Wardrobe Refresh

We only arrived at the baby bank with 15 minutes to spare, because for the eleventieth time I forgot how long it takes to get a small person fed, changed and out the door. I handed over her baby walker, her bath seat, a microwave steriliser, a potty and a baby carrier, and I feel so much lighter for those things being given away. Little X is outgrowing her long-sleeve tops so I had a quick look and found a few, plus a couple of t-shirts, dresses and leggings. While they were in the washer I managed to sort out her clothes. There's simply no need for her to have 15 of anything now that she's outgrown the reflux, and it was beyond time for me to adjust the sheer numbers. Ten pairs of squeezy trousers have been bagged up, and it felt good.

I have ordered a little clothing stamper to put her name in all the clothes she will wear to child care. 😊 It's £3, I'm a little bit dubious it'll be any good, but worth a punt. I've also paid £5 for a press stud kit, she keeps unfastening the straps on her sleeping bag 😑 which is a pain because she then climbs out of it or trips around in her cot with it around her feet. An extra popper will soon stop that!

Second childcare centre tour: utterly unprofessional and disappointing, they showed me the wrong room full of older kids, didn't show me the baby room even when I asked, and it turns out they don't even have a space. Ridiculous. Back to the drawing room for my search.

I know it will be years before I can escape this flat (or escape the worst of this debt... you can look at it either way!) but now, finally, with actively getting rid of stuff, I feel like there's a sort of purpose I've been lacking since forever. I had felt not just trapped but also unable to even plan or move on anything at all. That's a shitty way to be, not to have goals or aspirations, a raison d'être, but now I've reframed it kinda, and it's a big plus-one to well-being. If I can't do anything else I can at least pare down the possessions so that moving is easier, if and when. I can take my time since it won't be soon. But moving forwards is something. It feels like progress.

Waaaaah

I realised today that no, I do not qualify for the "free" childcare hours yet. I would need to be working three days a week and I don't think I'm ready to put Little X into care that many days, let alone myself back into work that many days. I'm still going along, to see if I like it, the option is still there just to pay the full fee for a 1 or 2 days and claim 85% back. Here's hoping the price works out and Boss gives me the exact days and times to fit.

I went into one of the German Supermarkets today and they had some boots that caught my eye. Warm lining, loose but not wellies, and even in the right size without strangling my fat feet. £9 and they came home with me, I had been thinking I needed to find new trainers, but it turns out that in January I can buy comfy loose slip on boots instead.

I had a good chat with my sister during the week and I'm struck by how much better we get on now than when we were younger. We just agree on a lot more nowadays and it has surprised me a lot of late. Most of our adult lives have been about completely different lifestyles and attitudes, but now there are so many things each of us consider important, that we never did before. Yes, we've found ourselves in a situation where only one other person really gets it - not just the loss of our mum, but all the family politics that have come along with that - but there's also a certain synergy in the way we've re-prioritised what we want from the years we have left on this earth.

Losing someone really makes you reevaluate what's important. Nearly everybody knows this, but it's really hit home recently, for both of us. We keep stating ideas, plans, small things we've done or changed this week, and so often, we've pointed out this mindset change as the reason. It's good, I think. I do still have loads and loads of general intertia on everyday tasks. But I'm taking small steps which is a start. I bravely sorted out four bags of baby stuff today to give away, stuff which I could have sold but which realistically would take forever for me to ever do. The few pounds involved wasn't worth the toll it took on my cramped space. No it isn't frugal, but I am hanging on too tightly to "stuff" and need to release a huge load of it for my mental health.

I have about 15 days to find the last £132 that I need to cover bills this month. I've made £45 in the investment account and hopefully can make the same again. There's £100 sat in my Nationwide Savings Account which I can use if need be. 😂 I realise the concept of saving is ridiculous while in deep debt, but last year you needed to do that to get the Fairer Share payment, so it's a punt I'm taking by leaving cash in there now and then.

Off to the Baby Bank tomorrow. Must jettison those bags of baby stuff before I bring anything else into the flat.

