When I grow up

sugar-walsh

Pay day. It's been hit slightly as I had a week sick due to covid, but to be honest, not as badly as I thought. Less tax, insurance, pension and student loan meant it was manageable. 

Just had the most amazing night away for our 10th anniversary. It was expensive, we were prepared for it, so it's not sent me over the edge. 

This coming month our focus is on sorting a mortgage for our home. We need to buy my mum out (her request), so we wil be trying to sort that out. Fingers crossed. 

So, today's figures... 

Credit card £2922
Od1-£346
Od2 +£400

sugar-walsh

This week we managed without a big weekly shop. We spent more than anticipated on food during March, so I decided to use our food up. Baked potatoes, freezer tea of left overs, using all the veg up.  All went well until tonight, when I ate at work and the rest bought shop pizza.  But I can live with that. A new grocery challenge this month, seeing if we can stick to £250. We overshot by about £60 in march. 🙄

Other new challenges... To earn enough money to pay for a possible holiday in June half term. I'm planning on selling more furniture (I buy and sell) and I've got more copy to write for a website. I've got to find some other ways of earning extra. Truth be told, I wouldn't mind a pay rise. That reminds me, I'm due a bonus for finding an employee, and then another in 3 months for anithee I've found. I need to get my persuasive poaching head on I think. 

Have paid gas, electric, mortgage and tax (husband) this week. Set up dd for council tax so hope we get the £150 rebate. 

Today's totals 


Credit card £2656
Od1 - £544
Od 2 +116

sugar-walsh

I was going to say April has been a mixed bag so far, but truth be told, it's actually ticking along OK.

I'm about to finish my 2nd lot of copy for a website, so that will be £500 coming my way. My husband has actually sold some of the little figures he collected for free a couple of weeks ago, bringing about £65 so far. I've baan asked to chat with a local brewery about their social media. I'm hoping I will pick that up as another side hustle. I did say I wanted some extra income streams.

I'm feeling a little down as no treats planned this month. Sounds pathetic and tone deaf in the current climate, but they keep me going. Maybe if I can book something for half term I will perk up slightly. Plus I'm due a b12 shot, it  really affects my mood.

Like many, I'm struggling with what is going on in the world at the moment. Weirdly, the thing that has struck a massive chord with me though is the latest blog from Jack Monroe. 

And possibly not in the way you might expect. 

Whilst I applaud Jack for the work done creating recipes for very low incomes I feel conflicted.

I'm confused as to why Jack works a (self professed) 100 hours for free each week. Surely she should be charging someone for this, or getting recompensated somehow? She has best selling books, appears on the media and seems to have the means to create a reasonable life. Yet she's still struggling (it seems from recent tweets) and I don't know why. Is it just a change in mindset that triggers a different path? 

I've been super poor in my life. Yes, I had a roof over my head, just. I've had bailiffs at the door, walked to the shop with two toddlers in tow every day to buy yellow sticker stuff. I robbed Peter to pay Paul. But one day I decided something had to change. I started to research and try to understand how our money mindset, those preconceived ideas we have around money and wealth, made me live my life in a poor way. 

It was a very slow and hard process, but slowly I paid off my debts by changing  my lifestyle. We used our mortgage payment to set up a business.  It was money we had been lent as we just didn't have enough. 

Yes, before you say it, I was lucky to have a mortgage. But even that was borne from pragmatism. I bought a very cheap house in an undesirable area because I couldn't afford to live, even renting, in the place I grew up in. 

I digress. 

My point is, things can change. I feel uneasy with the current narrative that the only way lives can improve is when the government does something. 

It's not been easy. Again, following the sale of our business, we racked up debt. We started living a very frugal life. Then I remembered that there's a way out.
I took a job, with a side hustle or 2. I reminded my husband he needs to pull his weight. We started budgeting food a bit more, and being aware of what we are spending on. We focus on spending on the things we love, whilst paying our debt down. I know some people will say we are lucky to be in a position to be able to do this. But it's been hard. It still is. There's no magic fixing fairy. But for now, we are dragging ourselves upwards with our own wings. 

So there we have it. My alternate opinion to Ms Monroe. I'm sure it won't be popular. If I expressed this on other media's I would be trashed for not understanding. But I have been there. and I'm just a step away from.l returning. But, for now, im continuing moving forward.

