#I just have like insane anxiety and I went way over my weekly budget and it’s fine. its fine

[pyr0cue]

Look it’s FINE it’s fine I’m fine spending money on my friends but like. Did u seriously order 2 venti drinks from Starbucks instead of 1 and then an 11 dollar meal when everyone else ate for 1.50 each :|||||

[theanxiousunicorn]

Christmas and credit cards

When we moved into our beautiful home we were in such a good place financially! In order to get a mortgage we had to have debts paid off and money in the bank.

We then started renovating, round one we were still ok! We were putting enough away to cover the work as we went (always the plan) and we got the kitchen on 0% because .... well kitchens are expensive!

Round two didn’t go so well. I don’t know if it was a mix of coming out of the pandemic and we got over excited to be doing things again and having people building again and seeing faces again! (We always use the same workers who are mostly childhood friends of mine, only one is new but we made him our friend!)

But then as always with Reno’s when you watch the reno shows the budget crept up a bit, a bit more and a bit more! And then more. And the phrase “stick it on the card” came up quite often mostly from my husbands mouth! Which is unheard of.

I fought back on this in all honesty because I KNOW from being in credit card debt probably ..... 4 times before? This is like quick sand. Once you start using your card for things it just snowballs. And it did.

We used it for some house stuff (bathroom mostly) and then we got an unexpected dental bill for husband, and I’m not talking 00’s I’m taking K’s 🤦🏻‍♀️ not accounted for.

After that unexpected vet bill (ironically for teeth also!) 00’s again.

And so it goes on, because as I suspected once we started relying on cards for things it’s very difficult to get out of that.

But it’s ok it’s ok. We will pay them off in a few months. Now 7 months in we are no closer to paying them off. We were about to make progress and more work needed to be done so the money we’d have used for cards had to go to workers. (Fair!)

Then money to be paid off again ... tax bill for husband (unexpected as he usually gets a rebate but lockdown messed with most people’s finances) so now that’s approx 3 months of what we’d intended to pay on cards going to tax man (no point even arguing that one)

And my anxiety is ever increasing because I believe so much in the manifesting of things but does that mean when it popped in my head using a card would equals us racking up debt pretty quickly that I made that happen??? I watched my credit card fearing husband suddenly throw abandon and use his card for every single purchase it felt like for a time! And on a weekly basis he’d be talking about what needed to happen next and my ever doom sounding voice asking “but how are we going to pay for that?”

So now I’m worrying my husband has an outside job which means winter can be sketchy and my job is about to go through a merger what if for some insane reason we end up with no job and no way to pay this stuff back?

My mind instantly goes there! To the extreme!

Now Christmas. Which is my favourite time of the year ALWAYS and I have been lucky for many years (as family is small) to never need a budget! I just spend what I want (ok I do have a limit) but I’ve never had to worry. This year I get that sick feeling when anyone submits a Christmas list item that I can’t buy on my next account to worry about later or have to give cash for. All Amazon purchases have had to go on a card and now I feel sick in case I need it for anything else! As I’m pretty sure my limit is one purchase away from being maxed.

And Christmas should be fun and joyous not anxiety ridden over money and as much as people say “it’s not about the gifts” I’d like to see everyone’s faces if we genuinely said ... listen we can’t do gifts this year so please don’t get us anything.

Last year when someone struggled they decided on secret Santa (only had to buy 1 gift) for the entire family (except us and one other) to ignore this rule and buy the secret Santa and additional on top causing all sorts of resentment and issues!

Also work gifts? I’m forced to buy gifts for people I don’t necessarily even like! (Yep I said it!) and even when it’s 3 for 2 it’s minimum £20 for the amount I have to get (ok I know that sounds so mean) but that £20 could go towards food (or someone I actually like having in my life!)

Payday is brought forward in December but that in no means helps really? As if you use that to spread across the present or food buying you have so much longer to wait in January!

Or like me one year being efficient paying off all the bills early meant both payments landed in one months statement and resulted in me “missing a payment” the following month waiting for payday as I hadn’t paid attention to the dates.

So I am going to be a ball of stress for the next few weeks quietly worrying over how I’m going to pay for the things that people claim it isn’t really what it’s about (yet you can’t not get them!) but not outwardly worrying and bringing anyone else down!

And I truly believe if I voiced these worries to my friends, a lot of them would have the same worries! But you don’t at Christmas do you! You smile and say “are you all ready for Christmas!” Not “are you ready yet wondering how on earth you’re going to pay all this back in the new year”

🤦🏻‍♀️