PS I completely forgot. I am still receiving the constant barrage of emails from various "credit score" apps and websites, usually telling blatant lies ("You're likely to see eight credit card offers!" and "You can consolidate to a loan today!") because, spoiler, no credit card companies will offer me anything and no consolidation loans want to touch me, not even while secured on my flat. I mostly ignore them but today one said I could refinance my car. Now you've got my attention. Turns out that yes, I had a 90% chance to be approved. At double the interest for the same amount and term that I already have.  I think I'll pass on that one. Curiously, I could actually extend the loan to reduce the repayments.

Existing: £3,500 for 29 months at 11.5%, repayments are £142.

New: Extending to 60 months at 18% and repayments are £91.

I'm kind of disgusted with myself that I'm considering this, 18% isn't a good offer and that's a couple of thousand more in interest. But it's cash flow I am struggling with right now. I have held off for the moment as I know that even while theory says I can put that extra £50 on the worst credit card, reality says the car may not last five years and I'll still be paying it off. So I will twiddle my thumbs and hope I get offered something better if I am patient.

Bleh

Mental fatigue has crept into everything. This page has sat open for hours and I keep switching to other things instead of writing. In between, I have been silly enough to calculate how long it will take me to get out of debt. 😂 The first major debt to reach payoff is the car, with 29 months remaining, and then there is the flat, with 42 months remaining. Assuming I can even keep up with minimum repayments. 👿 I know that the only realistic prospect of that is in going back to work.

I qualify for "free childcare" for Little X of 11 hours per week. I can then pay for extra hours at an hourly rate. Most centres also charge a consumables fee on top of the "free hours". I can claim part of any extra hours' fees if I need more than 11 hours per week, but I get no rebate on consumable fees. 😭

So we went to see one centre, but their consumable fee is so high that working wouldn't be worthwhile. Next week I'm viewing a less pricey place, and here's hoping that I like them. Then I need to hope that Big Boss will let me work a fixed one day per week. I could probably pay for a second day, but their hourly fee would again make it a very expensive exercise. In any case, one day of work will help.

Win: a £100 market research task coming up in February (I'm not sure when I will get paid). It's a food product test. I am subject to confidentiality clauses but yeah, it's baby food. 😊 It took three emails from them before I summoned the energy to apply and I'm glad that I did.

Win/Lose: My car passed its MOT. I also got a repair done which they told me about last year but which I put off (only £80 to my surprise and delight). Annoyingly, it does have a suspension slight leak and some surface rust on the underside. They expect it may fail next year. I am disgusted to say the least, this is how the last car became worthless. The issue this time is that it's on a Hire Purchase Agreement (car loan) meaning I couldn't sell it even if I wanted to. All I can do is cross my fingers that it passes next year or doesn't cost a fortune to repair.

A Pinned Insect

Have you ever seen a butterfly in a glass display box? It's got a steel pin straight though it, holding it in place. Even if it were alive it wouldn't be going anywhere. It is trapped. That's how I feel financially and mentally in this too-small flat with too many belongings.

I've taken a few extra holiday pay hours and my time off will now end in July (or August, if I were to also take my allowed four weeks of unpaid leave). Tomorrow is Monday and it's time to start calling one nursery after another, hoping one of them has space for Little X, and the sooner she can start, the better. I don't want to go back to work but there is no longer a choice, and, mentally I know it has to happen now to preserve my sanity. 

We're both still snotty and not yet on a good schedule, she attempts to go for her "night time sleep" at 4pm and is napping every few hours through the day. We need to get back to the outside world, visit some playgroups, and I need to rejoin the gym as soon as I have a nursery place for her.

I also haven't done any investment work in five weeks and had to pull all the cash out in order to fly us home. Meaning I'll have to build it all up again from scratch, something I'm not looking forward to. But it needs doing. 

Motivation is sorely needed. 

