Tuesday 29 May 2012

Raiding my mum's music collection and bopping along to 'I'm still standing'

Iz back.

Dudes. Oh dudes. Where do I begin? I would apologise but that seems odd, as I doubt me keeping a blog up-to-date really has a massive bearing on people’s lives/ dire, doom mongering implications/ CONSEQUENCES FOR THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, so actually I’m sorry for me that I’ve had to let my ‘appymum’ project slide a bit, but I doubt there’s cause to be sorry for you.



So what have I been doing? Tis a long story:


The proverbial shit has well and truly hit the fan in relation to finances now I’m on my unpaid maternity leave and we really have no one to blame but ourselves. I prided myself in my early twenties (in the dark old days when we were a starving student family in Manchester with, our then, one child in tow) on making a £20 pound note stretch for the entire week and I’m not kidding. ‘Aldi’ was my favourite haunt for everything, from groceries, to skincare and even Christmas presents for the extended family. I was the budgeting, thrifty queen of awesomeness. As we both eventually grew up and settled down a bit and finally started drawing two salaries into the household, we became a bit complacent and set in our ways in regards to some things, food shopping definitely being one of them. Working for the company I do I get discount at a high-end national supermarket and good god do I make the most of this discount. It doesn’t help that my nearest branch is a ten minute stroll away. So rather than take the 30 minute schlep up to our nearest ‘Iceland’, when we knew money would eventually become a bit tight, we opted for the fancy pants, convenient option and in doing so we’ve probably wasted hundreds that we could have saved. Although my discount takes our food-shop down to a more reasonable ‘Tesco’ level of food-shop, it is certainly not ‘Iceland’- ‘Lidl’ combo food-shop! I’ve obviously become a bit of a food-shop snob and I need a slap round the chops pronto. Now we’re on the thin end of my unpaid maternity leave I’ve suddenly come to my senses and remember the savings way of yore, I only wish I’d realised sooner as I’d have a nice cushion of cash to tide me over rather than biting my nails with fear each time a new bill hits the doormat. I think we’ve been playing ostrich like, with our head in the sand, but no more.

Our big, looming issue is we have to move come September and so far have no deposit saved to do it. Crap.

So, what have I been doing to rectify the situation? Well I’ve certainly not been sat on my arse just hoping and praying everything somehow rectifies itself. In case you hadn’t noticed I’ve been desperately trying to get a new job since January! I couldn’t even guess at how many applications I’ve sent out over the past five months, out of these the only interviews I’ve had have either been internal or set up through friends of friends. I cannot lie, the fact I haven’t been offered any positions after interview has left me feeling completely dejected and flat, but I’m still trying, I have to. It is seriously hard to put on your happy face when you’re met by constant brick walls and silence, it grinds you down.

But at least, no matter how much it makes me weep at the thought of it, I have a job to go back to at the start of July. It might just be my old 14 hours a week, stand at a till/ phone/computer and be shouted at because someone can’t get a refund on a paperclip, position but it will help us save towards the move. If it’s the choice between that and being homeless I’m obviously going to have to invest in some discreet earplugs.

It’s not all doom and gloom though peeps!  I’ve started doing some freelance work for a fab parenting site called http://www.parentpages.co.uk. After we’ve moved, if as is very likely I’m still in my current job I think I will be moving on concentrating on this project and seeing what other freelancing projects I can secure. This will also mean I will have time to finish my degree with the OU and will have time to give the ‘Appymum’ project the full attention it deserves. Most importantly I’ll be there for the boys. I’ve always said for the right job I would work full-time, but I’m not happy to do so if it makes me thoroughly miserable. Particularly if financially we’re no better off due to the cost of childcare whilst the boys are very small.


Lots to consider and mull over, but I’m sure come September things will work out…. Or we’re crashing over at yours, okay?