Quitting the Day Job to write has opened up a whole lot of other issues.

I know I’ve made the right decision in resigning. This feels right. This makes my inner child happy, while also satisfying my inner parent. Yay adult me for finding the right compromise!

But my life needs to change, in big and small ways.

I need to get writing and to get in as strong a position as I can financially. I’m embracing the possibility of working extra hours while I am still at the Day Job, to top up the bank balance ready for the time I have no income. We need to live as simply and frugally as possible. This week, I already sold my car and the spare mobile phone. I’ll be selling more stuff on eBay. I also gave twelve bags of clothing and bits and pieces to charity.

A big change to make is curbing my spending. I don’t think I’m extravagant, but I still spend way more than I need to. I’ll go back to the spending diet, keeping track of everything I spend and limiting my Material Girl to £10 a week.

Now, when the shopping urge hits, I have two choices- spend a small amount from my ten pounds a week, or “shop” my remake bags or fabric stash and create something new. I have enough fabric and fifty p items there to last ages, honestly. When I want to buy junk food or drink, I just don’t!  Instead, I need to ask what it is that my inner child is really looking for. Comfort. Love. Release from stress. Even the thirty nine pence for two liter bottle of supermarket own brand diet cola musn’t be a regular purchase.

I’m getting better at letting go of stuff.  I need to develop this mindset- hold on to what is worth holding, let go of what isn’t. So I hold on to my writing and my relationship with my husband, I let go of my job and any things that don’t add value to my life.

I get focus back on what is important. My home and garden. My health. My marriage and other relationships. My creativity. My writing.

The things that matter to me.

I shouldn’t have anything I don’t truly love or use in my life. No more hanging on to stuff for the sake of hanging on to it. I can let go, easily. I can have just what is needed. I can live joyfully and simply. It will be better.  It will help me be more focused and centred. I’ve been scattered.  Way too scattered. My energy has being pulled in a million different directions. That’s already starting to change.

Things that are important-

• Writing
• Creativity
• My husband
• My family
• The mother-in-law and supporting her- the reason we are still in this country
• My home
• My garden
• Eating well
• Staying healthy
• Financial security
• Hopes for the future
• Going to Australia at least once a year
• Taking care of our animals
• Spiritual connection

That’s probably about it!

So that’s an easy list. And I don’t see having a Day Job anywhere there, except as a route to financial security. And I never wanted financial security for it’s own sake. It ties in to my hopes for the future, with wanting to eventually move back to Australia.

Oddly enough, the desire for a house in Australia right now, not when we actually move there but NOW, this minute, even better yesterday, has subsided. The solution came from a surprising source.

Instead of hiring an expensive and never-quite-right-for-us campervan this holiday, as we have for the past few years (less emotional wear-and-tear all round if we don’t stay with my parents) I bought a tent instead. Cheap because it’s coming into colder weather now, and more comfortable and roomy than the van. It can be left at my parent’s place and reused every time we go to Australia.

Simply having a tent and a few other bits and pieces left behind satisfies my urge to have something there, a foot hold in Australia. I thought it needed to be a house or at least a block of land. Then when that didn’t happen I thought a campervan, that I could leave at my sister’s place. But this will do it just as well. A tent. Under two hundred pounds worth of camping gear. No further outlay required, unlike a house or a van.

It’s enough.

A lovely lesson in finding what enough is. It’s often smaller and simpler than we think.