I can’t remember the exact moment I gave up fighting the good fight, but at some point during the last 12 months I finally accepted that I had to let it go. By ‘it’ I’m referring of course to the idea of work-life balance – a concept so elusive, so seemingly unattainable that at this point I’m convinced we’re knowingly being trolled by a society that’s long been telling us we can indeed ‘have it all’. 

The solution, we’re told, is simple. All you need to do is make a few adjustments, learn how to better manage your time, and voila! You’ll be able to maintain your work-life balance with ease, all the while juggling your many responsibilities as your household affairs calmly tick over in the background. Sadly, the reality for many of us conflicts with the idyllic scenarios we have a habit of conjuring in our minds. And there’s one glaring factor that precludes 75% of the UK work force from this blissful utopia purely because you cannot achieve true work-life balance if you work full-time. I repeat: YOU CANNOT ACHIEVE TRUE WORK-LIFE BALANCE IF YOU WORK FULL-TIME.

It’s factually impossible to evenly divide your time and attention between family and/or leisure activities when you work five out of seven days of the week

So let’s unpack this. Using the Oxford Languages definition as our reference point, work-life balance is described as ‘the division of one’s time and focus between working and family or leisure activities’. But it’s factually impossible to evenly divide your time and attention between family and/or leisure activities when you work five out of seven days of the week. I’m not saying anything that we don’t already know, but I’m damn sure going to labour the point (no pun intended). 

As somebody who was once on what felt like a never-ending quest to conquer work-life balance, it genuinely felt like a relief to assess my reality with brutal honestly and concede that this was one battle I wasn’t going to win. Committing myself to a goal so far out of reach, in addition to working a demanding full-time job, parenting two young children, ensuring my home was in some semblance of order and regularly working into the wee hours to meet freelance writing deadlines, took a huge toll.

After being blighted with my second emotional breakdown in nearly as many months earlier this year, I knew I had to shed some of the layers that were adding to my angst and fuelling my rocketing stress levels. That meant opening the door to a more realistic set of expectations for what my life looks like right now. I may not be able to achieve work-life balance in 2021 but it’s something I’m working towards for the future, and I often wonder how many other women, particularly working mums, are experiencing these same pressures.

Committing myself to a goal so far out of reach, in addition to working a demanding full-time job, parenting two young children, ensuring my home was in some semblance of order and regularly working into the wee hours to meet freelance writing deadlines, took a huge toll

For many of us, the switch to remote working brings with it more positives than negatives. Despite this, the blurring of the divide that separates our personal and professional lives, which was already faltering pre-Covid, has now all but vanished. It’s the price we pay for a more convenient and, depending on your WFH setup, comfortable working arrangement. Yet despite this drawback, a recent RADA Business survey found that nearly half of British workers were either very or extremely interested in remote working permanently going forward. And on the flip side of the argument, ONS research found that working adults named work-life balance as the biggest positive of homeworking. 

In an effort to allow employees to better ‘balance their work and home life’ and ‘modernise the way we work’, the government has just announced its plans to make requesting flexible working a day one right. That means every employee in the country will be able to ask for flexible working options, regardless of their time served at a company. It can’t be denied that this is a step in the right direction, but seriously? How is this just now happening? 

Flexible working undoubtedly offers some wiggle room on either side of the 9-5 for things like health and wellbeing practices, meeting up with friends, and actually having some free time in the evenings to squander at your will. We know about the psychological, emotional and physical benefits that can result from agile and flexible working, yet it took a global pandemic to essentially force those in positions of power to consider a people-friendly policy which frankly should have been introduced years ago. 

The further I progress in my career, the more my vision of my dream job changes. I no longer aspire to be busy, always ‘on’, enthusiastically tapping away at my phone and sending urgent emails while dashing to and from meetings. Instead I now value a commodity that’s often overlooked and criminally underrated: time. The older I get the more I appreciate just how much of a luxury time is. Having more autonomy over our time and how we choose to spend it is ultimately what work-life balance is all about. So here’s to having more time to enjoy whichever of life’s simple pleasures bring you the most joy.

Hi Everyone!

It has been awhile, which has been the loveliest thing to say! You see I didn’t take much time off with my daughter, and although this year has been far harder financially, I didn’t want to regret not taking longer with this little boy. So 6 months on, I am slowly coming back to work. We still have no childcare in place but things are getting easier and I’ve missed the blog! So we will be doing posts here and mini posts via the newsletter (you can sign up here).

