Yeeeeeessssss. I know what you’re thinking that I can barely keep up posting on my own blog let alone on a parenting site. But, somehow the powers that be at Allure Media like me, like my writing, and I am now a columnist
I want to plug this little column I have been working on called "Work 2.0" on Babble. It is intended to be a lighthearted look at the ups and downs of running a home-based business. I hope that you can subscribe to it, tell your friends about it, and do all that viral interwebnets magic that I know you can!
The first main column is called The Accidental Entrepeneur: How to start a business without really trying. Check it out!
I have been watching the global economic crisis unfold both here and in the world market, and I must say, the events of the past 2 weeks are really not a big surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.
Today, the Rudd government announced more injections into the economy, to try and boost consumer confidence, by giving pensioners and families one-off bonuses. Last week, he also guaranteed all bank deposits, and has committed to additional government spending. I am supportive of all of this, as it will allow us to (temporarily!) weather the international storm.
But Rudd has made one huge mistake, which I think may actually be a nail in the coffin for the Australian economy and for consumer confidence. He has increased the First Homebuyers grant from $7000 to $14,000 (or $21,000 if you build). This has disaster written all over it. The original $7000 (and $14,000 for a little while if you built) put massive inflationary pressures not only on established housing in older suburbs, but on the crappy estate housing as well.
The average mortgage payment for us, if we were to enter the market right now, would be at least $1000 per week. This doesn’t include rates, or anything other than just the mortgage. We earn well over $100,000 a year and we still would find it extremely difficult to make those sorts of payments. And that is for the crappiest houses in the crappiest suburbs. We are better off than the great majority of people in Perth, and yet we sure as hell can’t afford a house! So I wonder how successful any attempt to get people to enter the market now is going to be. It’s going to seriously hurt middle and low income families.
Housing in Perth is ridiculously and artificially overpriced. Those that jump on the $21,000 grant are most at risk, because they are buying when the market is at a premium, and building in those shitty estates that are most vulnerable when the housing market shifts. Those in the $14,000 bonus gap can potentially do OK, but a lot of housing is currently overvalued and WILL DROP. Prices have already dropped by around $50k in many suburbs, and it is on a downward spiral.
Rudd has effectively made a cataclysmic mistake in trying to put people into inflated mortgages. It will come unstuck. They WILL foreclose on their houses, and it will be the same downward spiral that was inevitable anyway, just with a whole lot more casualties.
What are we going to do? Right now, every single cent we earn is going into paying off credit card and personal loan debt, and then saving the rest in term deposits. We will strike when the market collapses, and be in a good position to get finance because people like us will be hard to find in a year. The money I get from the government for the kids and the baby bonus will all be put into savings, not spent at Toys R Us at Christmas. And eventually, even though we will have to rent for maybe another year or two, we will then buy a house at a reasonable price, with a comfortable life.
As lovely as it would be to buy a house (we have considered it at various points throughout the last 5 years and have had opportunities), I think anyone who enters into a mortgage right now is either extremely stupid, or extremely brave. I hope for many people’s sake that people realise how damaging this grant could be (doubt it… estate bogans I am looking at you), but it is going to be very, very tough to recover if, and when the housing market collapses and you are left with a mortgage that is nearly double the actual value of your house.
This is a very real possibility, and I hope that the government rethink the grant. It was the original grant that fucked everyone up in the first place.
In case it’s not already abuntantly clear to you by now, Mina, I suck. I suck at writing birthday blogs on time. I suck at paying attention when you’re talking for the twelfth time about Barbie and the Diamond Castle. And sometimes, I suck at making sure you have clean uniforms to last beyond Wednesday and I most definitely suck at remembering to buy enough fruit for school.
But, somehow you survive anyway.
And that’s what is so awesome about being your Mum. You let me get away with being imperfect.
I think by now you have realised exactly how imperfect I can be. The business is at a point where it creates just enough stress to be disruptive, but not quite enough money to justify the stress, which means, well, I am kinda cranky and overworked. A lot. To the point where I frequently fantasise about going back to a full time job, where it was easier, I could Facebook for half my day and still get a paycheck, where the livelihood of the family didn’t always depend on me being productive. I fantasise about not having to bend over, show reams of paperwork, a business plan and a urine sample to get any level of respect from my bank, even though I earn more than most people with a full time job. I frequently fantasise about having that boring, traditional life, where people understand what you do, how you make money, and see it as legitimate. The stress of having a business at home is something that affects the whole family, and sometimes, it really sucks.
But the cost of going back to full time, of course, is that I would not be able to drop you off at school, or pick you up, or have impromptu playdates, or any of those little things that I enjoy being there for. Granted, I don’t exactly go to assemblies, or volunteer in the classroom, or, well, anything beyond paying for stuff, but at least now I have a choice. Being able to dictate my own timetable is the single greatest thing about what I am doing right now. There is very little that I have to do, right this second, that it cannot be done later. Unless, of course, I keep sayig “later” and then I end up barking at the both of you to shut up and then yell at your Dad saying how I get no respect and that…. well…. yeah. That. Which is usually my own fault.
