An interview I go back to a lot is one where Ghetts talks about how he realised his income was not matching his lifestyle, so was getting a van so he could deliver pharmaceuticals. For someone so well-established in the music game, I never would have thought that he wasn’t financially secure in the way it seemed. But people struggle.
He obviously recovered and, before his van arrived, he managed to secure a deal to work on an EP with Rude Kid and got his career back afloat again. It makes me realise how fragile things can be when you don’t have a full-time job, but even with that as a warning sign, I can’t help but think about the day I finally call it quits.
This is it. We’re getting so close to the end of my fiancée’s maternity leave. They paid her three months full pay, half pay for three, statutory for three and nothing for the final three. Throughout that time – as well as figuring out how to be a mum – she’s been trying to make her work as a blogger really pay. And it’s been working.
There has been a drop in her earnings, but she’s getting paid at a level where she can more than manage. It’s been great because it means that we’ve been able to live a fairly good lifestyle throughout this past year, without having to worry.
Now that the end is in sight for her, we’ve made a final decision that she just won’t be working there again. She doesn’t need to. As well as her blog stuff, she’s got a couple of freelance social media clients, so those are keeping her busy, and have kept things afloat.
That sends the attention back over to me. Since my fiancée has got it figured out, I need to do the same. At work we’ve had a few changes. I used to manage two people. One moved teams, the other left and we have a company-wide recruitment freeze because it’s not doing too well.
While I feel like my job is secure, I’ve just put all of my attention on training up my new girl (who just came from another team) to do the work that two people were doing before. I had things good but I’m absolutely not stepping up to do more work – I’ve got other things to do. I’m trying to build my own business.
Now I’ve learned to cope with the amount of sleep I’m (NOT) getting, I’ve just got tunnel vision on making the most of my business. I’m going full force with it. Every waking minute that I have is dedicated to making it a success, because I’m getting out too.
My fiancée will be self-employed next month. I’m aiming to do the same the month after.
I don’t like working for someone else and I just know that if I could concentrate all of my time on my own thing, I could make even more money from it.
It’s actually a joke how much I’m getting away with at work. I get to my desk, figure out what meetings I need to go to, delegate some tasks, and then spend the rest of my time doing what I can for my business. I work on it on the train to work and back too. I literally have to. I haven’t got a choice. Otherwise I’ll be stuck here for longer.
I think the business is stable enough for me to be able to pay myself a salary very, so I just need to keep going for it for a little while longer.
Oh yeah and there’s some news: we’ve got another baby coming!