Today's totals:

Credit card: £2481
Od1: - £579
Od2: + £105

mumtoomany

Hi, @sugarwalsh. I've just read your last post and wanted to say i agree with you. We all have chooses we can make, but i believe some people don't make them. Luck is what you make. Nearly forty years ago OH and I were living in a council house, on benefits, expecting our second child. OH's brother and his wife lived in a similar house also on benefits also expecting their second child. Now we have a 13acre smallholding, have been mortgage free for 17 years. Sister-in-law, now sadly widowed, is still in a council house on benefits. You have to make your own luck. You have to work at achieving the life you want, not wait for the world to provide it. We've hit rock bottom many times, not really sure how we'll be able to cover bills, but pulled ourselves back up. You are doing well, your debt is nearly cleared, keep up the good work. Well done! Right off to read Jack Munroe now. Take care, hugs, mumtoomany.xx

sugar-walsh

Thank you @mumtoomany. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts if you found the blog. 
There is no doubt Jack ended up in a worse position than I ever ended up in and I am.not dismissing her experience. I just worry that if we never talk about how life can change we are potentially giving those in power more power. I often think the system (under current government) is there to grind us down, and if we don't ever realise there can be a different way they have won.

In other news, yesterday I finished and submitted my website descriptions and have billed for them.

I've sold a stool I was given and husband has sold more mini figure things. 

But, most excitingly, I've been offered a social media side hustle job. For £1000 a month. Which is amazing. At last it feels like all that blooming hard work I've put in, all the years I've moaned about being under paid and under appreciated, are starting to fruition. When I told my husband he was thrilled for me, he said 'I'm so bloody proud of you love, you're finally getting what you deserve'.  Someone actually approached me and asked me to work for them. Whoop whoop! 

Now, to approach my bosses tomorrow and chat it over with them.  But for tonight, I'm enjoying a bath and a glass of vino. 

jusferbrowsing

Great news on your side hustle job 

WinterWarrior

Well done on the side hustle. I too wonder why Jack isn’t raking it in. I wonder if she’s hiding all the book profits for a nice retirement? If she was donating them I feel she’d be louder about it and no one with a scrap of sense would do it for free! 

mumtoomany

Hi, sugar. Yes I did manage to find her blog today, internet of part of yesterday, changed provider to save a few pennies. When you have the slowest internet in the world, no point paying a lot for it. I had read bits of it years ago, but nothing recently. I agree she had it very hard, much harder than we ever have. It seems she also has poor mental health and autism. Must have been so much harder for her. I advise her ability to carry on and to keep fighting for others. The system is finally there to grind us down, we have to not let it. Winter warrior, it seems Jack ended up with a lot of debt and has taken a time to clear it. Not surprising really. She earns less from her books than she could, as she allows food banks, community groups, etc to copy and distribute them for free.
Well done on getting the job! Start of a new affluent life? Or just slightly less difficult.
Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

sugar-walsh

Thanks @jusferbrowsing

@WinterWarrior it doesn't feel right that she should still be struggling after so long. I don't think she is stashing it, I hope she is, but from what she shares on twitter that isn't the case. I think my main thoughts are not so much why Jack, in particular, is stuck in a poverty cycle, (it appears) but more a worry that if we continue discussing poverty and not the ways out then there's something not right.
There was some tory guy suggesting a nurse could live off a bag of pasta for 50p. And whilst it was clumsy and tone deaf, there is an important discussion to be had there. Why, if we can purchase food so cheaply, are people going hungry? What is going wrong and what can be done. Because endlessly relying on food banks isn't a solution, neither is pasta preaching. The discussion must develop to break this cycle.
Thanks @mumtoomany. I am excited in some ways, but concerned it means working 6 days a week. I think I can be smart and mostly do it in the evenings, whilst watching TV, which isn't a bother. And I'm thinking it might just be the boost we need as a family for a year.
And long term, I'm keen to have a more fluid work style that isn't 5 days stuck in an office.
It's all yet to be officially agreed, but I think I'm going to take it. 

X

WinterWarrior

It’s such a difficult subject isn’t it? Yes it’s very tight for some people and emergencies can push people to food banks, but for the day to day normal eating it can be done cheaply if managed right. No one wants to live permanently off 50p pasta, but it can fill a gap. I guess there needs to be a drains up look at finances of people on the bread line, maybe some kind of means testing for benefits that works both ways, so if someone’s rent is very high and they need more transport because they live rurally, have dependants that need it, etc. that can be factored in. Not for ever, but as a life line for people genuinely needing a helping hand while they climb out of the benefits trap? It’s such a tricky subject though and the more that’s given out, the more other people need to be taxed to pay for it. There are certainly worse places to live!