New to DFW any advice appreciated

blackberrycurved_2

Thanks so much for all of this lots to think about. I'm a writer a novelist so my work is sold through my agent and it is quite labour intensive so once I'm commissioned basically even though I'm not paid up the whole amount upfront, I get paid in chunks basically they are commissioning my time. They may phone me and be on the phone for anything up to 2hrs at any time and if I was to take another job which made me unavailable I'd be in breech of my publishing contract. I can swing a few hours here and there but nothing more. A foreign student is something that I'll look into my DD is 13 so too young to leave alone and sadly most bars here are full of polish girls or students working - you have to be under 25 to stand a chance. My £120pm child related expenses pays for - bus pass to get to school £9.50 per week - piano lessons £15 per week - drum lessons £12 per week that £146 isn't it?? ( I want to stop one instrument but she's doing GCSE music and plays both for her performance exam which is worth 30% of marks and I did agree to continue with the school) She can't get lessons free as she doesn't get free dinners and as long as I work she isn't entitled to free dinners I've written heaps of letter to them.

jak

OK, this is what I do as i'm trying to crawl out from debt myself. Hope it helps.
Eat very cheaply by buying reduced items, split them to freeze. Add pulses to stews, if you buy the dried packs you can boil them up together then freeze into portions. Packed lunches obv. Make a meal plan based on what you've got in and try to be creative.
Batch cook and freeze. A slow cooker is a great investment as it uses hardly any electricity and you can make extra to freeze, also takes little time to prepare, just throw in and switch on.

Clothes: You and your daughter are obv creative so get sewing to update old clothes. Also shop in charity shops as much as possible. You are helping give to charity while living cheaply.

Drop a brand in the supermarket if you can.

Good luck and don't despair!

J
X

LillythePink

Whilst not everyone's perfect idea and without sounding daft but...........your mortgage is 22k on a 250k property. Have you considered remortgaging the property and adding 10k to it to clear the debts andextending the period. Surely this would help until the house is sold.

I know that it's not good to turn unsecured debt to secured debt but you have huge amounts of equity and the house is on the market anyway.

blackberrycurved_2

Jak - I'll get onto the pulses and double cooking and freezing that will help. Lilly I can't remortgage as my job isn't classed as a regular income - banks run a mile. I got the house when I was in a different line of regular work, even if I show them my last 10 yrs accounts they won't I've tried. I have enquired about renting it out and renting something smaller for myself the cheapest rent here is about £650 per month so doing the sums it isn"t worth it. But good ideas

chippy61

You dont say what type of novels you write. Is there still a market for your particular brand of fiction? Could you not do a 'proper' 9 - 5 job and write part time until you are sorted? What about self publishing your work, maybe as ebooks? Even if not, a web site can be developed quite cheaply (even free if you look around) which you could use to encourage new readers.
Which part of the country do you live in? Your first attempt at a lodger sounded like you were giving the room away. I think you can earn £4.5k a year from renting a room before the tax man wants his cut so charging £250-£350 per month for a room would not be unreasonable. I ve just moved out of a shared house (slightly different arrangement I know) which was charging £500 per month!
Anyway good luck

findingmyownway

Hi

I think I have to agree with those who suggest a more regular job. I appreciate you must love your writing, but at the moment its not paying the bills to keep a roof over you and your daughter's heads. Can you write something different to your normal stuff - column for a magazine, blog etc etc? Or how about being a private tutor for GCSE English / Eng Lit?


I don't see why you need to be beholden to publishers phoning with no notice - you can schedule meetings properly with them like anyone else in business does - maybe they are only getting away with it because you let them? I don't know know what your publsihing contract says, but it can't be "I will be available 24 hours/day at no notice". More likely, you have agreed to be available for any reasonable amount of time with reasonable notice - perhaps you need to redefine 'reasonable' with them? They can't expect you to sit around not working, waiting for their call, if they are not paying a decent/regular hourly rate.