to want to scream and give up?

[Friendshipover5]

I don’t really know why I’m posting but I feel so overwhelmed, I’ve been crying half the day.

I call myself a single parent although my partner lives with us, no shared children just DD. Contact with her dad is meant to be 50/50 but rarely is. I’m a small business owner, an online shop, so constantly promoting, creating, and packing orders. If I don’t promote, sales drop to about half they do otherwise.

Probably stupidly we have 5 animals, meaning we hoover, mop and dust every single day. Also minimum one load of washing every day.

I feel so overwhelmed I feel like I just collapse on weekends. We go out maybe once a month, otherwise we spend the whole weekend at home, pottering around and gardening.

DD has no clubs or hobbies other than crafting. She can’t swim, she did lessons for a year and hated them. She’s done gymnastics and dance also, but I don’t have the energy to force her to go and keep spending money I can’t spare on things she hates. I’ve bought her bikes, taken her out on them but she has no care for learning. She’s very clever and ahead at school in most of her lessons, but doesn’t want to do much else.

DD is here every weekend, her Dad maybe has her one day a weekend a month. Never takes her anywhere, never has taken her on holiday, never takes her shopping, everything falls on my shoulders.

business doesn’t earn a huge amount, partner earns minimum wage, we earn just enough for no outside help and pretty much everything goes on rent, bills and food. I can’t afford a few day holiday to the UK this year.

Partner helps a lot with the house when he’s home, but as he’s out the house 5 days a week at work most of it falls on my shoulders.

There is a never ending to-do list running through my head, and it all becomes too much and I just freeze. I’ve been sat here for almost two hours trying to hoover, along the way I discover some other mess and I want to give up.

How am I meant to get this any easier and stop overthinking so much? I’m struggling to sleep and have had bruxism for years.

No doubt there will be many who object to this - but get rid of the animals if you can. I hoover, mop and dust once a week, with a quick hoover round the kitchen most evenings - for 30 seconds - because have no animals. It’s as simple as that.

How old is your DD? Does she help around the house?

Could you earn more in paid employment or can you move the business up a gear to make it more profitable?

She’s 9, so definitely capable of helping more but I don’t have the energy to argue with her about it, so I get on with it. She makes her bed most days and half attempts to keep her room clean, she might wash up once in a while and helps feed the animals.

Business does better than any job id be able to get in paid work, but sales are slightly less than last year thanks to COL whilst bills and everything are going up.

I can’t imagine you accepting rehoming the pets, but I would definitely not replace them.
What are they?
Asking because it can impact how containable they are.
e.g. If dogs, train them downstairs only.
cats - well, training isn’t happening, but you can become a doors shut at all times household.

No rehoming isn’t an option. Three cats and two dogs; two of the cats are elderly (15), they don’t go upstairs and only one dog goes up, to give him a break from the other one (only a year old so still bursting with energy at all times). The cats are fine honestly, they stay in the garden or sleep on chairs all day, they just moult so much it means hoovering the sofa and chairs daily. I’ve bought a little mini shark hoover that definitely makes it a bit quicker and easier!

Are you claiming UC. Sounds like you might be entitled to something.

Can you make an extensive list of what your issues are and start sorting that way? So what is it that you don't have time to do and can be done as a team on weekends/at night time with partner/ offer your dd a few quid to help with? Can you also make up a timetable so eg you do your promotion at x time but if online that you schedule some (am an author and I know some people have it to a tee!). How do you find the day to day of getting dd out to school etc? Can you get up a little earlier or do you need to start lying in a bit/ going to bed earlier? (just asking questions I've had to ask myself too!) Look on mn for all the cleaning hacks/ help I'm ... type posts, there's some amazing life hacks there that we've adopted, eg clothes out night before, shoes by the door and coats by the door/ start with whatever stresses you out etc. Best of luck op, I bet you're honestly killing it a bit more than you think. (Btw a friend of mine always writes what she's proud to have achieved that day and it motivates her for the next day x)

Thank you, this was really helpful. My alarm goes off at 5.30 on school days anyway, DD likes to be an early riser although admittedly isn’t always the most productive with her time! I could definitely use being organised, I’m that type of person who buys notebooks and diaries just for them to sit there 🫣 I’ll have a search for all the life hacks!

