Why I spent a week catching octopuses.

+ farming, writing and hiding from the man from The Pru

Hi and welcome to The Ladybird Purse, my weekly newsletter about women and money. I’m not a financial advisor and am in no way qualified to give financial advice. But can I interest you in an octopus?

A few weeks ago my energy company, Octopus, announced a competition. They had three electric cars (worth £30,000 each) to give away in a draw and you could increase your chances by “catching” little animated octopuses on a map. Sort of like Pokemon Go, I think?

I grabbed a few octopi (my 20yo insisted this is correct; I said many people think so but no and then I googled and learned that both/either are fine) and watched my entry numbers increase.

And then I grabbed a few more… And then the first winner was announced. She’d caught more than me, but not loads more and I thought, well, it could’ve been me.

At this point I lost my mind doubled down.

The map refreshed with new chances to catch octopuses every ten minutes. I set an alarm on my phone. Every ten minutes, I stopped what I was doing and caught more octopuses.

There were different octopuses to collect. In sets. The Around the World set featured a French octopus cradling the Eiffel Tower, an Italian octopus in a gondola, a British octopus wrapped in fish and chip paper. When you completed a set you got even more entries. GOTTA CATCH EM ALL.

By this point, I’d told my kids about it and they were on board, encouraging me in my octopus hunting and, crucially, asking what we’d do if we won.

We’d sell the car, I told them. We don’t really need a car - haven’t had one since 2020 - and if we did, it wouldn’t be a £30k car. The 20yo asked if my license is valid. Could we just drive it around for a bit before selling it? No, I told him, because then we’d have to get it insured and that would be a waste of money.

And then I started to wonder how much we’d even be able to sell it for. I was already mentally spending thirty grand, but new cars lose value instantly, no? How much could we sell it for? £25k? £20k? Seems unfair that we’d potentially lose £10k instantly.

Yes, I was worrying about ‘losing’ £10k selling a car that I didn’t even own.

When I got fed up of the ten minute timer, I changed it to twenty and then to thirty. But I felt like I was being irresponsible. If we wanted the car, I should be treating it like a full-time job. (I’ve never earned £30k in a job.)

I joked to the 15yo that being woken every ten minutes through the night would be annoying. Obviously I didn’t set alarms during the night, but the Octopus app was the first thing I opened every morning.

The second winners were announced.

They’d caught a lot more octopuses than I had (maybe they did set alarms through the night) but you only need one to win. I kept going.

The boys kept asking how many entries I had. What we would do with the money. My eldest suggested we could buy a literal house he’s got his eye on. The house is on the market for £625,000. Thirty grand wouldn’t even cover the deposit, I told him. And the mortgage would be almost five grand a month. Plus he only really wants it because a cat he likes hangs out outside. (Look at it tho. Bloody hell.)

I knew you’d want to see the cat.

And then, one morning, I woke up to a note that entries had closed. I felt both disappointment and relief. I messaged the boys:

(Not a typo.)

And then, inevitably, Octopus did a sort of Spotify Wrapped of all the time I’d wasted spent trying to win a car. I was number 4229 of 461,311. That… was a lot more people playing than I’d imagined there to be. A total of 89,485,499 octopuses were caught. Someone caught 12,208.

But it could still be me. Every time I got an email, my stomach flipped. I imagined us celebrating. I thought about what we’d do with the money. I’d love to take the boys to Japan.

And then the winner was announced:

Charlotte caught fewer octopuses. She had fewer entries.

It was over. Fine. How do you even go about selling a new car anyway? But also… what if we’d won? Thirty, twenty, let’s call it twenty-five grand would be really nice to have.

What would you do with it?

Also does anyone else remember when they gave away a car on The Big Breakfast in the 90s and then someone saw it advertised for sale as ‘unwanted competition prize.’ I think they rang the winners live on air?

I’m also still thinking about this post from Michelle Teheux, about how she had a piece go viral on Medium and bring in over $18,000.

What Would You Do with One Week of Wealth?

Paid subscriptions enable me to keep writing these newsletters and leaving octopi well alone. If you’re not a paid subscriber already, I’d love it if you’d consider upgrading. (And if you are, thank you, I love you.)

If you would like a paid sub, but can’t swing it right now, email me and I’ll sort it.

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An interview with Kathryn Evans

Kathryn Evans runs a fruit farm with her family just south of Chichester and also writes for children. Published by Usborne, her award winning  young adult books have sold film rights and been translated into multiple languages.

Kathryn is a popular speaker in schools, giving inspirational talks on writing, business and life. She's worked as an actor, a cleaner, a waitress, a farm hand and as a (terrible) cook in the Green Room of a theatre. In fact she'll give pretty much anything a go to earn a crust.

What is your relationship with money currently?

I want it, I need it, I loathe it.