Out the Window

The previous post was written in the past. Everything except for "one foot in front of the other" has been binned for the past few weeks. I am currently sat, ill and exhausted, at home, in the clothes I wore on my 26h flight back home from Australia. It has been a gruelling time. I got the call nobody ever wants and had to move heaven & earth to get Little X and I onto a plane, to be in time to say goodbye to my lovely mum. ❤️😭

What nobody ever seems to talk about in regards to death, is how hard all the "other" things are, and it seems so sad that our sorrow over losing a precious person is overshadowed by the absolute shit that comes along with it. Financial, familial, logistical nightmares. 

Right now I am grateful for the kindness of strangers and the help from my dear family.

Oscillation

Sometimes it strikes me how incredible it is that certain things are true. I have been in budget deficit for two years now but have still, never once, been unable to meet a required debt repayment. At the moment I went on maternity leave, I was sat on the edge of the well. Since then, I'm in it, sometimes hanging onto the edge by my fingers and sometimes only by my fingernails. But somehow, my feet are still dry.

Obviously there are things I've put off paying that should have been paid (two tax bills and a maintenance bill) but there are no red letters coming through the mail and I am very grateful.

The investment work does bring in steady tax free money but not the amount everyone throws around. I pull in around £150 a month by sticking to the comfortable options. This is an hour or two of work every night though so around £5 an hour - but I am ok with that since I'd otherwise just be watching YouTube.

Dreaming: of being able to change my situation. I think I may have to return to work sooner than planned, for reasons of mental health. 

Crack. Crack.

I am a bending branch. The wood is splintering. Crack, crack, as each shred of wood succumbs to the forces that it can't withstand, one after the next they split free from the others and jump upright. Somehow, the bough hasn't yet fallen, but it is broken. In all but the final snap, it is broken, changed, undone.

My lovely, kind, warm-hearted Mum is leaving me. Fate stole the expected decade of cognitive decline and served her departure up on a shitty silver tray covered in a tureen, the kind that says, hurry, I'm waiting, you don't have long. She is comfortable, and can hear us, but the massive bleed in her brain has robbed me of any chance to get there "in time". Instead, I navigate the burden of dragging her grandchild across the world, of fighting with travel bureaucracy, hearing my family sob at her bedside, and of trying to find the right words over video chat.

I think, I hope, that even after the final goodbye, I will be the branch that still hangs on, clearly changed and damaged, bent the wrong way, but not severed. I hope. 

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Job #2, which apparently messed up my "offboarding", has surprisingly promised to pay what's owing on their next pay run and I have received the payslip! £300 which is definitely needed. I keep having to pinch myself because so many things have gone unexpectedly right this month, a month where I fully expected to need to smash the piggy bank. Instead, I have managed to put £150 extra onto Poison Ivy Credit Card and all my bills are paid for at least the next six weeks.

Financially floating (still) but now it is just thanks to grace and good luck. I've said for ages this can't continue, there will come a time where some unexpected bill comes up which I simply cannot cover even by all the tricks in the world. I am currently chasing up childcare for Little X one day a week. I am choosing to remember that the stimulation and socialising will be good for her.

Spendy McSpenderson: £10 oversized fluffy fleece hoodie. The heating now goes off as soon as Little X is in bed. So far, so good.

Spendy Spenderella: I started a £7.99 membership for Revolut Premium. With the savings on fees plus perks, this should pay for itself four times over.

Spendy Spendthrift: My mobile phone contract, which has crept up over the years to more than double the cost of the competition... expires tomorrow. Hallelujah. I have signed up to a competitor and the switch is in progress. 🖁 I will be saving £18 a month.

Win-ish: I did a one-month free trial of Audible in order to get £9 cashback from TopCashBack and successfully cancelled it after 29 days. Sadly it didn't track so I am relying on customer service to chase it up. Fingers crossed.

Win: I normally do a rather random Christmas dinner shop a few days before the day and invariably can't find a good price on one item, can't find another item and refuse the price on a third. This year I've actually stayed abreast of when the Food Club hamper was being pre-sold and I managed to put in my order on time.👏 I can't remember what's in it apart from a whole fresh chicken and vegetables 🤣 but there must have been 20 items, so at £5, it'll definitely be a bargain.

