Happy Holidays

[SierraHomesick]

Happy Holidays to you all. I hope things were calm, peaceful, and relaxing. And if they weren’t, oh well, right? It’s a day and now it’s in the past. That’s what I’m telling myself so I don’t keep thinking about all the money spent on one day.

But I do keep thinking about it, so I’m sorry, but I have to get it out, I suppose. Here’s why keep doing a round about in my mind:

💰 This past summer I almost lost our house and truck because of several bad decisions, forgetfulness, and time dumbness (I forget what this is actually called, the time thing). But I didn’t! Thank God my husband had some great checks roll in and I was able to get back on track.

💰 So then by October I’m back on track after a year of freaking out, super high anxiety, and depression, and I can finally breath a little. Our utility bills were up to date, house payments up to date and out of foreclosure. Truck loan up to date and truck off of the repo list. And we even had money in savings. It truly felt like a miracle. Once I told my therapist about what I was having problems with financially, it seemed like that relieved enough anxiety and depression for me to be able to deal with it for real.

💰 I was even able to pay off a credit card that I had been paying on for six years, pay off a newer credit card by making a deal with the cc company to bring down my payment and get it done!

💰With fall time and school and sports and just life’s shitty timing came more expenses: sports registrations, dental work, septic system fix, and filling up the heating oil tank. With the savings we had, we paid all of these off. Thousands of dollars but nothing was late and I do thank God that we have healthy teeth, healthy septic, healthy kids playing sports through our long winter, and a warm house with hot water.

💰Then the holidays. What was left of our savings went to Thanksgiving dinner, visiting my mom who lives six hours away which includes lots of gas, an oil change for the truck, and a hotel room for four nights, plus food.

💰A snowboarding trip/memorial that my husband went to. I’m glad he did. Friends are more important than money. But that trip did take up the last of our savings.

💰So now Christmas hasn’t even been shopped for yet, but the savings is gone and we are back living paycheck-to-paycheck. I also waited until the last minute—partly because I was waiting on a check to come in so that I could buy presents. And also because after fixing so many mistakes and then being a good adult and paying everything on time for a few months (which is like a lifetime of good financial behavior for me); I am back at square one.

🕯️Christmas was lovely yesterday. We had so many blessings. My MIL came over. She’s at an age where any holiday may be the last one so we were very happy she is with us. I thank God for our day. And I am proud of myself for spending money on a bulk heating order instead of trying to scrimp by with smaller deliveries that would have only saved us a bit of money paycheck-to-paycheck.

💸 I hate saying “but” because it feels like negating everything that I’m so thankful for, BUT I have to be real and understand that the few months of good financial choices do not delete the years of bad financial choices. And a few mostly solid months of mostly staying on top of money, doesn’t mean I have a great working understanding of personal finance.

💸 I do not know how to plan or pay for holidays. I never have. Finances have always fallen apart for me this time of year. The New Year feels like such a terrible deadline. I don’t have a lot of hope between Christmas and New Year’s because I’m always broke. I thought I had it this year but I simply do not understand how, when, or what to plan for or budget for this time of year. I have never even done a budget.

💸 I have not paid the following for the month of December: Truck loan, electric bill, phone bill, internet bill, nor have I made any payments on some small medical bills or made any payments on three other credit cards that I’m trying to pay off. (And writing that down, I just realized that I had five credit cards over the last several years that I have been abusing. )

💸 I am so sick of dealing with money. It sucks the joy out of everything. I probably will not be able to pay next month’s truck loan, utilities, debt. I am back at square two 😅 I won’t call it square one because I will pay the house loan and I will not screw that one up again!

💸 Every year at this time, I am wringing my hands waiting for the W-2 to arrive so I can dig myself out of another hole with my husband’s tax return. I can’t imagine how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I imagine I could have saved for my family (and myself when I think about the retirement money I cashed out and spent on travel and more bad decisions) it breaks my heart. They deserve better.

💵 So it’s the day after Christmas. I’m at the library writing this because we only have $300 in our bank account until Jan. 4 and $75 out of a thousand on a credit card I never should have gotten…because I can’t afford our wi-fi bill.

💵 But I did try to take some small smart decisions this morning after I had a nice hot shower to clear my mind:

I canceled all but one of our streaming services: Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime. I canceled all the Amazon subscriptions (two of which I didn’t even know that we had until I saw a charge for it on our bank account this morning), Audible and Kindle. (I don’t even own a Kindle. We will actually receive $11.99 back on this cancellation.

💵 I checked my iPhone subscriptions and there were some app free trials that I had forgotten about so I canceled those as well.

Now I’m at the library, and I will make a plan with some printables I found online that help with budgets and things like no-spend weeks. I’m caffeinated and the kids are home with Dad. So I’m going to take the next hour to figure out as much as I can so I am not in the same predicament next year as I have been every Christmas past.

Thank you for letting me get this out of my brain. It has been torturing me. The ADHD tax is for real and what a crappy time for it to come around.

God bless anyone else dealing with money issues and I pray that they are resolved quickly and with as little anxiety as possible.

Take care and Happy Holidays.

[Pixiematt]

great job on the streaming services. Hope you can chip away at things that don’t bring enough value to your life so you can afford the wonderful stuff.

[SierraHomesick in reply to Pixiematt]

Thank you. Happy New Year

[Mamamichl]

welcome and thanks for sharing! I’ve never been actually behind on my bills but I have racked up my credit card this Christmas and never had to do it before becoming homeless this summer. We also pay off a bunch of things when taxes come. It’s usually a catch up for us too and when we get things like yearly vet appts done, car fixed, and plane trip made for my stepkid. Working on getting my income increased with a new job and my partner is on social security and making $ under the table fixing up our rental. It always feels like a juggling game.

[SierraHomesick in reply to Mamamichl]

For sure. I suppose money juggling affects neurotypicals as well but the amount of energy it takes from us is so hard to deal with. Happy New Year, I hope you’re doing well.

[Mamamichl in reply to SierraHomesick]

I do feel we are juggled by money more than NT. Either that or we put more emotion into it.

[wtfadhd]

im terrible with money too

its my new years resolution to get better at it.