about adapting to frugal lifestyle after an incomebreakdown 🫠

my adhd is giving me a hard time not spending for any impulsive ideas but I am left with only round about a quarter of my former income and I can’t adapt well. I had enough before and since half a year I don’t, but my brain wants to spent money like before.

we don’t eat expensive, but we snack expensive. i usually don’t buy a lot of clothes but I lost a lot of weight and most doesn’t fit anymore (and I’m going to look for a new job soon, so I need at least one proper outfit).

we got a cat and a dog, which had super heavy health scares last year. so I pay for the insurances instead of waiting for the worst. the dog is allergic af and I have to buy expensive special food. i am a single parent and have to take care of the teenagers needs as well.

I’m going to sell my car soon, because I just have to to get by. social aid doesn’t pay anything at this point because I was couple of bucks over the limit so far. But they don’t consider the high debt I got. So I’m actually pretty concerned right now. i used to be poor before, so I kinda know I will get over this episode, but it terrifies me at this point.

long story short: i need a network of no-buy-buddies that helps keep me from spending too much. anyone out there?

  • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Hmm, maybe just the cat, then?

    I would probably change the phrase to “no luxuries” instead, then. I thought you were gonna try an extreme thing like buying nothing for a period of time or something.

    Discounts are generally good and unsubscribing from streaming services in light of all the YouTube, library services, etc. that we already have is great!

    • bmpvy@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      ah i see where the confusion came from. going without buying anything at all seems impossible. only-basic-essentials-buddies doesn’t sound as good as no-buy-buddies haha

      I rediscovered our library and it’s only 25€/year - don’t know why I didn’t figure this out earlier 😊

      ya, the cat. guess I’ll have to give it away if nothing else works out.

      • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
        1·
        13 hours ago

        Be sure to sell the cat for at least a bit more than snake food so that it doesn’t become snake food. Never just give animals away, unfortunately because of the risk of horrible people.

        Libraries aren’t free over there?! Interesting…

        Sincerely,
        An American

        • bmpvy@feddit.orgOPEnglish
          1·
          6 hours ago

          😭 didn’t think about the opportunity that my cat might be end up as snake food 🤯 I’ll cancel it’s insurance first (it’s a young and healthy cat) to save some money for food, maybe I’ll figure something out.

          you can visit any library (in germany btw) for free, but if you want to take books, dvds or magazines to your own home for a couple weeks, you have to pay an annual fee. price differs from town to town. Since I’m living in a bigger city, I can use my library card in all the departments in different city parts. But the main library is gigantic and a good place to study as well