Antifrugalista

Me, right now. No matter which nappies we use, they simply don't dry indoors, so I've bitten the bullet and ordered a proper dehumidifier. They're supposed to be cheap to run and effective. It was £89, which I can't afford, but I also can't afford constant re-washing of musty clothes and running a heater 24/7 while living in a damp environment. 🤷 What can I say, it's expensive to be poor...

Stoopid/Winnar: Almost two years ago I cashed in my work bonus for a Primark voucher. I thought the voucher had now expired. Well, this week I checked my bonus account and found the Primark voucher sat there saying it would expire March 2024. I clicked it anyway. It generated a brand new voucher expiring next year, for the full £25. 😲 Unexpedly, it's free new underwear time! 😂

Irritation: the free £43 credit that I have via work perks can only be spent on "selected" retailers. The cheapest Black Friday microwave I've seen so far on these retailers is £20 more than the bargain I found last week. I will watch for another week or so in case these retailers find it in their hearts to actually offer competitive prices... I really don't fancy having to spend the voucher on yet more underwear. If worst comes to worst, I can spend it at Bargain Bulk Retailer.

Spendy: small gifts for neighbours #2a and #8. 

Stop Press: Dehumidifier arrived (missing its filter... I have laid cheesecloth over the fan intake, it's only to stop dust on the elements). Currently hoping the manufacturer will send one out. But I am very impressed with its function so far, it dropped around 15% in a couple of hours which is more than I could have hoped.

Mental Seat-Dancing

The Zing app knows how to make an impact, I just got an email that my seventh referral had completed. 😮🥰 This means £210 coming my way in the next month. So far. The lovely promoter lady has said my link will stay there until I get 20 referrals. I am so very, very blessed that a lovely complete stranger promoted my link. 🙏

This week I did a check on my various cards, their balances and the rates I am being charged. It turns out that several of them had changed their rates and the one I thought was the worst of the lot, isn't. I also have two cards with no statements on their apps or sites... one has 11 statements missing, one is just broken. Annoying, but I can still see recent transactions and calculate the rates. #mathsnerdery

Overall it was satisfying to get it all written down and to know which ones to spend on first and which to pay extra on first, if I ever magically have spare cash. Something about forewarned is forearmed? Poison Ivy #2 merrily tells me that at my current rate I will pay it all off by 2032. Yay, I can then move on to the other cards for the following 30 years. 😂 This kind of makes me resolve to somehow find an extra few pounds every month to put on my cards. I don't know how I'll do that, yet, though. 🤔

Stop Press: Apparently the universe was reading the line I just wrote. I've edited this post six times between when I first typed it and when it was posted, because more and more update messages keep arriving. I am currently at all 20 referrals completed (£600) and honestly don't have words on how much that money will mean. 🙌

Marking Time

I am currently playing a game of chicken. My microwave's days are numbered (it's rusted under the turntable, is getting worse, and it's only a matter of time before it becomes so bad it begins to spark). This is because it gets such heavy use and there's often steam inside... I am far too lax in wiping it out under the plate. Anyway, they're on sale for £35 (about £15 off) on a website where I have about £20 on a gift card AND work is paying me a Christmas bonus in a few days' time which can also be spent on the same website. This would make my new microwave "free" so please cross your fingers that they're still available at that price when the bonus arrives. Thanks!

Netflix cracked down on sharing accounts a month or so ago. That meant no more freebie Netflix from a very cool friend - so it was time to decide on buying myself a cheap subscription. But then I forgot to do so and it occurred to me this week I am perfectly fine without it. I've been watching documentaries on YouTube and I still have plenty left to watch. 

During the week I pulled out a tin of minced beef and onion, from Food Club, trying to make myself use things out of the cupboard even when I don't like them. Along with a tablespoon of porridge oats, a teaspoon of gravy powder, and tins of peas and carrots, this made two meals for me and three for Little X (on baked potatoes, on toast and on potato waffles). That's really good value in my book and it was pretty tasty.

