Transition - We have hit a wall

I think we are reaching one, yes as I type. I have adored everyday I have been afforded as a stay at home mum of my two wonderful boys, but my oh my it has been hard. Not only mentally and physically with my health issues, but mainly financially and it looks like we have hit the wall.

We originally thought that we would manage on just one salary, but then illness came and smacked us in the face meaning that MadDad had to take unpaid leave to look after me and the children.  We were daft we relied on our credit cards to pay the bills over those very hard and tough months and we got in to a pickle.

We are still in that pickle and even though I try hard as I can I just can not make the budget work anymore.  What with two sets of school uniforms to pay for (done thanks to a car boot sale), clothes and shoes (yes the boys are growing at such a pace), swimming lessons, football lesson, school trips, cars to run and insure (yes I do need it, I have to look after mum as well as the boys and she lives in the next town and I live in a village that is even past the end of the train line).

We live a pretty frugal lifestyle.  I manage to feed us all on £50 per week, subsidised by the wonderful veg in the garden, but it is just not enough.

So I guess the transition we are in it that I have to finally accept that I need to find a job and it needs to be a job which will cover the child care and help pay the ever increasing bills and you know what, it scares me.  Yes for all the reasons I have blogged about before, but also for the fact that I didn't have my children to leave them with other people.  We never thought we would get in this pickle and it is killing me.  I am crying on the inside and the outside and working hard at hiding it from the boys.

The fact is a magic job isn't just going to appear, no one is going to come and offer me a great job writing for them whilst I remain at home.  I have looked for evening jobs, but I live in an unemployment black spot and the council closed applications for a position last week when the number of CVs they received hit 1000, yes 1000!

Yes I am bitter and upset about it all.  I have paid £13 in school trip money this month, just for Maxi and it is money I don't have, but how do you say that he can not go on them.  What really gets my goat is that Children on free school meals (we don't qualify) get to go on trips free and this will all double with Mini stating in September too.

We fall in to a forgotten category of people, who's mortgage is a chain around their necks, we are in a tied in deal and it is crippling us.  Add to that massive gas and electricity payments, council tax, TV licence, phone bills, food, insurance, and then the dreaded credit card payments (how could we be so stupid).

I am happy to take advertising on the blog and do sponsored posts (within reason).  I would love a small regular income from writing, as anything helps, but I am not sure it is going to be enough.

So I have bought the local paper, I am scouring the Internet, I have been in to Tesco's and I am making an appointment to go to the job centre.  I need a job.

This post is part of the writing workshop over at Sleep is for the week and inspired by prompt 4. Share your experience of a difficult transition. A moving ‘from’ to ‘something new’.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor or what I wish I known when choosing a career

When I was growing up I always wanted to be an accountant, well I gave it a try and did pretty well, but it wasn't for me.  The only interaction I got was with numbers, so I took an opportunity and became an Office Manager for a small company who were on the up.

I used my skills to help relocate the company to Berkshire and went on to become a Facilities Manager for a large software company.  I loved my job, but.....

It just wasn't flexible enough when in came down to spending time with my children.   It was kind of an all or nothing position, where if the office was burning, I would need to be there.  I couldn't give my boys 100% and work 100%, it just didn't add up and as you have guessed, I am an all or nothing type of person.  I would never have been satisfied in not being the best I could.

So we made the decision to relocate back to the North East in the hope that we could afford for me to be a stay at home mum.  What went wrong, well I needed to have the operations, I had complications and MadDad was forced to take unpaid leave and we were forced to get in to debt to pay the mortgage.  So I guess life happened!

So no financially we are in a bit of a bind here in TheMadHouse and the time has come for me to start looking for another job, ideally starting in September when MiniMad goes back to school.

I wish it was as simple as it sounds, but I am not willing to compromise on my time with the children, so I am looking for:

A school hours job, which would need to be term time only or

A job working from home or

An Evening Job

I am looking, but these jobs are like gold-dust, they are what every mother seems to be looking for and that my friends is what brings me to my title.

When at careers fairs whilst growing up, I was encouraged to find myself a career, something high powered, something full on, something 9 to 5, what no one ever told me is that once you have children things change.  You may find yourself wanting to take career break, which can mean it is hard to keep up with current requirements for your chosen career.  You might want to work shorter hours and this can be hard when managing people and contracts.  

What I wish I had known back then was that I wouldn't have wanted to be at work during my children's early years, the years when I can influence them and make an impact on their lives and that when I did return to work I wouldn't have the same ambition or requirements.

So it is back to looking through the papers, visiting the job centre and networking for me.  Trying to find a position that fits in with the needs of my family.

In an ideal world, I would love a job share with MadDad, but we went down different paths, so it isn't possible.  I don't want to be a teacher, I know that although it may seem like a suitable term time position, but all the teachers I know put in about double the hours people realise.

It just seems like a waste, I know my mother feels that it truly is, or at least she did.  She admitted that she feels that she was envious of the fantastic career that I had and wishes she had been privy to the opportunities I had, but the truth is that I feel that the children are my job and I am more than happy to make them my priority for the immediate future.

Would I have gone down the same road if I had realised that I would feel this way after I had the children.  Well hindsight is a wonderful thing.  I really don't know.

What I might have done was look at a flexible career, maybe nursing, or maybe even looked at being a teaching assistant.  I most definitely would have taken a serious look at working for myself in a flexible position.  Even being a hairdresser would have given me more options than I currently have.

So how do I move forward from this, for once I have no idea.