The Single Spark with Chantelle the Coach (previously The Single Girl's Guide to Life)

The Privileges and Pressures of Making Your Own Money | Ep 125

• Chantelle the Coach

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life coaching for singles, how to be okay on you're own, overcoming loneliness, how to stop feeling lonely, single women, divorced in your 20s

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DISCLAIMER: The podcast and content posted by Chantelle The Coach is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Single Spock, and today we're going to be talking about the concept of finances whilst being single, but also from the perspective of, sometimes, the privilege or the challenge, because people are going to fall into different realms with this and there's going to be some that find, well, you can fall into both at the same point in time. I don't always think that we realise some of us realise how privileged we are with the money that we do have. If you are someone that works professionally, then you're probably on quite a good wage. Now that might not feel like a good wage. I really appreciate that with everything that's going on right now, people are having to squeeze. But when I did a poll on my stories, I would say six months or so ago, and I asked people about, like you know, how much are you really feeling this? Like some people were saying I feel no change at all, haven't really noticed it. Other people were like it's not too bad, I've had to cut a few things out. And then there was a couple of people that were like this is bad, like I'm feeling the squeeze, and I would say that I fall into the middle kind of category myself. But that has not been helped by the fact that I'm no longer holding down a job.

Speaker 1:

I think if I was in teaching full time, as much as it wouldn't make me happy if I was getting the wage that I was getting as a full time teacher, oh gosh, if I was working where I'm working now as well, which is out of London, london, whereas I live in I don't even think I live in fringe, I just live in the normal part of the UK. But, um, in terms of teaching bands, we have different ranges, pay scales depending on location, and outer London is not quite inner London, but it gets the second most amount of money per thing. And if I were on the wage I was doing for just being a teacher, I'd be on the wage of just being a teacher that I am now for what I was doing when I was a teacher head of Kisei, tree Mouse and a head of year Wild, isn't it and I know that money would have gone up. So, yes, I'd have probably been on more as that now, but not by like a lot more, and I do comparably a lot less work with a lot less responsibility, if you know what I mean. Mean in that sense anyone in schools will know what I mean. But so I felt the pinch, but not really for the pinch's sake of the world.

Speaker 1:

I think if I was on my normal wage that I'd been then and I would now be on, I would suggest, I guess. I think that would take me to how long goes it? Five years, let's assume. It goes up a grand each year or so, like a little bit more. Maybe I'd be on about 55. So I think if I was on 55 I don't think I'd be feeling the squeeze that much at all. I really don't.

Speaker 1:

Um, maybe I mean, haven't we all looked at everything on the bloody shelves at the sainsbury's or tesco's and gone, really, I think, um, there's a couple of things olive oil cost, cost of fortune, what? What are we doing? Um tomato ketchup? There is this huge pack that they have, but since when was any ketchup that you could buy 10 pounds and it was Heinz, don't get me wrong. But 10 pounds, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing this. What I have noticed is me, me, half duck, the one that you cook to make pancakes £7.50 at Sainsbury's, £8.30 at Tesco's, excuse me. So I think I'm feeling it there. I notice it there and I do.

Speaker 1:

I have, as I've mentioned on this podcast before, but I'm gonna do a plug for it now. I would highly recommend Oleo to anyone that is struggling with food in particular. Oleo is a little bit like too good to go. Where you, I'm looking for a leaflet that they gave me to hand them out, and now I don't know what I've done with them. Are they under here? Yeah, here they are. So Oleo is all about saving money by taking on waste food, waste that's being chucked out by supermarkets, by some retailer shops, at the end of the day. So you get free stuff. I mean, some people put their items from their home on there. It's a bit like facebook marketplace, but people haven't managed to get rid of it or it's just, you know, not worth that much um, and you can save some of that surplus food and that can make all the difference. As long as you've got a car to get to these addresses, because you're going to people's houses to get them just at the doorstop, doorstep, doorstop. Either way, you can do it. So a little tip there I did a whole sort of episode on a few things like that that I've been getting loads of prep food from there. It's wonderful. So that's been helping me to kind of cut the corners where I feel the pinch a little with the food shopping.

Speaker 1:

But the moment this really struck me was when I was at the doctors the other day getting a prescription. I put mine in with the person at the till and then other people were queuing up variety of people, but in particular there was this one man, definitely in his late 60s probably, I guess sorry if I've over aged you did have a walking stick and he'd come to collect his prescription. So he put his name in, went out the back and the lady came back and said I'm really sorry, your prescription's not ready yet. It needs to come back later for it. And he grumbled a little bit and he went. He went oh, that's no good, I need it for my diabetes, is what it sounded like he said. And he said and it's going to cost me in petrol money.