For the past few weeks I've been constantly thinking about money, and it has affected my mindset. I am feeling more at peace now that I've survived my Hell Month, but the almost-at-zero brain pattern is permeating everything I do. I'm always counting how many days worth of X I have, how many days my Y will last, can I make do without Z, can I use Q instead... there's a certain comfort in establishing new routines, but I don't know if it's good or bad overall.

It's almost Universal Credit Day. Time is now measured in Reporting Periods. UC day is where I add up what I'll need and learn whether we'll scrape by for the month, or whether I'll be whoring myself out via survey programmes. 😂 It's nothing new, but it's really getting old (pardon the pun) because by now I really thought money would stabilise so that I'd know in advance. And still, time and time again, I simply do not know until that day. It's tiring. I can still make adjustments (take extra paid leave... return an item from the middle aisle) but those are finite. I dream of reaching cruising altitude and just... sitting there. ✈

Pressies: Little X's birthday pressie from Vinted is fantastic. I also got a really brilliant toy for her from the Baby Bank for Christmas. I wasn't sure it would work properly (being electronic) but fresh batteries in and it's excellent. So at least she is sorted.

No Title Yet

I might keep that title, I think 😁

The stars aligned correctly with jobs both paying me on time. Along with me purchasing an item from the "middle aisle" and returning it straight away in order to move £70 from the credit card to my current account without paying a money transfer fee. It's really not my fault that (a) the credit card company won't let me pay for a money transfer right now, and (b) the shop doesn't check whether I put the refund onto the same card I paid with. The item is perfectly resellable, so? 🤷 That cash is going onto a more expensive card. Budget now balanced for another month. Bills all paid. 

This week I got a free £10 supermarket voucher for participating in the NHS's Our Future Health scheme, which was about supplying a blood sample and being warned that my cholesterol is elevated. Time for me to eat better.

I also got a £2 bonus from TopCashBack (again!), I love this recurring deal so much. I bought a five pound supermarket card to qualify, so that's £2.13 off it altogether. There was then a deal of £9 cashback for doing the Audible free trial, so I did that one too and set up a reminder to cancel before it takes the payment in a month. I also realised I'm getting enough cashback to justify the £5/year membership upgrade so I took that plunge. Miranda Hart's new book awaits me (you get one free book with the Audible subscription).

Finally, a post filled with actually frugal things. It's been so long. It's very related to me knowing bills are paid for the month. 💰

Oh, almost forgot, I have been blessed with an unexpected acknowledgement. I spend a fair bit of time on a frugality-related social media group and its owner decided to thank me - by replacing her referral code for Zing with my own. 😍 When I didn't get any referrals in the first week, I almost gave up hope... But two have just completed, meaning I'll get £60 next month. 😍 Definitely not shabby and very much appreciated right now.

Spendy McSpenderson: Little X's birthday present bought off Vinted (£5), plus Christmas gifts for Kid #1, Kid #2 and their dad. I still need Christmas gifts for Little X but I'm going to watch the baby bank and the nearby Cheap Charity Shop for those. I still need gifts for Neighbour #2a, Neighbours #8 and Work Bestie. 

《Spits On The Ground》

Gumshoe here completely forgot about a certain bill. It merrily came out automatically. It was, however, £154 I hadn't accounted for, when I already had a substantial amount I was scrabbling for. Sigh. The new daily scrabbling target has risen. I achieved it today across several places, not all of which allow me to remove the earnings yet, since I am under their thresholds. Oh well, there are other options still.

I did finally calculate whether I'm spending more on credit than is being repaid off the principal each month. I'm not - barely - but since life is not predictable, let's just say I am now planning another Food Club trip and I will be paying more attention to what is already in my cupboards and freezer. You know what they say, it's cheaper to shop from home.

Since I will have to severely limit my spending, if that's even possible, I will also try to plug away at Nectar Canvass when I can, to accrue some points to spend in Sainsbury's or even on fuel.

This all also means somehow plucking money out of thin air to add extra to the repayments on Poison Ivy card, whose repayments kick back in around mid-December. So I'm currently waiting for a surprise lottery win (mainly it'll be a surprise since I haven't bought a ticket).

