, I've now got jelly arms, so I'm going to have to give myself an evening off. 

I also deleted more than a thousand emails and unsubscribed from about 20 market research firms. I have earned money with them in the past, but I've had far too little interest lately, and it was just noise. They will all have me back if and when!

I'm going to try a "self-care" app to see if it helps me keep motivated. It lets you includes "paint a wall" as a daily task 😁 so let's see.

Spendy McSpenderson: £8 on some toys for Little X. 😘

Kitchen Triumphs

My kitchen did look like a war zone temporarily, but that's because I batch cooked spaghetti bolognese sauce. I decided to try it with added red lentils for the first time, to stretch my mince out, and I used one jar of sauce plus half a tin of tomato soup. It ended up making 6 portions.

Verdict: young Miss Fussy Pants ate an entire bowl without stopping. 🎉 I was pleasantly surprised at the texture. It needed to be a richer sauce (I will use tomato paste instead of soup next time). But it was definitely nice and I'll make it with lentils again in future.

I also bought three new things to try, since the aforementioned MFP needs more variety and more vegetables. She ate spring rolls exactly once 😒 so I wasn't expecting much from veggie gyozas but to my surprise, she ate them. She turned her nose up at Chicken Moneybags 💰 but between you, me and the internet, they were awful so I'm on Team MFP in rejecting those. Then we had a win with mini Steak Bakes. 👏

Frozen Supermarket has loads of party foods so we may just go for a wander one day soon.

I officially have enough saved to sell this place even though I'm still not able to do so - because, boringly, I still need to amass enough to pay a deposit for a future rental. 😒 Oh well, at least now it feels less depressing. 

Ruminations And Relocations

The redecoration has sat still for a week because I've been preoccupied. My son, Jay, finally lost patience with the miserable job market in Finland and is currently on a plane back to Australia. There's a small part of me that's sad about this, he has three family members there who will miss him dearly and it's a pity that he wasn't able to build a life there. But given how hard he has studied and tried, and just how demoralising it's been for him, I am really excited for him to start afresh in Australia with my sister and aunts. ♥️

My War Chest (or lack of) is the more pressing reason for my downer mood of late. It isn't enough to do the bare minimums which all compete for my attention - renewing the lease (£800), paying the service charge (£1100) and moving costs after I sell (£1800). Not renewing the lease could cost me five figures on the sale price, the sale might be blocked altogether if I don't pay the service charge up front, and I can't go anywhere with nowhere to go. It's like coming to a crossroads but all directions are dead ends. And staying where I am isn't appetising at all, winter in this dark flat is not fun.

I did at least order samples of flooring for the living room. I fancy myself as a vinyl floor-fitter, since I can't afford to buy carpet or have anything installed. I've also cleared my desk and I will get rid of it this week - I don't use it and less furniture to move will make flooring more doable. 

Expenses list redone... The emergency fund seems pointless while everything springs up in front of it. And my maintenance charges mount each month (I have £62 left over each month and fuel needs to come out of that... I don't want to think about my insurance renewals in the new year). 

Must muster more mojo.

Kitchen Shenanigans

So I vaguely had in mind to cook properly from scratch once a week and also bake something once a week. But this is me. 😂 I will say it was immensely satisfying to rejig my kitchen and it now feels like a room I like using again. ✅ 

The first Monday I bought Carrot Cake fixings and then realised I'd forgotten cream cheese for the icing. 😑 I made Courgette Muffins instead. They worked, but were too heavy on the veg so were overly moist rather than chocolatey. We both did eat some, but they didn't keep well and a few ended up binned.

For dinner I tried hamburger patties on the frypan (I haven't used the stove top for years!) and they were a big hit with Little X. ✅

I also made a dessert, white choc marshmallow with cereal pressed in. This was amazing. It's Rice Crispy Bars from the supermarket except more, and however you prefer it. I just made it up as I went along. Little X ate some but absolutely hated the sunflower seeds and that caused some drama. 🎭

The second week I cooked Tuna Mornay. This ended up with "mmmmmm" at high volume 😂 so I think we found another food she'll eat. We also had meatballs in savoury rice - not from scratch really but another food she will eat. ✅  For baking I made banana bread tonight. Ladies and gentlemen it's the fluffiest cake I think I've ever eaten. It's definitely delicious but the jury is out as to whether a cake this soft will stay edible after 2 days.

If it lasts that long.