I have a strange relationship with money. At heart I'm a socialist; I wish there was no money. I think capitalism is foolish and unsustainable and that the drive for more and more has an environmental and human cost and just can not long term be sustained.

BUT I am also an entrepreneur and have always been in business, principally farming but also the business of being an author trying to make enough money to have a good life and support my kids.

As I get older I worry more about losing what my partner and I have managed to earn. I don’t have a pension - the farm is our pension - and we don't have that many more years to be very actively working and adding to the pot. 

What’s your earliest money memory?

Oh my gosh this one is so vivid, and I was very little, maybe four or five. I asked my Dad a question - we'd been watching a news article about homeless people being hungry - and I said, "Why don’t  they just go to the shop and get some food?"

It was the first time I understood you had to pay for things in shops. It struck me as incredibly unfair that a shop could be full of food and yet someone who was hungry wouldn't be able to just have it. 

There were other memories - hiding from the milk man and the man from The Pru, but those came later.

I think I grew up with a deep sense of the precariousness of 'having enough' that's never really left me.

What advice would you give your younger self about money?

I've always been pretty careful with money. University was a struggle, I almost decided to leave when a gas bill and electricity bill arrived on the same day but I pulled myself together and flogged some vintage clothes I'd inherited.

Younger me knew to be careful, to save when I could. When you grow up with money being tight, you tend to be fairly smart about money. It's one of the things that drives me mad about wealthy people assuming the poor don't know how to budget. It's basically in your DNA.

What’s the biggest money mistake you’ve made?

We bid on a farm and the bid was accepted but we panicked at the last minute and pulled out. It would have been a huge risk, a tumble down Georgian farm with all original fittings, but we'd have made it work, I know we would have. It was an absolute bargain and would have been a dream fulfilled.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever spent money on?

Two cocker spaniels. No hesitation. Terrible investment, total money drain, wouldn't be without them.

Do you have a pension? If not, do you have a plan?

No and sort of.

We started our business with some goodwill from a local land owner and a surprisingly trusting bank manager. We rented four acres, some greenhouses and lived in a caravan.

We grew that little business into a  multiple glasshouse sites and a farm camp, which are worth quite a lot of money now.

They're also currently good rental properties - so we do still farm, we have a fantastic little local fruit business called Berries On Tap instead of supplying supermarkets, and rent out other space. Slowly the idea is to rent more space out and work less hard. It feels risky though.

And foolishly, I thought my books would be some kind of pension - if sales kept ticking along there'd be a trickle of royalties. I hadn't realised that publishers could just not reprint, without warning.

I got caught this year in Book Week - a full week of events bit no one could get hold of my books. I was told Beauty Sleep was out of print - it actually turned out there were books in the warehouse but communication had broken down and by the time they were available, the opportunity had gone. 

Publishers don’t have time or resources to support authors with their backlist but those authors still need to make money and if they can't sell their own books, that's taken from them.

How do you think publishers could help authors with the financial side of things?

I don't know. But I do know that until we solve the problem of writers incomes you'll never have true diverse representation in publishing.

You need money to write - either from independent means, or from a  partner willing to support you. If you are financially challenge through class or circumstance, it's way harder for you to find time to write, to do courses, to schmooze the right people. 

There's no real will to solve the problem of writers incomes though - writers are desperate to be published and publishers know it. They need creatives, but they know there are always more waiting in the wings.

There is such an imbalance of power that makes authors afraid to challenge practices and perpetuate challenges in the system. Self-publishing/indie publishing is one route to rebalancing it but that's problematic because it requires initial funds to do it well - to pay editors and type setters and cover designers.

Then there is the issue of distribution, getting your books to market. One small thing publishers could do is to make back lists available as print on demand - once royalties are the only was to earn money from a book, if it's not reprinted, the income source is cut off. The book exists, all the work has been done, it seems like a no-brainer not to take advantage of technology that would allow a writer to continue to earn from it.

The there is the advance system - we get paid in thirds and not always when we expect it - that makes it hard to budget. And there is massive disparity in who gets those advances. Some of which make no sense at all - one Author A may get £2000, Author B £200,000, all on the gamble of whether it'll sell well. Of course that then means more promotional budget is put into Author B, so Author A is further disadvantaged by that.

Celebrity book are a great example, they don't even need the money as much as Author A! More parity across advances - or maybe no advances at all, just more generous royalties and the ability for the author to keep selling their books even when the publisher  has moved on to the next thing.

I don't have the much of an answer but I do think we could have a better system than we have now.

What would you do with £10,000?

Repair/replace the veranda on the side of my house that is falling to bits!

Or maybe I'd use it to print my next book - it's out on submission right now but if it doesn't get picked up, I'd seriously consider publishing it myself.

What little luxury could you get with a tenner?

Cut flowers. I love them, even as they fade.

If you were me, what would you want to ask women about money?

It depends so much on the woman...

Liz Truss, WTAF were you thinking? 

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