In pursuit of Health, Wealth and Happiness

Tete_en_l'Air

:hello: Hello, welcome to my diary! I’m a long-time MSE-er but tend to spend most time [STRIKE]gossiping[/STRIKE] discussing money matters on other people’s threads. This is my first go at keeping a long-term diary on here so wish me luck.

A bit about me. I’m female, 30, single and live at home with my Dad, working in a job that I don’t HATE but don’t love. Pretty grim so far, yes? How did I get here? I’ve never really known what I wanted to do as a career and have pootled along so far hoping that I might somehow ‘fall into’ something I love. I studied languages at uni because I was good at them and enjoyed them, but never really thought about what I might DO with them. I finished uni and spent a few years working in dead-end jobs whilst living with friends and partying constantly.

By the time I reached 25 I had a bit of an epiphany and realised I’d never pay off my £3000 student debts (not including my loan I hasten to add!) whilst renting on minimum wage and going out three times a week. So I moved home, got a better job, paid off my debts, learnt to drive, and bought a car. I was then in a position to be able to think about my career. And then I met a boy, and spent the next three years blissfully in love, living for the weekends and planning a future together. I didn’t think about my career at all because my job was *okay* and I was just so happy with the way everything else was going it just fell by the wayside.

Then just before I turned 29 the boy dumped me completely out of the blue and I realised I hadn’t actually moved forward in my own life at all. I spent all of 2011 trying my best to keep myself together when inside I was falling to pieces. I felt like the best years of my life were over and the recession was really starting to hit at the worst possible time. I couldn’t afford to buy a house or even rent a flat on my own, and redundancies were flying about so I didn’t dare commit to anything anyway. I was completely lost and desperate.

Then at the beginning of 2012 my Dad and his sister were diagnosed with cancer within a fortnight of each other. Both were really poorly and it was a horrible dark time, especially as I have no siblings to share the burden, my Dad is single and my Mam died herself in 2008. I was completely alone and worried sick, but it put all the rubbish from the previous year into perspective and made me realise that life’s too short not to be doing what makes you happy. Sadly my aunty lost her short battle in April but my Dad is doing well, although it’s not something that will ever be cured as such, he’s almost back to his old self.

Which brings me to the events of the last six weeks or so (are you still with me?). My work has decided to move my tiny team of four to a ‘satellite building’ 15 miles away (and 20 miles from my home), for no good reason and the only alternative we have is to go on six months’ redeployment. If we haven’t found another job within the organization within the six months, we’ll be made redundant (statutory redundancy, not some nice juicy package). It’s been a very stressful time here with appeals and ‘negotiations’ and the upshot is that two members of the team are leaving and the other two of us are moving to this other campus, where barely anyone else works and is in the middle of nowhere (well, a 15 minute walk to the nearest town) with no facilities, and they’ve given us only the bare minimum that they have to by law (any mileage over our current home-work mileage) – not one little gesture of goodwill such as waiving our £20 per month car park fees.

I was already seething at having to take flexi time to accompany my Dad to his chemo sessions earlier in the year, rather than being given any kind of compassionate leave (ME! The girl who has never had a day off sick in five years, who will do anything for anyone, who was the only person out of a team of (then) 12 who bothered to come in during a week of heavy snowfall, while everyone else basically got a free week’s holiday… and so on and so on) and I’m so disappointed and angry at the way we’ve been treated over this, yet felt completely helpless – I mean jobs aren’t exactly easy to come by at the moment are they? But then I started thinking that maybe this was just the kick up the bum I need to get out of my rut and tried to see it as an opportunity to get out and retrain. And that’s what this diary’s going to be all about – my journey towards a new career and a new life. I’ve been thinking about the things I really want to concentrate on in the coming months and they come under the headings of Health, Wealth and Happiness – but it’ll make more sense if I explain them in reverse order.

Tete_en_l'Air

Really, this relates to career. I’ve already mentioned that I’ve never known what I wanted to do, but I certainly know what I don’t want and that’s to wake up in another five years’ time still doing a stressful, yet boring and non-rewarding office job. And to get out of this rut I realised I’d need to retrain. Once I’d decided that I jotted down a few ideas of the sorts of things I’m interested in (from speech therapy to textiles to photography) and booked an appointment with the careers advisor at work (I’m going to be a making the most of working for a university in the coming months!). The problem is that the things I’m most interested in are the things I have the least knowledge and experience of so I’d need to do a lot of expensive studying.