She also enjoyed fresh pikelets this week. 😋 

I now have 5 defaults and 2 more say they will default me. As they do so, I am beginning a £2/month payment to each one. To my great surprise one debt recovery company wrote to me accepting £2 a month as an ongoing arrangement 😲 despite me not asking if that was OK 😲 and it isn't even the smallest debt. I am now hoping others do the same - they manage 3 other debts of mine so we shall see. 🤞

Microwave is an absolute disaster and I'm using it as little as possible. Air fryers are on sale this week for £25 🤔 and I am also pondering a £6 saucepan since I don't own one. And a £7 frypan as both mine are awful. 🤔 

The Decluttering Secret

I have decluttered about 90 bags or boxes of things from my home. Ultimately, I am aiming for 100, and I am now at the point where I can see everything left to pare down, in about 6 crates. 💪

So what's the secret? It's not what I always thought. I had always thought that hoarders are unnaturally attached to things of no value. But no. It is about being realistic with yourself. 

It's losing the "scarcity" mentality. The knee-jerk reaction to never discarding anything because you don't have enough of something and you equate "not having it" to deprivation, either physically, or mentally. 

I had a shocking habit of buying or salvaging anything I might need in future, doing it because I knew I might not have the money to buy it later, or it was an opportunity for me to sell it and earn money. Well guess what, stuff is not useful while cluttering up your valuable space. It's not helpful when you aren't touching it for months. And it isn't worth ANY money while sat in your house.

I took a more honest look at myself, was I really going to use it, fix it or sell it? If I'd had it a year, the chances I'd touch it were pretty slim, so I gathered my adulting and got rid - I'd just deal with buying one if need be. And I didn't need multiple projects that I wasn't completing. One or two is enough! 

This morning I binned a dozen microfibre cloths and ten tea towels. I can surely find a couple of pounds when they wear out. I literally threw five quid in the bin but gained a cupboard for the next five years. That's a win, imagine, a nice clear cupboard for one pound per year! Two pence a week... that's nothing. It's repeated every time I clear space. And it's an absolute bargain for how the clear space benefits my mental well-being. 🙏 

Funky Few Days

While scrubbing, sorting and tidying my bathroom paraphernalia I contemplated just how many invisible and unaccountable home maintenance tasks just exist. What a ridiculous amount of cleaning and tidying and stuff-organisation we have to do, tasks which leave absolutely no evidence you even did them. 🤔 And also for renovations. I will continue to scrub, spray, scrape, wipe, wash, prime, paint, install, and voilà. And at the end it will be a nice looking old bay window with nice features, but no indication of all the work involved or how it used to look.

It's being delayed right now as my knee has decided to cease functioning as a useful joint, so the ladder isn't happening. I've painted part with primer. It reeks, and there's not a way to keep the smell away from Little X, so I'm not doing the whole lot in one go. I also lifted the carpet in one corner. It's herringbone parquetry floor 😲 which should be a no-brainer to show off, but it's not level and would be freezing cold. I might remove a strip of walkway of it, see if it's good enough to paint white. Might.

I own far too many cleaning cloths, hand towels and tea towels. Perhaps I would have known this if I'd actually sorted out my washing pile before now. I really could solve linens taking up too much room by culling most of the spares...

Still procrastinating on my paperwork. Must find motivation.

Avoidance As Standard

My renovation to-do list is not short, and somehow it seems easier to do the physical work than the paperwork-y admin-y things. I've done some more stripping, scrubbing, filling holes and sanding. Oh, and spraying, wiping, scrubbing, and mopping walls and floors. The lino in the kitchen defies cleaning. I am eyeing up new lino flooring, it would only cost me around £40 for that room, but so far, I'm making myself slow down and am doing one project at a time. (I may or may not have also priced up new lino for the bathroom floor too. And vinyl to cover the bathroom tiles. Ahem.)

Little X had her last day at nursery. 😢 But at least I took advantage of that time, to get some handiwork done. We are now potty training. So far it's a disaster. Give me strength to keep up with the washing! 🙏 

Good girl: I have actually depleted my freezer for the first time in about a year. It only has dregs of things, enough to feed kidlet for another few dinners.

Hugely annoying: Little X was almost climbing out of her mini cot 😒 so, grrr, I've had to take the side off before she fell out. This sucks, as I've had to move most of my storage to stop her getting into it all while I'm asleep. Everything touchable has had to go in the dining area, beyond the baby gate. The flat is back to "all furniture shoved stupidly wherever it fits". Sigh. I need to re-gather my enthusiasm for having even less stuff, so that I can have even less furniture.

Spendy McSpenderson: I decided against the rigmarole of installing net curtains. IKEA had some ridiculously cheap blinds (which are, honestly, cheap, flimsy-looking, ridiculous and £4 each) but I've bought them and I will see whether I'll get away with them. 🙏 

High Ceilings: Boooo.