Speaker 1:

And just in that moment it made me realize that I was on a different level in terms of money. Because assuming he doesn't live miles away from this place, because most of us live quite close to our surgeries, but I could be wrong could be remote it is. The area it's in could be a little bit out, like the way it covers different areas, but I thought that is not a consideration that I would have made. When someone said to me oh, you need to come back and get your prescription, I'd be annoyed that they weren't ready and I've got to drive all the way back. For the sheer time and effort of it and having to remember like I'm here now, can you not? Can you not thought it right now? Is it not something that we thought it now because I'm here now, but the idea that it would have cost me some pennies in driving around to get it hadn't really occurred to me, and I think this is an area that we don't always consider and may not consider when we're dating and thinking about it.

Speaker 1:

There is obvious disadvantages to when you live singly compared to when you live as a couple, or I have to pay for this entire space myself. Thankfully, I'm on a very low mortgage rate as we speak, though it is due to finish. I locked in for five years in 2020. Part of me wishes 10 years, just because that would have been brilliant right now, but hey-ho, I've been aware of this for a while, so I know what's going to happen. Obviously, all the bills, you know they're a little bit more expensive as a result of the fact I live on my own, so the standing charge of the cost of oil oil like gas and electric, so pardon me can't be split. But the reality is is I don't find it too bad, but it is is an extra cost, so I get that.

Speaker 1:

And I spoke about the concept of, uh, hotel rooms, but we're really getting a double bed, so you know, and still needs cleaning just as much square footage. And then we've spoken about the kind of single ticket policy where single tickets really out us for being single if we say you can't leave a seat, or like you can't leave a seat because you're choosing one of two Annoying. But this also has led me to believe or start thinking about well, hang on, dating in itself can cost a bunch of money, and it may not have even been a consideration for you, if you're someone that hasn't felt the pinch so much, that there are people out there that the idea of dating means that like there's a limitation to that because dating costs money and it would then be rude to assume that someone's going to pay on a date whether you feel comfortable with that idea. Anyway, I wouldn't want somebody paying for me on a date. So then, if someone suggests let's go for a meal, and it doesn't even have to be fancy, but you go down to Giggling Squid, go down to Las Iguanas, you go to even Wagamamas, like it costs money, money that you otherwise wouldn't be spending because you wouldn't be dating and you would just normally cook yourself a meal, or you might do a too good to go. So you know you'd get the food from those places at a discount price, but you wouldn't otherwise be ordering yourself a takeaway or going out for a meal every single week. Like, dating in itself has this barrier to entry. And sure you can do dates that are free, and I think some of those dates are sometimes the best ones but even going for a coffee can cost you a fiver in a coffee and a cake. So unless you're just going to go down for a walk, it's really interesting to think about these things when I haven't necessarily had to think.

Speaker 1:

I think I've thought about it before if I was dating. But, as I've mentioned to you before, I didn't in-person date as much as you might think. I did a lot of selecting people online, talking to them, and then we did arrange dates, but I think it wasn't that many, was it 16, 15 first dates. I went on in the end overall, so one a month, but even one a month or so, like that can be. If that is you paying for it, which I would expect you to pay for your share, in my opinion that still adds up. That's an extra like potentially 50 pounds or something. I'm not an alcohol drinker, so hopefully I can keep it down, but 50 pound a month, that wasn't expecting and that can make all the difference when our shopping bills have been going up by 50 pound a month as well, or something like that, and council tax is going up and gas electricity is going up.

Speaker 1:

Now I have then mentioned that I am in a financially fairly comfortable position. I wouldn't say that I'm throwing money away, but what I do like to do is to repay in a way that I think matters to me and can make a difference, and I don't usually part of me feels really conflicted talking about this, because I feel like it's virtue signaling and I really, really don't want you to see it as that, but as someone that has a little bit of buffer, let's say, or feels comfortable. I mean, do I have buffer If I chose to do more things? No, I wouldn't, but I prioritize giving to others. Now you can say, well, I pay my taxes, I already give to others and that is so fine, but you, you, that's okay, you do that. I don't know if you got it, but I got the whole.

Speaker 1:

This is how we spent your tax this year. Email recently from HMRC and it tells you, out of the whatever amount of money you've paid in taxes this year. It tells you what goes to welfare, what goes to housing, what goes to education. Shocked at where some of those were as percentage. I'm assuming everyone's got the same percentage and not my bit has just been spent more on this than that. I think that's just like the overall percentage and they just give you the value.

Speaker 1:

But I don't think taxes just can cut it in every situation. We know we've got lots of people in difficult scenarios. We know that food banks are being relied on more and more, so, in part, when I see that man at that desk at the doctor's like, it makes me feel guilty. I felt the guilt for a long time. I've tried to have conversations with people about this. I I I love it well if you can dissect this anymore for me or get me any answers. It makes me feel uncomfortable that there are other people that are having to question that you know can they make a trip or not, because they don't have enough.

