“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t be this hard to earn a basic wage.”

Following up on the first Ladybird Purse interview.

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Anna Mansell was the first woman I spoke to for this newsletter. I asked her if she’d do a follow-up for the first anniversary and it’s only taken me seven months to actually email her about it.

Read the original interview and then I’ll hand over to Anna.

Bankruptcy, starting over, and magical money thinking

Anna:

Well, reading that interview back is utterly depressing. Perhaps I should give a heads up that since our last chat, I’m now a peri-menopausal woman waiting on HRT to balance out the mood swings and today is a "not so good day" - but, important, I think, to acknowledge those and the impact they have on middle aged women, hence answering the questions on a day like today. 

But to your question: what’s changed since the original interview? I suppose everything and nothing has changed since we last spoke (hormones notwithstanding).

Our financial situation continued as it was for some time after we spoke and it eventually got too much for my husband who was deeply unhappy in his job, was frustrated by the lack of spare cash we ever had, and felt like there was nothing more he could do to increase our monthly earnings. And I got it, I really did. I felt guilt for the situation we found ourselves in, I felt the same frustration at the lack of cash to do anything nice. I felt like I’d taken big risks becoming a writer and it wasn’t paying off. I felt a failure as a writer and like I’d let my family down.