I don't recommend these, for reasons of painting and extra heating bills, but primarily for my current trial of hanging wallpaper. At 2pm on Tuesday I decided there was plenty of time to hang one length before nursery pick-up time at 3. Gentle Reader, I was wrong. 😂

I'm currently irritable because said nursery is breaking up 2 days before the end of term, meaning she only gets 2 more sessions. I have 7 lengths of papering to do (circa 4-5 hours) plus the stripping and prepping around the windows, which is a horrendous job. If I manage those two things, it's the best I can expect. I will have to do all painting with kiddo in the flat. I did most of the first coat at night, but good daylight really would have been better for painting. 🤷🏻‍♀️

With each task and tidy out I move another piece of furniture. Things are almost in logical places, which is a first in several years. My flat almost looks like a normal flat, planned and arranged with purpose, instead of a "space where you shove things wherever they fit".

Just as I'm feeling ready to sell it, it feels like a home. 😂

Win: I went to German Supermarket and spent £25 to get my free £5 voucher. 👏 I also got a free savoury rice packet and a free big bag of cheese curl crisps that Little X likes. I also... ahem... bought two Monstera plants for £6 each (Swiss Cheese plants) which don't yet have their characteristic leaf holes but do still look lovely. 😍

Plus: £50 has been credited to my council tax account as expected. 👍 They also finally processed my application for general support and are sending £100 - no idea when. 👍

A Pressie, Of Sorts

I got a letter from Personal Loan Bank which was a strange surprise. They say they won't be taking legal action and that the Notice of Default they sent last week, warning of possible legal action, was only sent to me because they had to, by law. No other bank has sent such a "no need to panic" - type letter like this. 🤔  It's the only bank I owe five figures to, so this was nice to read.

I haven't caught up with my money podcasts for months (or the weekly money-saving emails) and I kept thinking I must get around to them all. But truth be told, I haven't found anything in them that I need in a long time. I've been poverty-level hesitant to spend for years, but now it's more that I just don't want any more stuff coming into my home. Not a bad thing! 😂 

Another set of shelves given away today too. 👍

Spent half an hour with a British Gas idiot. No thanks I don't need to change my home circumstances on your register, please just reissue my bill because with the updated meter read I supplied a week ago, and my missed smart meter installation credit of £40, I should be in credit. That painful explanation convo took 15 minutes of text. .. I'm now £20 in credit so at least they'll stop sending bill renunders. But he still forgot the £40 that I specifically asked him to do. Then when I asked how long those £40 credits normally take to show up, he asked if it was an appointment for installing a boiler. No mate, a smart meter, like I told you. I don't usually give a poor rating for CSAs but I'm afraid that asking for my bank statement (yes, he asked for my bank statement, wtf) helped Dhruv score a 3/10.

Quietly confident that Little X's digestion is recovered. Another few rounds of toast, dry cereal and crackers, just to make sure. 

Minor Derailment

Little X has a tummy bug and while she's in good spirits, the exclusion period is probably going to mean she misses at least a day of nursery. This is so bloody irritating on limited "messy renovation work" time. 

I have 1.5 walls left to prep and am downgrading to "basic prep" with self-adhesive grey patterned wallpaper for the longest wall. Nobody cares about decor in a "renovator's dream", I just need to upgrade from "bare ugly wall" level so that it almost looks like it's immediately habitable. Just got to sand and wash without a small person in attendance, then paint the other walls, which are ready to go. 

I had a brilliant win yesterday offloading twelve bags to the baby bank, who were just fine with taking it all. It wasn't even all of it. I stopped myself at 3 lots of nappies. There's still six bin bags on my bed ready to go, but I'll give them a few weeks to recover first! 😂 It also marks three quarters of the total stuff I am aiming to offload - 75 bags. 🎉 

Little X is growing so fast and I'm increasingly conscious she's getting older. It's a good reminder to keep me motivated, we need a more suitable home, and it's time. I can do this.

Smart meter installation booked for this week - I'm in two minds but it at least gives me more insight to my electricity usage. 

All The Eggs!

That title isn't related to the post, it's just something Norri says in excitement when discussing her Shakshuka breakfast on Hey Duggee. This past few days it feels like I got all the green lights. 

Anyway. Work has kindly let me out of my notice period and Nursery has kindly done the same, and allowed Little X just to attend for 6h on funded ("free") hours from now. So starting next week I'll have six weeks to tidy and clear out. I keep talking about this but it's on my mind a lot as I want to move furniture and can't really do that until I have a kiddo-free flat - so next week it begins.

The great big minus is that it's six months since I lost my mum. It feels like it happened to another person. It feels both totally detached and yet very raw, and both yesterday and a century ago. It feels both sharp reality and just a bad dream.