The night before I gave birth, England went into its second lockdown and only really lifted restrictions in April, so the last 6 months have been testing, to say the least. At first we really enjoyed the slow pace of getting to know our wonderful boy, cosying up on the sofa and leaning into it. However, lack of family contact has been difficult and those things you plan your day around as a new parent: coffees with friends, playgroups and family bringing round cake or helping do some washing up, have been sorely missed. Ironically, I found the constant stream of visitors so hard with Peggy, yet this time I longed for someone to take the baby off me just for an hour or so. But things are slowly getting easier and suddenly time is passing even quicker (as is my diary!) and I can already feel the ‘busyness’ anxiety creeping back.

Being freelance on maternity leave is one of the few drawbacks of working for yourself. As a freelancer there are so many perks – you are in charge of your own hours, you don’t always have someone to answer to regarding working hours, productivity, workload etc, but Maternity Allowance is not huge (especially if you work with your partner as the allowance has to be shared). To take 3 months, we just had to save three months company takings which, as you can imagine, in a lockdown world was hard. Hence why we did our keep in touch days and met a few select commercial deadlines. The thing is, when you work for yourself, there is no one designated to take over your role, so you can’t relax and enjoy your maternity leave in the same way that an employed person (potentially) could. I know this doesn’t always work this way (I’m pretty sure in my magazine days, I probably wouldn’t have had any cover and my workload would’ve been spread out amongst the team to save budget) and job security is (still!) an issue amongst those on maternity leave but there is far more structure in place to allow for time work-free with your child within a larger company. I’m not very good at delegating or switching off, so without maternity cover the buck (and bills), unfortunately, stop with me.

But that’s not to say we don’t feel extremely lucky to be able to take any time off at all, we were both at home and could take turns doing admin. I extended my leave on @thefrugality Instagram account as although technically back to work, I couldn’t give enough to all platforms without childcare. And the fact we managed to save enough to take any time off at all in time of such uncertainty has been hugely welcomed. So thank you, everyone who reads and engages with this site and our social platforms everyday, as that has made it possible. You may often think a ‘click’ or a ‘like’ doesn’t count in the big scheme of things but it can really make an impact.

Looking forward to getting my teeth into things again.

What a year 2020 has been. When we found out we were expecting, it was pre pandemic and the year ahead looked very different. ‘The Frugality Talks’ were about to begin, I was making plans to launch The Frugality Shop and set to have the busiest year work-wise.

A lot of those plans changed, but not necessarily in a bad way. For us, we learnt to slow down, address what was important and make a lot of decisions for the better. On Friday we handed in the keys to our office and moved everything back home, there would have been a time when I would’ve seen this as a failure but now I know it’s the right decision – we weren’t even allowed access to the building March – June and with my maternity leave starting in November, we knew it didn’t make sense to be spending money on an office in these tricky times with work being so up in the air. With a working kitchen now, things have become remarkably easier to be at home full-time and I am actually looking forward to some time off from work to be able to relax with our newborn.

I learnt a lot of lessons last time with my maternity leave and I am trying to make a conscious effort not to make the same mistakes. Being freelance and going on maternity leave is tricky enough in that it’s almost impossible to switch off, you get very little financial support and have a constant guilt about work/life balance (but let’s face it, who doesn’t have that?!), but here are a few rules I will be implementing (typing these out is probably more for me than you!):

I will be easy on myself, not try and do ‘everything’ and accept my limitations. And if that is just watching a Channel 5 Christmas movie holding a baby, that’s fine.

I will be on social media when it feels right for me and try not to be there because I feel I have to.

I will not look at work emails, set an out of office, stick to it and delete them when I decide to come back to work (I remember Lily Pebbles doing this and was so impressed as I kept dipping in an out last time).

I will work on my boundaries on what I want to share vs what I feel I ‘should’ be sharing online.

Saying all that, 2020 has been good to us – everyone’s support on our kitchen renovations, our pregnancy post baby loss and matchbox launch has been really overwhelming and it has really cemented for me that I have the most amazing, loyal readers. So thank you, and see you soon.

I realise that I have never actually written or spoke much about my experience, and it felt like now, with some hindsight, was a good time to open up about it.

In September 2008, Lehman Brothers bank collapsed and the UK was thrown into the biggest recession since the Great Depression (by the way ‘The Big Short’ (on Netflix) is such a good film looking at that recession and the reasons why). Within a few days I had also lost my job. I was working at Eve magazine, my first job working at a magazine after a couple of years dabbling in PR.

I had been there for two years and had settled in easily, the team was small and I was just starting to gain more responsibility – styling my own pages and about to move towards my own shoots. We had no inkling that the magazine might close, and to this day, I still get the feeling it was done on a ‘whim’. We were never asked to tighten budgets and, although I was junior (senior fashion assistant) I had a lot of control over budgets and was given no sign that we needed to cut down on spending.

