How PKU has Affected my Finances

As far back as I can remember, I have always spent far too much money on food. But this wasn’t always the case. My parents always taught me to save regularly as a child. I can remember the trips into town with Mum, so I could pay my savings into my building society account.

The habit of saving gradually faded as I grew more independent. A trip to the shop one morning, during the school holidays to buy stickers with friends led me to witness, for the first time, my friends buying penny sweets and bags of ‘Space Raiders’ (corn snacks). I quickly realised I could start feeding myself for less than 15p.

At 10 years old money was not easy to come by, and despite only spending a few pennies at a time, it soon added up. It wasn’t long before I recognised that if I was given enough money to buy three packets of football stickers, but only bought two, it left me with enough money to get sweets, and a snack as well.

As I moved into secondary school and my appetite grew, so did the need for more money. I had progressed to a drink and bag of crisps and the cost had risen to about 50p a trip. This was far less sustainable and, because I was no longer collecting football stickers, I was solely relying on pocket money and any odd change I’d find on the floor, during my travels.

One day, I started washing cars with a few friends and figured out there was money to be made. The problem was, with such a big group of us getting involved initially, it was only making us pennies once it had been split between six of us. As luck would have it, people soon got bored and, within a couple of weeks, it had dropped down to two of us. As the weeks drew on, it ended up just being me.

I was fortunate over time to acquire several regulars in my road with the average price being £2 a car. The cash I earned cleaning cars kept me in food until I was old enough to get a paper round. Paper rounds were a good source of regular income, but much harder work than cleaning cars for the money it paid! I kept a couple of my regular car washes going to give me some easy, extra cash.

When I progressed into full-time employment, I was still living at home. At that age, you don’t have to think about budgeting. You have more money than you know what to do with.

Moving out into the great wide world was a whole new thing altogether. Your priorities have to change overnight. It didn’t impact me much at the start, having to pay for rent, council tax, electric and gas, etc. I was working as a manager in the pizza business and had access to lots of free or very cheap food. I was off the PKU diet and eating pizza continually. I was winning at life as far as I was concerned!

When I decided to move on from the pizza business and pursue my career in gardening & landscaping (which I’d trained for in college) was when the money struggles started. I had not long bought a house of my own and things were going well until the mortgage rates started to increase, and I had to tighten my budget. I had never had to prioritise anything over my food budget before. Even as a kid, whatever sum of money I had, it was always reserved for food first.

I continued the same eating habits despite my food budget shrinking. To make matters worse, this coincided with the period when my eating had developed into a problem! I had quickly progressed into regular binge eating and my food bills were growing out of control, just at the time I needed to curb them.

I got swallowed up in the darkness during those next few years, eating myself into oblivion. I stopped paying my bills and just sat on what cash I had. I was consumed by the fear of going hungry. I was going to the supermarket and loading up a trolley with food a few times a week, just for myself. My evenings and weekends were spent sitting in front of the tv eating until I passed out. When I finally woke up, I would continue eating.

When I bought myself the house, I had a plan. A plan that would set me up for the future. I bought what had originally been my Grandparent’s house. The house had many fond memories and was just perfect for me at the time. The bones of the house were solid, but it needed an awful lot of work to modernise it. I was no stranger to hard work, and the house’s affordable price meant it was just what I needed to get myself on the housing ladder.

My plan had always been to live there while I renovated it over a few years. Then once it was completed, sell it, to enable me to afford a more suitable property and move back to the area where I grew up. I never achieved this goal despite hours of hard work which included fitting a new kitchen and re-wiring the entire house. I had already invested a lot of money on materials after moving in; all I needed to do was get on with it.

When I descended into the dark world of binge eating, all my renovation works just stopped. I was going to work, eating and sleeping all day, every day for months, and months, and months. I can’t even tell you how long this went on for because I don’t remember when it started. All I can tell you is it was somewhere between 1 and 3 years.

I hit the ground one day and realised I was in big trouble when a court summons came through the door for unpaid council tax. I was in arrears with everything. Burying my head in the ground, my initial response was to pull a sicky and spend the next few days at home stuffing my face. The real wake-up call came when I missed my first mortgage payment, several weeks later.

It was, at this point, I realised that I was going to have to wave goodbye to owning my own home and I put my house on the market. I did make some money on the sale of the house, although nowhere near its full potential, had I finished the project. Unlike my original plan, what money I did make on the sale, only paid off the vast debts I had built up and left me no option but to rent. The only upside was I got a fresh start, with a clean sheet and a small reserve of savings.

I was adamant I wasn’t going to let myself get back into that position again, and, it was at this point I returned to the PKU diet for the first time. The change was just incredible. Within a week or two I was completely re-focused and starting to plan my comeback!

I started by ditching the job I was in. I had quickly found myself a much better-paid job, working as a courier. It was highly active and pressurized, but the new PKU me was totally nailing it. Or at least I was nailing it until I hit the wall with the diet.

I crashed off the diet and quickly discovered I couldn’t cope with the stress, pressure, or workload of my new job! Before I knew it, I was ringing my old boss and asking him for my old job back. I quickly returned to my old place of work (with my tail between my legs), and in less than a month of returning, I had slipped back into the eating, sleeping and working routine, once again.

Thank you for reading. Please join me again on Tuesday the 28^th of December for ‘How PKU has Affected my Finances Part 2’.

Thank you so much for all your supportive comments, and for sharing your own experiences with me. I look forward to reading more of your stories!

Dan

Helpful Links:

National Centre for Eating Disorders

Christians Against Poverty