Picking myself up and dusting myself down!

Puddleglum

Happy Easter PB! We can do this!

My number one trick to beat insomnia let me down last night (UToob documentaries) and I ended up actually listening to quite an interesting film about climate scientists. No closer to solving the problem of climate change BUT I realised that in order to pay my friend what I owe her for a hotel room in a few weeks I just need two extra tutoring sessions.

So will stick an ad up in a few FB groups in a little while and see what happens.

I have a moral dilemma. A few weeks ago an agency sent me details of a tutee. I visited said tutee and they decided not to go for it and I informed the agency. Yesterday they came back and asked me to visit. Now they may change their mind again and nothing may come of it but my dilemma is whether or not to tell the agency. If I don't, I save myself and them money in agency fees. If I do, it indicates honesty and they may send me more work. This is the only contact they have sent me so suspect that they may not have believed me in the first place when the contact decided not to proceed.

Other MSE tasks for today. Find out the true scale of my financial woes and work out a plan to fix them.

Puddleglum

Great news!

There is the prospect of some day time tutoring work through the supply agency. Two student, both 5 days per week. Two different locations. One in the mornings and one in the afternoons. I need to negotiate over my networking commitments and some training I've got booked and paid for. Fingers crossed though we should be able to work something out.

On the moral dilemma front I've decided to be honest with the agency but not to tell them until after I've seen the student for the first time on the grounds that they may cancel again.

It's looking good for paying May's bills now and I am going to work out a plan of what is going to be paid where. I need to leave some money in the business to finance advertising and the credit card will have to be hit again but there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel.

I went on a sales training course today which was really useful. Came away all fired up but then spent the afternoon preparing for my tutees and the evening tutoring. Tomorrow will be a bit of a repeat with LinkyInny training in the morning, prep in the afternoon and then tutoring.

Puddleglum

LinkyInny training yesterday was really useful, just need to get started on putting everything into practice. Same with the information from the sales course on Thursday. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually one of life's eternal students - always studying but never doing.

However I have today at my disposal until this evening when I am tutoring. I'm writing this really because I need a plan for the day!

Need to:

• push leaflets through letter boxes
• write a blog post
• update LinkyInny profile and position myself as an expert in my field
• pay money into bank
• take documents to post office to be verified for DBS
• Schedule some FB posts
• Write up some notes on marketing
• Eat breakfast!

Not so bad. :beer: The money paying in and post office can wait until tomorrow. Think I'll start with breakfast and FB, move on to the LI before a bit of leafleting. Blog post this afternoon - probably be about aspartame. Tutoring and then write up the notes tonight.

Have a great day everyone :j

doingitanyway

Work is flooding in. Good luck with your day plan. Well done and keep going

Puddleglum

Hi DoingItAnyway :-)

Fingers crossed! I'm wary that I may be taking on too much at the moment and will never get this business underway. I've got some supply work to arrange today for people who are out of mainstream education. I said yes to both contracts but combine that with the tutoring and the SATs marking which starts half way through May and eeek!!!!!!

Just about to pop over to your diary now (subscribed).

doingitanyway

It is a balance. I'll be trying to get a creative venture off the ground come August but I've decided to go a whole year just focusing on it without looking for any work as I definitely get distracted easily. However, I am DF and MF so although it will be hard it is possible.

But you have rent to pay and you need to eat and live so I think you are motivated enough to do both

Puddleglum

Yup. I went as long as I could without an income and that included getting a business development loan. The problem is that I have a family that depend on £500 a month from me, exorbitant rent here and debts to service as well as eating and a large petrol bill for going back to visit family.

At the beginning of April when I started this diary it really felt desperate but money is coming in now, thank goodness. The training I did back in March when we played the game of musical chairs which ended up with the realisation that there are enough chairs for everyone has really resonated. I have a post-it note with that written on stuck to my mirror. We also did a martial art board breaking activity which has stuck in my mind. If I can achieve that - what else am I capable of?

Well yesterday I chased both of my referees who hadn't provided references for the NCS job. Was in a bit of a stew before making the phone calls but it turned out ok. I'm still alive and the references are going to be emailed today. :beer:

jwil

Glad everything is moving forward

Puddleglum

Thanks Jwil. I'm certainly feeling a lot more positive than I was this time last month!

I'm going to be doing a bit of broad brush thinking aloud in this post. Not quite ready to be exact on the figures yet but it is coming! Will screw myself up to find out how bad everything is down to the last penny in the coming week. Not quite got the mental strength for it yet.

In my business account I have managed to amass the grand sum of (drum roll please)... £1,348. There was about £200 in there at the start of the month so I've made about £1,100 from starting tutoring, one proper client and three sales of my 28 day online challenge.

I am going to transfer out £1,142 and allocate it as follows:

• £500 to family
• £400 to pay towards my rent which is actually £600 pm. The rent is high even for this area as I'm only renting a non ensuite room in a house but my landlady is also going through the mill financially and so I want to try and help her as much as poss. I still owe her £200 from last month but have a plan to pay off the £400 over the next month.
• £250 will be allocated towards repaying business loan and min payment on CC.

So that is a total of £1,150. Nothing to eat and I'd better be jolly good at darning the holes in my clothes! However, I am going to be paid weekly by the supply agency and I have a total of 18 1/2 hours per week for at least the next two weeks, possibly four. That should be paid at £30 per hour and will have tax and NI taken off so lets say £20 per hour. Very conservative estimate allowing for things to go completely wrong. That will be £375 per week, so between £750 and £1500 by the end of the month.

• I'm planning to take £100 per week from that to pay back my land lady.
• £80 food for the month for me
• £20 incidental expenditure

I will have to bail out my personal account before the 10th May when my course fees of about £350 are due to come out. I am too close to my overdraft limit there for it not to be bailed out so that will have to happen before anything else. Worst case scenario - I have to put the first week's £300 in there. Then:

• £50 per week to reduce CC
• £50 per week to savings acc to act as a bit of a cushion against June and I'll see what's left over then.

I will aim to keep up 10 tutoring sessions per week to go into the business account - £350 x4 = £1,400 so that should help pay for June. Say 3 sessions with my proper client £45 x3 = £135. I'm going to promote at least one 28 day challenge and aim for 5 takers on each one so conservative £30 x4 =£120. Theoretically I should be able to make £1,650 next month and everything will be rosy!

I've also go a day in London for the KS2 SATs marking which should be paid before the end of May and that will go into my personal account.

There shouldn't be too many more nights spent going :eek::eek::eek:

PositiveBalance

*Head explodes*


Wow! That's some turnaround in such a short time. You are killing this! :T


*Tries to put head back together*