I would definitely try to get rid of the animals, that would be the easiest way to significantly reduce your workload and improve your budget.

Have you tried any rehoming charities?

Best of luck and I've started filling notebooks with lists and crossing things off in the last few years, it's seriously satisfying!! Enjoy!!! (and enjoy going through the posts, they're mind blowing!) (oh and try to give yourself one or two days you're not up so early!) x

Op does not want to 'get rid' of her animals and has stated that, so comments like this aren't really helpful are they?

I appreciate what everyone is saying re the animals, but I absolutely love the bones of them, even if they are messy buggers! Two are old cats anyway who haven’t got a chance of ever being adopted, and two dogs who are best mates, one being reactive and anxious who had a horrific start to life, he doesn’t even like being walked by my partner, he cries for me the whole way. There is no way I could ever give up on him despite what he adds to the workload.

Get rid of the animals because they cause too much cleaning??? Bloody hell, you sound nice

😲Animal shelter are full up, they have to euthanise cats and dogs as they cannot find homes for them all. 😲

If your DD's father is not having her 50-50, is he paying maintenance?

Put in a claim if not.

Could you buy a robot hoover? Sounds like that's one of your biggest time sinks.

Can you have a ‘family cleaning session’, eg every Saturday morning for 2 hours everyone in the household is working together to clean tidy wash. You’re not making your DD do chores then, it is just what you as a family do at that time. Everyone contributes and does there share. Helps her to feel useful within the family. You don’t feel like it’s all falling on you. And then you can have a nice reward like going for a picnic together.

Also could you lower your standards and just accept that there will be pet hair on the furniture during the week?

The OP has asked for advice on how to manage her workload.

Some of us have pointed out that getting rid of the animals would be a good way of significantly cutting her workload and improving her budget.

She is free to take or leave that advice. No one is forcing her to do something that doesn't work for her, or beating a path to her door to euthanise her pets.

I have cats and just vacuum once a day. My routine is wake up, put laundry on, sort beds, vacuum, have a cup of tea. It’s just ingrained routine.

What really helped me cut down on ridiculous vacuuming was getting rid of stuff that just exists - shelves full of stuff that had to be vacuumed all the time. I’m very selective about what I own because in the past I would get really overwhelmed with cleaning. I realised everything we brought into the house to look pretty would be another bloody thing to vacuum!

DP has his stuff in cabinets now so there’s no more cleaning the tops of DVDs and games, etc.

I have nice boxes for my things in the bedroom. Bathroom stuff is kept in cabinets and vanity cases.

Can you do more scheduling of your business advertising to make it less of a hamster wheel?

Another thing is notebooks. You sound like you have a swirly brain like me that gets overwhelmed with too many life sections.

Literally separate them out into different “tabs” by making daily and weekly lists for Work, Home & Family, Personal, Life Admin.

Do all your admin on a certain day of the week and let yourself not worry about those to-do’s on other days - just make sure you have one life admin to do list that you add to when things crop up. When it’s on the list, you can let it go from your brain until admin day.

Chuck anything not nailed down/genuinely essential every single day into the bin = tidying is reduced. There's a bunch of bikes, skates and assorted activity equipment that can go, for a start.

This makes vacuuming and mopping much easier. Look into a robot vacuum/mop in the future (not now, you're skint). I'm assuming there's some medical reason why it's essential to get rid of dust daily instead of once-twice a week? If not, it can wait two days.

Your ex isn't doing 50%. So claim CMS. That could pay for the robot vacuum/mop.

And enjoy the pottering. It's free.

Why are you dusting every single day? If you are vacuuming daily then there shouldn't be very much dust around, can you do that once a week? And how does a 3 person household generate enough washing for a daily laundry load?
Lower your standards on the cleaning routine, that should buy you a bit of time and make it all less overwhelming.

You need to get rid of the animals
Your DD is more important and it sounds like they take up a lot of precious time.

Because she has 5 animals.

Could you buy a robot hoover? I got a eufy one for £140 and it has been life changing for me.