Death-Defying

It's not the first time that finances have come really close to the bone and I've scabbled for loose change to pay the bills, but this time there's a plot twist. I recalculated my earnings vs bills and the overall monthly deficit is not an amount I can realistically earn from online activities while also dealing with Little X.

I must admit that my first reaction to the figure was disappointment. I've still got tons of leave (money) to take from work, but taking more than the minimum, cuts the number of weeks that I plan to stay home with Little X. Unfortunately I think my plans need rejigging, because of the gross figure which the calculator spat out.

13 days to go and £85 needed. I haven't had either of my work paydays yet and I'm hoping both payment dates scrape in to reach what I need. I have already taken the money out of eBay, TopCashBack and a few survey sites. I haven't fallen off the tightrope, but I don't dare look down. In the meantime I've booked an extra day of work annual leave for November and we shall see how it goes... no, that doesn't cover my deficit 😂 but I will have a clearer idea of the lay of the land.

It has focussed my mind on my grocery spending, and making sure I try to shop less often. But at around £15 to £20 per week, let's pretend that will make even a 1% difference. 😂 More than that, I keep pondering when the car and loan will cease needing to be paid each month. Sadly it's still years so that ain't my exit strategy. 😂

Currently: doing surveys. Playing free bingo. Churning through investment offers two pounds at a time.

Dinner: a chicken patty thing, broccoli, and a pastry flatbread-y pizza-y thing with goat's cheese and figs, it was free from Food Club and is lovely. 😍

Of Course Not

Well, boss found out about kiddo coming to work, which I'm totally bummed about but also relieved. It was physically difficult and I was almost ready to hand back the key anyway. It is what it is. 

Got myself a free new shower head, thank you government environmental scheme thingy.

My Healthy Start payment drops to half as she turns one in a few weeks (£17 instead of £34)... well it was nice while I had it. More milk and fewer grapes in my life. 😉

I've been staying for the free lunch lately when I go up to Food Club (which isn't often enough, but it's exhausting to haul Little X and the groceries up and down the stairs). I think I'm going to stop bothering with lunch. Of the past four lunches I've had there, it's been cheese and tomato pasta once and cheese toasties the other three times. Nice enough but Little X really needs something more nutritious for her main meal of the day. 

I've been really down in the dumps lately and feeling like my plans are so far off they're pointless. There's a vague constant feeling of travelling towards doom. It isn't like me. I turned off on the drive home, parked, and took us for a walk through the cliff top park. It didn't put me in my usual good mood in any way. But I've now realised I was less down all afternoon than I was in the morning, so clearly, it worked a little.

Related: trawling Rightmove as a debt escape route if selling my flat, looking for potential future cheapy properties in an ever-widening area and with more and more ridiculous criteria. I can buy a shed in a paddock! Or I could buy a disused public toilet for us to live in, right? Maybe if I also buy us a motorhome to park beside it? 😂😂😂

Controversial, Also, Tosser Bosses

Here is the promised job #2 update. I think I've said, there is a new Assistant Boss #2, who called and asked when I wished to start my new job in Nowheremäki, which is a one hour round trip and now only a two hour contract. I --- what? 😂 I mean, it was 11 months into my leave before they casually dropped into conversation that I'm not having my old local 7hpw job back. So I had every intention of taking my holiday pay and leaving, but I decided to let him keep talking now about this shitty binfire of a new role, just out of curiosity. And then I decided to tour the site out of curiosity. 

It's semi-rural and quiet, is once a week, can be done at night anytime over the weekend, and should soon rise to 4h or even higher. 💡 So I have decided to actually do the job, since I won't pay any tax or lose any of my benefit (the "perks" of a pathetic income) and I will sneak Little X in with me. I've done it once and I am still on tenterhooks, half expecting the phone to ring at any time with the new Boss telling me I'm sacked. It's just going to take a few weeks before I can semi relax and get on with... Sneaking in to do my job while kiddo sleeps. 😂 I'm reminding myself that she's safely confined to her portacot, and that it's hard for them to fill such a role. 