Speaker 1:

Now I've put a lot of assumptions on that person's life. There may be a very good reason that they don't have money. There could be other reasons that you know they've caused that themselves. There's so many interpretations. It might be that they're very. They do actually have a comfortable lifestyle, and I'm just placing an interpretation on what they said about petrol. Maybe they just don't like wasting petrol. You know so many things, but in part I know that the guilt is more like it's bringing out that awareness of it, something that I had taken for granted, something that I bringing out that awareness of it, something that I had taken for granted, something that I hadn't thought about that much, like, yes, petrol is going up, and even I'm like, okay, I'm spending 200 pound a month on petrol, probably about in total, somewhere between 150, 200, one top up a week. What can I do on a small scale to help? So, in my mind, sometimes doing this because it doesn't have a financial gain specifically feels like I'm giving back to the world. You know people can get support, get help for free, it doesn't matter who you are. And then it comes to other things where I do give. As I say, this feels like virtue signaling. But I think it's important to share what you can do and it's one of my favorite ones, this one Immediately after that doctor's trip, I was going into Morrison's and Morrison's do this really cool.

Speaker 1:

They've done it for ages, but they I think it's cool. They do this thing where they package off stuff for like a food bank in a bag and they just write on the front what's in it. So it could be that it's like nappies, it could be the shower gel, toothbrush, toothpaste. It can be that it's food, it can be like tinned eggs and pasta and tinned stuff and it's not major prices. The lowest I've ever seen probably is like £1.70 odd and then the most I've ever seen, I think it's like £4 something and all you do is you grab the bag, you do your normal shop and at the end you get the bag scanned and then the other then goes to the food bank. Now I don't know. I'm always suspicious. I don't know if that exact bag just gets used over and over and over again and the amount of money that you've donated basically does cover those things and gets donated elsewhere, or if they genuinely just take that bag. I don't know the ins and outs of the exact execution of that, but what I've started to do when I go to Morrison's is adding a bag of that to my shopping Because I just think something anywhere between 170 and four pound or so is the equivalent of going to a coffee shop.

Speaker 1:

Now I don't drink coffee so I can't. I can say it's the same as having a coffee, but I don't actually drink it, so fine. But I just feel like the cost of a coffee to me and I try and choose things that I always look for it to see what's in it. And I am like if you can't afford nappies, that's hard going. If you can't afford to toothbrush and toothpaste, that's tough. You know that is hard.

Speaker 1:

So I give in that way financially, to feel like I give back in some way, you know. And if you don't have the money capacity to do that, then things like volunteering, because time is also worth money. You know, volunteering at soup kitchens just once every couple of months to serve. Or you know, parkrun. I always think I should volunteer more at Parkrun because I use the facility of Parkrun, which is entirely free to everyone. It processes our numbers every week. The other volunteers are out there putting the cones, cones, everything out, cones, signs, doing all the scanning, making sure it's safe. I do think I should give back in that sense as well. And the other thing that I do and it comes and goes and the charities change, but I donate to charities every single month. They're on subscription.

Speaker 1:

I sponsor a dog called Buttons at the moment for guide dogs, which is really cute. I get pup dates. The dog is well, he's not puppy anymore, he's a freaking dog man. He's a year old and he's huge. But I love that and I do their lottery as well. Who else? Over the years I've definitely sponsored Dogs Trust a lot. I've paused on them for now. I just like to mix it up a little bit. We have a dog slash animal charity. All of last year I was sponsoring Dana, her animal home, by choosing a different animal to sponsor each month, and then I've previously sponsored like support for prostate cancer research into that.

Speaker 1:

I can't think what that was called, but that one there, and now this year's kind of newest one is the. It's the one for deaf children, national Children Deaf Society, national Deaf Children Society. Yeah, that's fun. So they get a donation every month and I really like their updates and this is why, in part, this is why I mentioned them too, because it's easy to just give money, and money is a really great way to donate and if you can just do that on direct debit, at least for a couple of years, that can really help a charity out if they can manage to get a certain number of people doing it. But I also think that it's really nice to mention these, these charities like the National Deaf Children's Society. I'd never heard of.

Speaker 1:

It was a doorstop visit. I don't mind a doorstop visit. I am a salesperson after all. I appreciate the job they're doing. Um, and could I afford it? They, they were very clever and they pitched it as it's the equivalent of one coffee a week. And of course it's there.