And I am sure you know that being in business doesn’t always suck, when people pay on time, and I am motivated and things are going well, and you and Jules are playing nicely, and all my work is finished before 5pm, and I am not completely exhausted from growing a new human in my belly all day. In fact, when I hear you talking about how you want to work with me when you grow up (well, a web designer AND a Rock Star), it makes me feel like, despite my glaring imperfections as a human being and as a mother, that deep down, you see me as a role model. And that is the best feeling in the world.
There is a saying that to see a child at 7 is to see the adult. I have been seeing glimpses of the kind of woman you will become: strong willed, kind hearted, practical, intelligent, with a strong sense of the macabre and ironic. I would say that you are a lot like me in many respects, except that you seem to be more meticulous and conscientious than I ever was. Maybe it’s the non-dysfunctional surroundings that help you to be like that - you have more structure than I did. But, you know your own mind, you know what you want, and you have a pretty good sense of the world around you too. And it’s the most awesome thing I have ever witnessed.
And as I see glimpses of the woman you will become, I have remind myself to not fuck it up. I am trying very hard not to repeat the mistakes of my parents, with a hope that when you are an adult, you can come to me for anything, you can tell me anything, and we will have the kind of relationship that I always wanted with my own mother. I think we are off to a good start, because right now, you look forward to a day on your own with me. You want to play guitar like me.
For your birthday you have started guitar lessons, and you have a new Daisy Rock guitar, thanks to Janet :). The teacher seems to think you’re doing really well, and you love it. Watching you play guitar with full distortion, and rocking out, is an inexplicable feeling. All I ever wanted growing up was music lessons, but I never got them. So I am partly living through you, and I hope that’s ok. I hope you stick to it, but most of all, I hope you enjoy it. I have always been committed to providing you with opportunities that I never had, and I hope that when you are all grown up and a part time rock star/web designer, that you’ll be a little bit appreciative that even though there are some things I am bad at, that my intentions have always been to nurture you into the woman that I see you becoming.
Jason and I were sitting on the couch the other night, watching the wheelchair basketball at the Paralympics. One of our old schoolmates is in the Aussie team, has one prosthetic leg (that he had back then), and it led to a discussion about the… umm… cut off point … for what state the legs must be in to play wheelchair basketball at an elite level. The interesting thing was that this guy also kicked arse at "normal" basketball, because Jason used to play against him!
It then led to a game of speculating ‘who had what’ disability. Based on the muscular tone of the legs, or absence or legs, we speculated who was a "full" paraplegic, who was an amputee, etc. After a good… 5 minutes of this discussion, Jason then also lamented how he wishes that he could cut his left foot off. He has a neurological bone problem in his ankle that makes it extremely painful to walk for too long, and I have often sympathised with him and said that I would consent to him being amputated if it was ever ‘mangled by accident’… because then he would be classed as a "disability" rather than just a "fat fuck with a bad ankle". And we could sit and collect all that fat disability cash.
Anyway, our conversation descended into how to go about the removal of said foot without being charged. It was at that moment that I realised something. I turned to Jason and said:
"See, we have to be together forever, because there is noone else on this planet that would ever put up with either of us, talking shit about disabled people like that."
In that vein, we have actually decided to start podcasting. Sure, we might only have 3 people listening, but we think its going to be a fun step. The idea is to give some people some insight into the bullshit discussions that 2 weirdos like us have. I am thinking it will be no more than half an hour, once a month or so, in which we either:
Publicly share our grievances with one another
Allow me to get on one of my comical rants
Talk shit about disabled people and other underprivileged and completely-undeserving-of-our-pisstaking members of society
Make you realise the grumpy old man in a 29 year old body that I live with, and laugh at
Answer questions from our listener(s).
May even be an appearance or two from Mina, if she is so inclined.
We think it’ll be fun. Submit questions for the first one and as soon as we are settled in at the new house, we’ll do our first one. Should be a blast, I reckon.
I have been watching the Olympic coverage in dribs and drabs (mostly because Channel 7’s coverage is, well, SHIT), but I have been reading fair amounts of news coverage of the events. Anyway, this incredibly sexist article caught my eye, and I thought to myself "Jesus Christ, what a pig", and left it at that, fully intending to blog about it, but, like always, neglecting to.
Anyway, I was reading one of my favourite blogs, and Kate Harding summed up pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I read this article, so I might just be lazy and link to it… fuckit, we’re in the midle of an election and my attention span is all of about 2 minutes right now!
