Hello my darlings!

I thought I would take it back to old-school blogging, and write out a blogging/diary entry kind of thing, instead of the usual articles focusing on one financial topic in particular.

It’s been SO long since I’ve done one of these, and it will be great to share what’s been going on since my last update – whenever that was!

If you don’t know my story, it’s probably best that I start with that! A few years ago now, I was in a bad place financially. I was in debt, my daughter was still very young, I had a part-time job that I did working from home, but it was only earning me a few hundred pounds each month, which meant my quality of life was super low.

As my income was so low, I had no spare money, and had to make sure that my daughter was eating well – which meant that I would end up eating badly, or not enough. This obviously had a knock-on effect, and I quickly became intolerant to gluten and dairy! I can also never have vegetable soup ever again without feeling sick, lol.

My budget was really good – it had to be! I knew that in order to change my life, I was going to have to try to make more money. I didn’t know how to do this – side hustles were not as widely known as they are now! Social media wasn’t used like it is now, and there weren’t many UK websites with this info on.

I headed over to Google and spent hours upon hours searching for ways that I could do this. I had no spare cash to put into any money making ventures, I had my young daughter at home with me, I had hardly any spare time, and I was in a bad place mentally.

I think it’s important to mention how I felt mentally, because if you are struggling – I understand. I think some people who recommend ways of making money or are all go-go-go, may not understand what it feels like to be someone who is in that place mentally and financially, and how difficult it is to start something new.

Anyway! I realised I had to do something drastic if I wanted something in my life to change.

I decided to pick one of the money making ideas I had come across, and just go for it. I remember how determined I was to make a change!

Fast forward to now, and things look SO different for me. I cannot believe the difference! It’s great 🙂

I now live in a lovely house with my partner and my daughter who is now 11! We moved cities and I pooled my money together with my partner Massimo after my divorce and house sale. We’ve been living in this house for about 4 years now I think, and still love it a lot.

So many things have changed along the way! Before and during the lockdowns I was working for myself full-time both on this business (The Money Fox) and also doing some freelance writing.

It all became a bit of a juggle when I had to homeschool my daughter during the lockdown, but we got through it! I actually have good memories of the lockdown, and when my daughter went back to school and my partner went back to work, I felt really lonely. The house was so quiet!

I found it hard to get back into my routine of working by myself all day, and decided that I should look into getting outside work as well. I wanted to do that to get out and about meeting people, and have more of a routine imposed upon me. I work really well to a routine, and the more stuff I have to do, the better I tend to work.

I jumped straight into a full-time job, which was a BAD idea as I was so tired! I found it was too much as the job role was super fast paced and non-stop – which I love by the way – but it meant that when I was getting back home I didn’t have as much time to do my biz stuff on top of my Mum duties and everything else.

So I made the decision to hand in my notice and I was then going to start looking for a part-time role. There was no rush from a financial perspective, so I thought this was an ok move to make. Luckily, my job wanted to keep me within the company, so they created a new part-time role for me! How lucky was that?! Although as well as luck, I will say that I worked very hard and very efficiently in the previous role.

So I did the part-time role, and after a few months, decided that unfortunately it wasn’t for me. I knew that I wanted to stay in an employed role still alongside my biz, because as I mentioned before, I just work better that way. It’s so important to test what works for you, as some people want to go full-time self-employed and would hate to go back to employment.

A role opened up at the company that my boyfriend works for, and they asked if I would be interested in going along to interview – so I went along, and they offered me the job on the spot! It’s a full-time role, but with a lot of flexibility. I also get a company car (my first one ever!), which meant that I sold my own car. It was only a small runaround, but I sold it for £1,200, which was nice to get in my savings account.

I’ve been doing this job for a few months now, and I haven’t adjusted to it 100% (it’s not a role I would usually go for)…but the flexibility and perks are great. I also get a bonus each month depending on how well the office is doing (I’m actually split between 2 offices so I get 50/50 of both).

Although I take on employed work for getting out of the house, there’s no doubting the financial benefits it gives me as well. I have adjusted my budget so that the income from the employed job is covering my bills – so I am not touching my biz money for bills or general spending.

