Happy new financial year! Do you have any plans? Maybe make a money jar and say a prayer to the gods of the stock market?

I’m kidding. I’d never make a spiritual offering to the forces guiding free market capitalism. The money jar is tempting though, as despite Karl Marx’s best efforts we are still relying on money to access goods and services. And I wish for you all to have a stress-free, fruitful financial year! If we’re stuck relying on hard cash and good credit for the foreseeable, I want you all to have enough to live in pleasant circumstances. It’d have to be a small money jar, with a couple of 2p coins and very little else, but. Good vibes etc.

I do genuinely think the new financial year is a good time to reflect on one’s Money Situation. Maybe because it coincides with spring really springing and despite my better instincts I’m actually in quite a good mood this time of year. Lambs are arriving, birds are nesting, one can risk a walk without a big coat… hope is in the air. Until you think about commercial agriculture and birds losing habitats and the inevitable collapse of the climate system.

Where was I? Oh yeah, hope. Financial year. I have genuinely taken stock of the last year’s FINANCIAL SITUATION and reflected on how to make it less depressing. Remember those quarterly income roundups I used to do? I’ve been reluctant to do them since I went to uni because student loans make them look quite skewed. Mature students don’t get means tested, so I get the amount of loan I ask for. On paper it’s a lot, but in practice I study in quite a pricy city and I’ve got a lot of funds earmarked for looong summer months in which my term time jobs stop and my rent goes up. Maybe I will do another one in the summer. Or a Week in the Life. I think the last time I did one of those I was finishing my diploma, so it was ages ago. Might be quite fun to compare and contrast how much coffee I consume. (Spoiler alert: I consume better coffee now.)

I do think something I’d like to improve over the next year is telling people what I do for a living. A nice thing about uni is I say ‘oh I study XYZ’ to people I’ve been stuck with at an extended family function and most people don’t ask a follow up question, because they don’t expect students to do anything for work aside from a little weekend or evening job. (Although, while I’m here: a lot of my peers are missing classes to go to work because they can’t afford not to. People don’t work around a degree anymore, they do their degree around their work. On the off chance you’re a government minister… do more, please.) In actual fact I do have a couple of things I do for work that have been bubbling away nicely while I get on with being an undergrad. I’ve always been appalling at saying ‘I’m an author’ or ‘I run a nonprofit’ even though a) both things are true and b) I’m quite good at them? So I’d like to work on having the confidence to say ‘I study XYZ and also I do blah blah blah.’ I only do the extra stuff when I’ve got a free afternoon, but it counts. I mean, if people are allowed to put ‘Body Shop rep’ on their CV, I’m allowed to say I write things for the internet, I reckon.

Let me know how you’re feeling about the new year! I really should be feeling worse given that every time I check the news a bank has collapsed and another type of cost of living support has gone away – and then I spiral for half an hour wanting to know who came up with the phrase cost of living I mean oh my god – but it’s the sunshine, man. I’m almost enthusiastic and I want to know what you’re enthusiastic about too!

Look after yourselves,

Francesca

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