Speaker 1:

And some people of you are going to be enraged by people being at your door selling god forbid. But to me I sit there I just think, look, I live in a scenario where if I need to, then I'll cancel it if it all goes horribly wrong. But would I go out and buy a pepsi max at the drop of a hat if I wanted to? Yes, yes, I would. So if I will do that, why can't I commit to sponsoring a dog for four pound a month or buying a morrison's bag when I walk around the shops? Because that's the financial privilege I have and others do not. And I want to give back. I want to. I want to even that out. I want to help people.

Speaker 1:

My helping that I mentioned in previous episodes like it goes far and I can only do so much. Sometimes. I raised. What did we raise? Was it 500 pound? I can't remember. But we did a Santa fun run at Chelelmsford. Oh gosh, I'm gonna really struggle to find the page. Um, just giving, was it just giving? Race for rob? Did we manage to get that url, or did I have to put underscores or no? It wasn't race for Rob, race for a Robert, and I can't find it so annoying. Well, I think, I think we hit 500 pounds. I can't remember. Now, you know we were all running anyway, we'd all paid to enter.

Speaker 1:

But I was like, well, let's utilise this, let's make this part of what we do, as soon as we're already doing it, and make some money and you know that came from the kind donations from other people and I could feel guilty about being in a privileged position like that or I could be grateful and then use it to help more people, to help others, to make more, and it's probably hard on the receiving. So I still get food from Oleo. In my head I go well, you're getting that food for free. I mean you could say, well, do you really need that food? You could pay for your own food. Well, also, that food is going in the bin. That food right there is going in the bin tonight if it doesn't get eaten. So in my head, I'm also helping sustainability. Then I go well, hang on, sean, you don't pay for food much anymore. You don't.

Speaker 1:

When you go to Morrison's you're spending less than 20 pounds because that's all you need to top yourself off after all the stuff you've got from oleo insane amounts of. I've got a chicken tikka masala in there, like one of those ready meals. Don't get me wrong. A lot of it is processed food. So you do have to balance it, you do have to evaluate, but sometimes you can get really fresh stuff, or sometimes you can get all your fresh veg and you have to go buy your meat. Okay, so it's not the you know. It just helps though, doesn't it? And I think, well, if you've saved five to ten pounds or more on that, there's no, there's no reason you can't just funnel that into a sponsorship. Funnel that because you're not having to give it to tesco's or sainsbury's or morris's or any big supermarket. You get to funnel it because you've saved money into something else, and I think just having this kind of awareness, you know, money is a really interesting concept.

Speaker 1:

It's really difficult at the moment with everything that's going on Budgets, house prices. Are we going to get priced out of housing? Am I going to be stuck in this one bedroom house forever now, because you know I am on the housing ladder, but even if mine goes up at at a particular rate, everywhere around me is going up at a very similar rate, so I'm going to be priced out and just have here then. Am I going to become an accidental landlord, like? Am I going to have to have people living in here at some point because I will have to rent somewhere else, or am I always just going to stay here and this is my safe haven, like what is going to be happening and it's just something to start being aware of. I'm not saying you should donate. I'm also acknowledging you if you're someone that struggles. That it's not something I ever thought of, but that might be a thing.

Speaker 1:

Not being able to date because it costs the expectation on what other people in dating have on you going on dates and paying for stuff and contributing and what they want to do, whether they're like let's go to London, god that's going to london, god, that's gonna cost me. Like it's gonna cost 100 pound altogether, like 50 quid each. Again, like by time we traveled up there, done something. Are we having food out? We're taking food? Okay, it can change the whole dynamic of you in dating if needed, and I can't say that that's something I had to contemplate too much because of the scenario I was in at the time and the funds I had.

Speaker 1:

But I do appreciate that everyone's feeling that squeeze, that things are not as easy, and so if we can make things simpler, if we can help one another out in ways financially, directly, indirectly, signposting people to things that are helpful, like oleo, that can just take the pinch away. That can just make it that little bit easier. And then, not forgetting that not everyone's in that same financial position as us, because we all hate that wedding that we've all been invited to, yet they don't seem to appreciate that it's costing us xyz to even come along, and then you're expecting some massive donation towards the wedding gift and then apparently we're going abroad for the hen. Do you joke? We all know that kind of scenario. We've all been there at some point, and it doesn't even have to have been extravagant. It can have just been that they wanted to go away for the weekend somewhere local. But you also have to pay for your own dress as a bridesmaid. You know it just.

Speaker 1:

It can get out of hand and when you're single you don't have necessarily that person to rely on. Some of us will have family members that can help and I know I have that, but not all of us do. We can be out there on our own in the world trying to fend everything off, just trying to get through the day. So it was was just an awareness piece, something to bring to people's attention. Love to hear what your thoughts are on this If you want to share experiences or share what's going on, how it really is out there and the things that you're finding a frustration given the finances, or how you deal with giving back to help those that are in a little bit more need than yourself. Until next time, keep sparkling.

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