Girls just wanna have funds...💸
Girls just wanna have funds...💸
Where Emma ponders money.
Thank you for your very kind words & signups for my new project - Love Over Latte. You are all my favourite people 😘
If you are anything like me your Twitter feed, inbox and news sources will be jam-packed with the total ineptitude of our governments. Which equals off-the-scale anxiety about how the hell we are going to feed ourselves, heat our homes and survive the world burning.
Oops. Sorry. Too much?
Well, it’s pure madness out there. Best hide in here with me - I have wine.
But I do want to chat about money. I know, how very un-British of me! It’s really a situation where Parkinson’s has put me in a challenging scenario that I think many of you will be facing.
I am not ill enough to qualify for financial support BUT I’m not really well enough to hold down a meaningful job.
I am in an incredibly privileged position where I have a partner who largely covers our living needs. I also earn from writing and arty bits. However, the terrifyingly-horrific-events-unfolding-around us will mean this simply won’t be enough. Even now we live pretty frugally and already do without many basics. We haven’t been able to afford hot water for a few years, no eating out or holidays etc.
I can say all praise 🙌🏻 the great eBay for my wardrobe needs! We are the sort of people who believe in recycling and secondhand so I don’t struggle not buying top-of-the-range stuff. In fact, as I have ranted before consumerism can be sickening. I don’t really mind, we do have a quality of life where we spend time as a family and in nature.
But…but. When you are already counting the pennies the future of not being able to boost the family income because there is no way you could realistically hold down a job - is frankly, terrifying.
So what do we do? Many of you are in the US and elsewhere but to my understanding, none of us is well provided for by our systems. With the exception of Denmark, Sweden etc But I don’t think it’s a reasonable option for us to emigrate to your lovely countries.
Besides, we all know I’d go to Italy in a heartbeat.
I did read someone mention that because Parkinson’s affects older people they can at least live on their pensions! I don’t think that the government will pay me my pension at the ripe old age of 46…
OK. So let’s forget the whataboutery, and the… ‘oh some people could live on’ rhetoric:
their-savings/sell-their-house/let-their-kids-look-after-them/investments/the-benefits-system etc
(I mean…what savings? I rent. My kids are minors. Investy-whats? What benefits?)
We are in a unique position where big portions of society (and I mean worldwide) are now too ill to work, or at least work in the manner we have come to know it. Covid is a pandemic that just keeps on giving. Its lasting effects are still being uncovered. But on top of being directly ill with long Covid, there are a significant amount of people who are now carers. They can’t dedicate time to working to bring in external income.
What about families? Who tragically has lost a parent possibly the breadwinner? Not only is an income lost but the emotional care now needed to bring children up is immense.
I look around my country and see foodbank being used as an acceptable solution to food poverty. Our government does like a good photo op…and why not the local foodbank, hospice, or homeless shelter? None of us is that far from being in that photo. How do we make governments accountable? How do we encourage a loving society where all are allowed a decent standard of living?
I don’t know what the next 6 months are going to be for any of us.
My only slightly panicked solution is to stockpile olive oil, garlic, canned mackerel and cheap Lidl wine.
Let me know your thoughts on the state of the world 😘
with love
Emma xxx
Hi Emma. I have to agree with Johnny to a certain extent. I can remember cold war drills where we got under our desks or out in front of our lockers with our head between our knees in the to save us from a nuclear holocaust.
I am very concerned about the state of the world, and unfortunately, the more I worry about it the worse my PD symptoms get. Extremism is far worse than any time I remember with the 10% on the two ends of political spectrum dictating the way things go. Recycle/reuse is wonder, but it's hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can't afford boots. Somehow we need to get the message across that social programs and socialism are two totally different things. We need to look out for each other. IMO, Jimmy Carter (one of our least effective Presidents but one of our best former Presidents) said it best: "The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens". Darwinian survival of the fittest may work for the animal kingdom, but empathy is what is supposed to separate us from the beasts. I hope...I volunteer...I vote. Somehow we need to get the 80% in the middle to do likewise. Hang in there. You have friends around the globe.
I can't help but think that every generation thinks the world is going to fall on their head. The threat of nuclear war, long hair, rock n roll, drugs, ww2, communism, consumerism - all have been used as reasons that the end is nigh.
Granted climate change is serious & action is urgently required but I think positively, in the hope of a positive outcome my children's lives, that governments seem to finally be coming on board with making the right decisions to halt/reverse.
But, otherwise, I don't think our generation is facing any worse or better issues than any other.
But, in the end, what can i/we do? Buy carefully with consideration of the way the products are made & their affect on the world, be kind & respectful to all people and try to leave those around us better of than if we hadn't been here. Anything outside of my range of influence, I have learned to accept & let it go.