When the CA heard that I have a languages degree, he immediately and predictably suggested going into teaching. I’ve always said I would never be a teacher. My own memories of French classes in secondary school are too fresh in my mind for me to ever want to try to teach a load of 12-year-olds that ‘bof’ just means ‘meh’ and not ‘fart’, but he mentioned that there’s a big drive to get languages into primary schools now and to give it some thought.

And I did. It’s a bit like not liking tomatoes and always being convinced that you don’t like tomatoes and you never will, and then actually tasting one and finding they’re not that bad after all. And thinking about primary teaching I began to think that actually, yeah I think I WOULD quite enjoy it and I think I could be really good at it too. I’m still having the odd pang of “Oh no, what if I hate it?” but I keep going back to the thought of how unhappy I am now – it can’t be any worse so I should at least try.

So. That’s the plan. I made a few phone calls and (of course) I wasn’t able to apply for 2012-13 but in a way that’s not so bad – it gives me time to get my application right, get some work experience and most importantly save some money…

Tete_en_l'Air

[FONT=&quot] This area is all about saving towards taking a year out of work to study. At the moment there is a bursary for modern languages of £12,000, and the fees are £8000. I’m not relying on these remaining the same (or remaining at all); I realise with the current government bursaries can be dropped and fees can go up at the drop of a hat but at the moment the 2012-13 figures are the only ones I have to go on. I could happily live on £1000 a month – it’s not that much less than I earn now, after tax. So if the bursary remains – happy days, I’ll aim to save £8-9k between now and next September to pay my fees and live on the bursary. Worst-case scenario would be for the bursary to be scrapped altogether and fees to go up to the maximum £9,000 – in which case I would get a loan to pay the fees and still aim to save £8000 to cover living costs – this would give me £650ish a month to live on which is doable, although I’ll miss my holidays and new shoes. [/FONT]

Until recently I’ve had about £2k in a savings account almost constantly but with all the stress of Dad’s health and work … well, to make myself feel better I eat (see next point) and buy stuff. So this has dwindled to about £600. One saving grace is that I do piggybank my wages religiously so I have other pots of savings for things like car costs so the savings account is pure rainy-day savings. I also have an ISA with about £5500 in it but I don’t touch that or even think about it. That’s there in case things ever get REALLY dire.

So the plan here is Ebay, Quidco, NSDs, No Spend Lunches (NSLs) on work days, the usual stuff… Also I mentioned I’m being paid mileage now – this is at a rate of 40p per mile but 1 mile in my car only costs about 10p so in theory that’s 30p extra for every work mile I drive – I’ve got a separate petrol pot in my account so I’ll see how this pans out but I should end up in profit with this.

I’m also going to keep a spending diary for September and see if that provides a disincentive to buying crap, and I’m hoping that moving to my remote new workplace will mean my spending reduces without me really trying.

*I'm aware that it's not strictly-speaking a DFW diary as I'm not actually in debt, but the aim is to stay that way so in that sense I hope I qualify.

Tete_en_l'Air

As mentioned above, when I’m stressed, I eat. This combined with a recurring injury that has hampered my running, means that I am a good stone over my happy weight. I’ve counted calories before and it works so I’m starting my diet tomorrow, but I’ll also do the 30 Day Shred to give me a bit of a boost in September. I also aim to bring packed lunches to work every day; this will kill two birds with one stone (the £ and lb birds).

I’m going to New York in eight weeks (all budgeted for!) and would love to have lost a stone by then. I’ve taken my weight, my measurements and some pics in my underwear tonight so I can keep track of my losses; and having somewhere (here) to be accountable should give me a good incentive too.

I will also be embarking on Sober September – this sounds worse than it is! I don’t normally drink a lot but I’ve had a lot of social events this month and spent a lot of time in various states of inebriation/hangover, so I’m going to abstain totally for a month and have a bit of a detox. In reality this started today but we'll call it Sober September for alliteration’s sake.

So there we have it- three goals. I aim to something towards each one of them every day and will keep a bit of a record here. September is going to be a quiet month after a very busy August so I’m hoping to make some good headway. Well done if you’re still with me – a ridiculously long introduction, but one which has helped me clarify a few of my thoughts!

tootallulah

Tete, this sounds like a BRILLIANT plan. One thing about primary is that the other things you are interested in, crafts etc will be useful and valued. And nothing makes you laugh more than children! I am at the other end of working and expect to take early retirement next September so will be living on a much reduced income whilst doing an MA in costume history - my passion for many years. I need to have paid £25k off my mortgage for it to be affordable so times are interesting........