I think that these comments really sum up why I am a feminist. I am a feminist, because no matter what I accomplish, no matter what I achieve, no matter how successful I am, I am acutely aware that it is my body, my face, and my boobs that are my true measures of success.
We were watching some weird Hippo-related animation that was making fun of a donut eating hippo that hides in the water so as not to dry out his skin, then has a facial mask and weirdness.
Jason: "No wonder they’re so grumpy"
Me: "Yeah, I’d hate it if I had to lay around avoiding the sun all day"
Jason: "What do you mean? You do!"
I gets no respect.
Between Jason, Mina and Me:
Jason: "Well, you never know, Mina could just end up a HOUSEWIFE. Would you like that, Mina?"
Mina: "hmmm…. no!"
Me: "No, you want to be a big business lady like me, don’t you?"
I had every intention of making this blog different to read, so I need to apologise for the crappy, lazy writing of late. I’ve been lazy, and I know it, but, hang in there because I am trying to find more time to blog.
I just realised that I work far too many hours for far too little money, so I get to not only be completely overworked to the point of breakdown, but not even see much money at the end of it either. So… from now on, no more freebies/discounts — people really don’t appreciate it at the end of the day and really don’t respect you.
More coming on that soon.
But, be patient with me, I have a few rants to get off my chest now that this blog is no longer attached to the business site
As many of you may know, I have not been your traditional, um, mother. It’s not that I deliberately go out of my way to cause trouble with other parents, or to be indifferent to the needs of my children, but, well… you know… I never much went for all that over-mothering and over-consuming nonsense. I love my kids, of course, but you would never find me in the middle of a room of mothers, sipping coffee and bignoting about my children, or even worse, the brand of pram I own. It’s just… not my style.
Which is why I have surprised myself by starting to organise a birthday party for Mina’s 7th birthday, coming up. It’s never really been my bag (remember last year’s cake disasters here and here), so I am both excited and nervous about the prospect of actually making an effort. And before you ask, no I will not be making the cake this year (although I am tempted to attempt one purely for the benefit of the blog - my cake disasters seem to be quite highly anticipated!).
So anyway, I am doing something that is completely weird to me, hiring a hall, organising a "Daisy Rock star" party that Mina requested - because she’s getting a Daisy Rock for her birthday, and she’s uber-obsessed with them… so… here we are.
It is such a balance though, teetering that line between going overboard and over-indulgent with the party, and wanting to give Mina a great party. Mina came to me about 2 weeks ago, with a pile of sketches, telling me how she wanted her invitations to look, how she wanted to the cake to look, what colours, who to invite, etc etc… if she was paying me she’d be a great client (or the client from hell, I am not entirely sure!).
Anyway, so here I am, trying to plan a party when I have no inclination or experience… simultaneously balking at the excess of the party and being at least a little excited about organising it.
I gotta get out of the middle class-ness quick smart, I think it might be eating my soul
What a hell of a week I have had. It has been one of the coolest, and yet one of the simultaneously weirdest and worst weeks I have had in a long time. Because I am slack, here’s some summaries of what happened this week:
Zzzzzap.
We have had ongoing issues with the electricity supply in the new house, which after 2 months of reporting, basically resulted in us being shut off at the street for 3 days until our landlords decided to fix it.
Basically, there were surges breaking electrical equipment and blowing globes, and I was also getting electric shocks from the taps in the shower. Quite a few polite emails and then some not-so-polite ones finally got the landlord moving on it… but because I was getting shocks, it was considered an "incident", so Western Power came and shut everything off. Noice.
It was not terribly fun, a) not being able to work and b) explaining over candlelight to the kids why they can’t watch Playhouse Disney! It even resulted in a bit of an altercation with the landlords to the point where I was about an hour from getting a solicitor’s letter written up, breaching, and also suing for damages. It looks like either way, we might be moving in 8 weeks… but I just CAN’T FACE MOVING and am equally sick of renting (let’s hear it Perth’s property prices!)
New car
I got my very first brand new car last week. I was so nervous about committing to that sort of thing, but my accountant assured me it was OK, and it makes good financial sense, but shit, as someone who grew up in cars that were borderline yellow-stickers my whole life, well, you can imagine how weird it is. I bought a Nissan Tiida from Northside Nissan. They were brilliant and I cannot recommend their service highly enough.
New websites and business stuff that I am so far behind on it ain’t funny
I had every intention of launching the new LinkArtist site design last week, but it has been put aside whilst I focus on the heap of other work that I have on
New family members
This is the weirdest one… I am having another kid early next year. I know "they" say not to announce it before the 1st trimester is over, but hey, I am not one to stick by any rules, and if I lose it, well, at least I can blog it and get a great outpouring of sympathy and concern… or… not. Anyway, I feel sick all the time, thank you very much, and my days pretty much consist of somewhere between "what the fuck am I doing" and "this won’t be so bad… will it?"
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