I'm hoping to take my job #1 accrued holiday pay at 4hpw and that holiday pay will then last a year. 😂 At which point, Little X gets free childcare. 👏 

Investment work is going well. I made £50 yesterday in a couple of hours. I can see it won't be predictable (half of that income was a one-off and I refuse to do the jobs which have any amount of risk). But for now I am sort of enjoying it and every penny is helping.

The local council unexpectedly sent me £50 extra from the Household Support Fund which they had not managed to spend before the deadline. A new round begins shortly so here's hoping it is a decent amount.

I didn't manage to stay off the card I repaid from my advance - I think that's obvious from my last post, and it's not a fail since there wasn't enough liquid money to avoid it. I'm trying hard to use it as little as I can. It's at about £150 of £600. I'm looking forward to having my small salaries trickle in, with the possibility of paying even £10 off it each week. 🙃

Onwards and upwards! I'm afraid to post this entry, however, in case I jinx things and my sneaky job doesn't work out, so I might delay posting it for a bit 😂 

STOP PRESS (while I twitch) I asked the Universal Credit team to help with fuel costs for the job, it's called the Flexible Support Fund and is un-advertised, I found it only by accident on a forum, but you can ask for help from it for a bunch of reasons. Long convoluted appointment done, they didn't know what they were doing and approved it - I've just received £70 towards my travel. Woot!

Musings #37581

Not for the first time, I've been reflecting on how my posts have become infrequent. Part of it is that I'm kinda occupied with a small child, but there would definitely be time for blogging if I made time. It's also an efficiency thing; I'm so used to not spending that my posts would be a series of identical top tips on just leaving your money alone. But there's a third reason and it's a bit disturbing. It's that I am so close to the bone that none of my money-saving habits are a choice or achievement anymore. I've completely exhausted all those tips; I find myself bored in all those money-saving newspaper articles because there just isn't anything left that I can change, to spend less.

I am coming to a crossroads. Little X is ten months old and I've now been off work for a year. That's been 9 months of deficit in my budget, followed by three months of enormous deficit in my budget (survived by a money transfer and freezing some repayments). For the past month or so, every supermarket visit has meant having to check which credit card I had just paid the bill for and so could now fit a £10 spend. It couldn't have continued. It's been like circling the drain. 

It's felt eerie because no matter how tight my budget I have never before been in a position where a necessity can't be bought. But last night the kitchen light blew and I was so, so grateful that there was a spare in the drawer. And as I've used my Healthy Start card to buy fruit and milk for Little X, I've thought, this money is limited to only these items because otherwise some families just couldn't buy them when they needed them. And then I realised that now includes me.

The escape route (going back to work) has felt like a losing choice. Childcare is a nightmare and not free, and working more than 8 hours a week lands me a 55% tax rate (the pound-for-pound deduction from my Universal Credit) plus I'd pay ACTUAL tax, National Insurance and travel expenses. The idea of all that kerfuffle for maybe £2 an hour... It feels like the system is engineered to keep me at home. 

But if you know me at all, you know I'm a problem-solver. It's why I have focussed on the sliver between, that 8 hours of grace. The original plan was taking job #1's saved up holiday pay at 8h per week, which would help me tread water for another six months. But job #2 has been in touch and I am hopeful of a golden goose, working 4h per week with Little X in tow. 🤞 🤞 🤞 This would extend the reprieve to a whole year. I will update as soon as I know. Send good luck vibes. 🤞 🤞 🤞 

Sigh (Size Large)

Today I dropped out of my English course. 😢 Why?

Childcare directories checked: 4

Websites researched: about 30

Enquiries sent: approx 20

Replies: 4

Carers with availability: 1

Number who are registered and deductible: 0

Cost for the 6 hours of the exams: £170

This would be an ongoing issue if I were to try and qualify for anything that isn't 9 to 5 work. I haven't ruled out studying something but the time is not right. 