I follow a lady who kindly calls herself an Uninfluencer, she is utterly normal and unaffected, which is why people like her. This week she posted a tidbit about herself. She said that six years ago she lost her mum and became acutely aware that her own time was finite and she wasn't using her time on earth in meaningful ways. She wasn't doing all the things she wanted to do "someday" and felt she needed to reprioritise to avoid having regrets. Within 12 months she gave away her stuff, quit her job, sold her house and went in another direction. That resonates with me. I don't have the "new direction" chosen physically, but I am steering my life in a new way. Financially and in terms of my home space and possessions.

What I liked most is that she has stuck with her new way of life for five years. It gives me hope. I have always struggled to make changes stick and right now I am amazed at still having decluttering motivation. A workmate, who also lost someone, reflected that when you lose someone you decide what's important, and that work doesn't "matter" anymore in the scheme of things, and I understood.

I am looking forward to building a purposeful life. For almost 50 years I have coasted along and it's time to only do what matters. It's time to get further into my own chosen stride and stop doing the dumb things others do without thinking. 

UC Shenanigans

UC declined to pay for my childcare from the Flexible Support Fund due to a dumb technicality, meaning I had 3 working days to magic the money. They then decided to waste time instead of processing a budgeting loan. I managed to get it done on the phone today in four minutes flat (nice work call centre, thank you) and I should have it in a couple of days. I then got an automated message in my journal that it's approved, with details of my repayment schedule, followed by a human response 10h later that I'm not eligible for it. I hope the latter is a dumb mistake, but it's so bloody annoying! I've fired off a rant and demanded a mandatory reconsideration - I want to knock out my maintenance arrears as well. UC should then also reimburse the child care in around a month under the standard deal. Touch wood.

I've felt really flat for the past week and I'm mentally drained. I'm still struggling just to give things away when a little voice is trying to tell me to stop and sell it. I got so fed up with this "property anchor" clutter that I've just deactivated my Vinted page and loaded up five bags for the charity shop. 👏

I bought a toasted sandwich maker yesterday to make pancakes in, and it's beyond disappointing - it is just so slow that it's impractical, 20 minutes to even vaguely look done. Once I recover from the disappointment I might try as thin crepes.

I did manage to sell my dining table + 2 chairs, for £20 (I never used it) and gifted them two extra folding chairs as well. I have someone coming to buy my white wardrobe for £25 - when you never open it, you don't need it OR its contents. 😂 I will be glad of a little bit more space.

Invoices and Paradigm Shifts

I have received my first childcare invoice and am in the process of having it reimbursed by Universal Credit. And apparently, I also have the option of a budgeting advance of £800. The world doesn't end if they say no, but it would feel good to have my maintenance arrears taken care of. It would help motivate me to get the flat ready for sale.

Along those lines I did a big shop at German Supermarket on UC day and while I was there I spotted paint for £13. In white. So I bought two. It was like cementing a major decision, yes, I'm now mentally committed to a very minor flat makeover. It's like putting lipstick on a pig, but first impressions matter, and it might mean £1,000 more on the sale price. 🙏

The grocery component came to £42, which is on the high side. It was intentional though... In my new mindset of not clinging to every object, I'm also relaxing the vice grip on penny-pinching. There's so many things I've denied myself and Little X which are beyond fair. This week she's had fruits and nuts she's never tried before. Party rings. Flavoured crisps. Orange squash. I know a toddler doesn't need all this every day, but it's well overdue for her to have a touch of normality. I don't want her to grow up terrified of spending every penny. I will still choose budget options, but no more basic denial of entire food groups.

Bought: £100 voucher for above-mentioned German Supermarket, then Everup had a 6.25% offer for Fave Mainstream Supermarket so I spent another £100 on that. Between them I got loads of points and played them through the games, ended up with £13 in the account for my next voucher. These vouchers also help steer me away from Nearby Less Cheap Supermarket. 👍

Actionism

I'm sure that's not a word, but it was my attempt not to accidentally re-use a previous heading. Anyway, twice this week after taking Little X to nursery and hacking up a lung, I Got Stuff Done™, two major pieces of furniture are emptied and ready for sale, several items are ready to give away, a huge bag of stuff went into the bin and I gathered 9 bags for charity. I donated them this afternoon and it felt really good to be free of them. I even managed two loads of washing. 😇

The milestone is that a quarter of my excess stuff is now gone. I am aiming for 100 bags and that's 25 done. 💪

Debt Charity asked why I hadn't paid my May instalment and I snapped back with the cancellation agreement they sent me in March. I then got an enquiry of was I having problems affording the May payment or had something happened to affect my budget? I had to shout (in text) to make them try reading what I sent them, and that they clearly hadn't cancelled things like they promised. So that was entertaining. The first bank has actually notified me they've defaulted 🎉 although I can't see it anywhere on my credit files yet. It's still a waiting game. 

Feeling: energised.