It’s interesting to see the way that my brain works when it comes to money from an employed role – I have much more of a spendy attitude towards it than when I have my self-employed income – that money I definitely have more of a scarcity mindset going on.

I think because I don’t always have an employed job, when I do get one, I decide that I will spend the money. Because I don’t know how long I will want to be in the role for, I guess my brain wants me to spend it quickly before it runs out. My boyfriend was asking me where all of this money has gone (apart from bills) – but when I started to go through my spends with him, he was like oh, that all makes sense actually.

Things like our new kitten (cute!) who cost me a LOT of money because of him needing to be a hypoallergenic cat (allergies!), our washing machine broke and so on.

I do like having a salaried income as I like to know how much I have coming in each month, although in this job I do also get a bonus each month which is nice, and I don’t know how much it’ll end up being each time – it’s not based on what I am doing in my role, but how much the areas sell overall, and is split between everyone.

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of low, but today I feel really good! I have been watching and listening to a lot of Youtube videos and podcasts lately, and I’ve been trying to make a plan for The Money Fox.

I am going to grow this business, and I am very excited to do so! I think it’s important to have a plan, and I haven’t been following a plan for it for a while, which is silly!

One of the things that I am keen to add to my repertoire is doing financial workshops for companies, with a focus on financial wellbeing. So if you know anyone who would benefit from a talk from me, please reach out!

There’s so many things that I want to do for this business to try and reach and help more people, so watch this space! Would sharing what I’m working on be of any interest?

Going back to finances…my boyfriend and I have been talking a lot about what our financial goals are and what we want to do for the future.

This is where I have been feeling a lot of pressure, as a lot of the big money side of things is dependent on me. I’ve shared with Massimo recently that I’ve been feeling the pressure, which has caused us to potentially reevaluate our goals a bit.

This is what our goals were going to be:

  • Save up for a biiiiiig dream house
  • Pay off the mortgage entirely
  • Buy at least one investment property
  • Retire early

As you can see…these are huge goals that require a LOT of money. The thing is, we really love our current house. It’s perfect really, but we still have aspirations of that huge house with a lot of land. We’re talking triple the value of our current house at least. Yikes!

So, I think the big change to our goals will probably be to stay in this house. This isn’t a bad thing, and doesn’t mean that buying another house will never happen, but I feel a lot of the pressure ease. It would have meant me saving 6 figures a year, just for the house. Whilst paying down the mortgage and all of the rest of the stuff that I want to do (e.g. fabulous holidays).

The main goal for now is saving for an investment property, and paying down the mortgage. I started doing this from my business income, but I think I may start doing it from my salaried income instead. I’m unsure! Anyway, that reduces my savings goal by hundreds of thousands of pounds, lol.

I think I just want to take the financial goals and saving at a slower pace and spend my money a bit more, which is what I’ve been doing. I’m probably going to do some more trips abroad with my mum, which will be nice! Why is life so expensive?! Ha.

I also have some additional businesses that I’d love to set up – I actually have a meeting regarding one of them tomorrow so wish me luck!

I’m definitely being a Spendy Wendy at the moment and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon, but it’s been nice. As I’ve been working on my budgeting and spending for so long, I am not an emotional spender and not an impulse spender either. The things that I have been buying have been thought about and planned for a long time. For example, since we’ve moved in here we wanted to paint the kitchen and dining area, but hadn’t. Sooo now we have! Bought the paint, smashed it mate. It looks soooo good! I’m obsessed.

It’s little things like that, things that have been niggling at me to get done, so it’s fab to finally get them ticked off my list (of course I have a list!). Next on my list is a whole new wardrobe. I have decided I want some new clothes and to get rid of some of my current ones. I’m going to be going into a more neutral theme, with sprinklings of pink of course.

I also want to get a lot of beauty treatments done – I have booking a facial on my to do list for this week. The lady I go to is so amazing – I really need to make it a more regular thing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this money/life update – please let me know if you’d like to see these on a more regular basis, and let me know below if you have any questions! Love ya xo <3