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi Tallulah and thank you - this is what I was thinking too. With Secondary you're limited to just your subject but Primary covers so many more areas and I can really see myself enjoying it. MA in costume history sounds AMAZING, looks like we're trying to save a similar amount so best of luck with it!

Tete_en_l'Air

Finally managed to tweak my signature to get all the info I want to fit. Loving having my rainbow stripes back, I've been purple for a while...

wendz86

Hi Tete,

I definately think you looking to do something else will really make a difference. We spend a lot of a time at work so if you aren't really happy then it is going to affect you.

Primary teaching sounds fab. I agree that will have lots of different elements to it which would make it interesting.

Look forward to following your diary.

Tete_en_l'Air

Thanks Wendz - yeah I'm happy to have a bit of direction at last. I've always said the hardest part of careers is knowing what you want to do and now that I've decided I'm excited to chase it!

Hi Pingu, thanks for your message - you sound like me! I've worked really closely with teachers at all levels, school business managers, bursars, heads and LA education depts for the last five years and believe me I know more than most just how many people have gone into the profession as a back-up career. For every good teacher I come across there are two morons alongside.

And as I said, it's something I always said I'd never do so it's taken a lot of thought to come to the conclusion that I actually think I might enjoy it. It's funny as teaching seems to be seen as something you've either always wanted to do or something people do as a back-up ... but I'm sure plenty of people like me realise as they grow older that it's something they feel they could be good at.

I have a lot of teacher friends/colleagues at all levels and am certainly under no illusions about the hard work and stress involved (even or especially at Primary level), but again as I've already said, I am alreadyy in a stressful hard-working job - I'm not afraid of either - it's just that the role I have at the moment is pretty soulless. I'm actually looking forward to getting my teeth into something (not the children ).

Teaching is actually quite a difficult thing for me to come out and 'admit' I want to try as I've spent the last ten years moaning about teachers only doing it for the golden hellos - I'm doing a bit of a 180 which I don't do often and I certainly feel pretty sheepish about it!!

As for the bursary - my careers advisor told me that this is currently available for primary PGCE, but as I said I'm not relying on anything under the current govt - these are just the figures I'm working to at the moment until I know what the finance situation will look like for 2013-14. If I have to live on my savings and get a loan for the fees so be it.

Dinah93

After putting yourself down at the start, remember you're also talented, generous, funny, intellegent and beautiful.

You have clearly given it all a lot of thought and it's brilliant you're being so proactive in making your life the one you want to live.

Do you do a general PGCE or are there ones tailored to languages? I actually think you'll be a brilliant teacher, you are very patient and I think you'd be the type to go the extra mile to find a teaching method which speaks to the more resilient children. You sound like you know a lot of teachers already to help out, however I'll mention just in case that if you need work experience, my mum is deputy head in an internationally recognised state primary school - they get people travelling from all over Europe and even Africa to visit them and see their teaching methods.

I'll be about 2 weeks behind you on 30DS as not starting until I come back from holiday, I'm sure you'll be a lot better at it than me given you're so fit anyway.

Are you planning to continue the hunt for Mr Right, or is that on hold until the next few years are sorted out? I still think I know your perfect guy if you change your mind and decide you don't mind a guy the same height as you.

Looking forward to reading your progress x

Tete_en_l'Air

Ah Dinah you sweetheart :kisses3:

There are some primary PGCEs tailored to languages but not everywhere does them. I'm not sure yet which uni I'll apply to as you only have two options (it's a bit like UCAS - you get a first and second choice) and I need to research which I feel I have a better chance of getting into.

I actually have your Mum down on my list of Teachers I Know (:o - you know I love a good list!) but I didn't realise she was a deputy head. I will certainly bear her in mind as I need some classroom time - do you think that would be possible?

As for Mr Right - I've actually not been hunting for a while, and I feel more relaxed about the situation at the moment. A couple of my friends have fallen pregnant a few months after having a baby and it's reassured me how quickly a family can happen and I'm not actually that old! Tell me more about your friend.

I'm not actually that fit anymore, plagued with running injuries but hoping level one will be OK! How's the blog going?