I think this is why I've felt a bit mopey for the past few weeks. Little X has interrupted the past four lessons, I haven't had a chance to do homework or study, and the entire course has shifted to "passing the exams" which is like a doomsday clock when you don't know if you'll even be able to go. So while I feel sad right now, it's going to be a relief to no longer care if she's still awake at 5.45pm. I will focus on my side hustle. Five weeks in now and while I am not rich, it's a steady trickle and it helps. 

We went to the Baby Bank on the weekend as somehow Little X hasn't got long sleeve tops or jumpers which fit. We only found a couple, so I've also bought a few off Vinted. (How early can kids start wearing Christmas jumpers, and are Christmas pyjamas acceptable daytime attire for a baby? Asking for a friend.) I managed to offload another bag of newborn clothes. Four more to go.

They also had some cotton daytime nappies. 👍 Last year I was battling to dry the bamboo indoors, so here's hoping the new cotton ones work for us.

Currently enjoying: Little X's virus and rash. It's Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. She's mostly in good spirits but tiring quickly, and we're stuck in the house for a few days. Yay (sarcasm). 

Multiple Miscalculations

My side hustle investment thing is doing better than I realised. I have tentatively set it to automatically withdraw £60 each month in profit, as "income", since it also costs me £40 per month to be a member, so, I'm assuming I will make at least £100 each month. Optimism, right? There is money sitting about in the working account now and I need to knuckle down and start more jobs on it. Next goal: to have enough sitting about that I can increase my regular withdrawal. Tonight I'm doing a mini training course on another job type in the system so that I can do those jobs.

I sat my first practice English exam and scored 75%. The teacher was raving about how well we all did considering we had just started the course, but I was quite disappointed in my score. I thought I was "good at" English, at least in understanding and interpreting a text. I think what I found most frustrating is that I read the answer key and thought I had done as the question asked, but apparently, I didn't, and I don't really understand why. She seems to think we will all get better at these with practice. I hope so. I don't know how to improve when I don't know what was lacking. It was all the more surprising since every question we answer in classwork, she says is correct...

Speaking of that course I have to find childcare for three exams and it is really difficult. Everyone I've approached either doesn't answer my enquiries or doesn't do one-off sessions. Ugh. It's the same problem for Job #2. I really need a regular small-hours role where I can take Little X with me. I'm hopefully visiting the site this weekend just to see if it might be possible.

Hedonistic Adaptation Fail

I have found myself in that terrible place of late, the "constant wanting" mood, always thinking wistfully about physical things that I want but can't afford. It's so unhealthy and really brings the mood down. And it's not like me at all. I usually focus on the fact that I can make do with what I have for now, and then I come up with a long-term plan to change things for the better. But lately I have found myself hitting walls in the daydreaming, and considering more and more ridiculous ideas as goals.

I wonder if some people live their whole lives like this - but don't do the daydreaming and planning to get out of it? Place one foot in front of the other, go to work each day, come home to a place they're not happy in, but conclude there's no escape? How awful. I at least know that this shall pass and I will find a way. If I haven't found the way then I haven't finished solving it yet, and I need to remind myself of this more often. It's partly because we're still quarantined, I'm sure. Each day I hope will be the one when the snot fest ends 😂

I counted up my profits from the new side hustle over the past three weeks, and it looks like only £150 overall. 😔 But there's a few jobs in progress that I can't calculate until they finish. I am hoping it breaks the £170 mark in the next few days. Building it up is slow going, but there's not much else to do after Little X is asleep each night apart from housework. I'm slowly getting better at it.

I also dyed her "new" larger night nappies. I needed to stop mixing them up with her day ones. Nine lovely purple nappies are hung up to dry. There are another 12 in a different style and I still have more dye. We'll see. I'm battling to get everything washed and dried in limited space and it's not even winter yet 🤐

Accomplished: repaired the torn car seat cover and got it all clean. Installed the seat, which is huge - and the space is squeezy, so here's hoping she cooperates getting in and out. We paid £2 to vacuum and deodorise the seat under it. She never even eats in the car and the seat was nasty. All fresh now and ready to roll 🚘