In fact, when the men in suits came into the office and called us all over to make an announcement, I was in the middle of a phonecall with a travel agent booking a trip for the fashion team, photographer, hair and make up artist and model to fly to the Maldives for a week long photo shoot.  I said ‘can I call you back?’ And then began to listen to how the magazine was going into administration. I know it’s ‘business’ and a pure business decision but I suppose it was, for me, my first experience of being considered simply a ‘commodity’ as opposed to a hard-working member of a community that gave so much to the company. I always take my work very seriously, and to learn that, in fact, no one in HR even really knew my name, how long or hard I had worked for the past few years, hit me hard.

Everyone was shocked, and I mean beyond shocked. Why were there no discussions that things were in trouble? Why hadn’t someone said ‘let’s put those New York fashion week flights on hold as budgets are tight?’ (that I had just booked for the team), why did no one say ‘let’s hold off on the Maldives flights’. It seems that no one, not even senior management were even aware of any issues. To put it into perspective: Eve was owned by Haymarket media at the time, founded by Lord Michael Heseltine, one of the richest men in the country (311th, I believe). Eve magazine was the only magazine they owned at the time that was aimed at and run primarily by women. It was the only magazine that was cut, and around 56 women (and a few men) were in consultation. There were no discussions about ‘cutting back on costs’ over the years previously, no ‘how can we help’, we simply had 5 minute individual chats and were told the magazine would fold.

I had worked there for two years but when they looked at my contract, it turned out I covered maternity leave for 8 months of the contract so in fact, I wasn’t counted as a full member of staff until 1 year and 4 months previously. The cut off for any redundancy pay was 2 years. My salary was £16,000, I was 25 years old and I was now, unexpectedly, unemployed.

I was devastated. I’d spent 4 years working in the tough fashion industry, working late nights almost every single night. I’d have dinner from the local kebab shop in the office on a regular basis, and often had to get a taxi home as I’d missed the last tube home working on a carnet (fashion customs documents). All of these hours, all of this work building up my name in the industry, for it to be taken away by a guy in a suit we’d never seen before and whom wasn’t interested in a discussion on the matter.

Fashion assistant jobs on magazines are hard to come by. Fashion editor jobs are even harder – they’re very few and far between and at the time (I like to think it’s more democratic now) most jobs were awarded by word of mouth. I had worked my way into a magazine through no family connections, and now had lost my way ‘in’ to the industry. The industry is fickle, once you are out, you are forgotten quickly. Or, at least, this is what I believed at the time.

I was renting in London and thankfully, we had reached the 6 month break clause in our latest contract so I told my flat mate I’d have to move back home with my parents. I called my parents and cried over the phone. My dad, pragmatic as always, said ‘why are you upset? That job wasn’t right for you, you were never really happy’. I couldn’t believe he was being so insensitive but, when thinking about it, was I really happy at a job I gave all my energy to, worked all hours for very little pay, hardly saw my friends or boyfriend, and had no discussion of ever getting a payrise or promotion?

The worst part of the administration procedure was that we still had to finish publishing the issue. I still had to call PRs and get all the credits and prices for the main fashion that were shot. I had to call up the travel agent and negotiate a refund for those NYC flights so the company could recuperate the costs (I wish to this day I’d just changed the details into my name and gone!). I had to work on my CV and cold email magazines asking for any work whatsoever, work experience where necessary as I knew, after working in the industry for 4 years, which is now in a huge recession, I’d probably have to start from the beginning.

And I did. I initially signed up to unemployment benefits whilst I was seeking freelance opportunities and full-time jobs, then there were rumours of a fashion assistant job going at Red magazine, and luckily they needed someone to freelance there whilst they were recruiting who knew the ins and outs of a magazine and didn’t need ‘training’. I turned up day 1 and got stuck in, asked no questions and immediately settled in.

Within this time, my pleas with the Haymarket HR worked and they awarded me a small amount of redundancy money, I think it was 2 months pay tax free, which for me, £2k was unbelievable and allowed me to pay off some of my debt whilst living from home and sorting out my financial situation.

I applied for the fashion assistant job at Red, which at 25 and with 4 years experience, I was overqualified for, but it was a better magazine and a bigger team. And 4 months after my experience at Eve magazine ended, my new career began.

Looking back, it’s as if all that stress didn’t really happen. I was lucky, I landed on my feet and ended up working at Red for 7 years. I left as Style Editor for the title with tons of experiences photographing celebrities, overseas fashion shoots, editing 20 page shopping sections within the magazine and helping organise huge events. I learnt so much from the team, senior staff and editors there (both in terms of excellence, how to treat staff and sometimes, how not to) and it has equipped me so well on my freelance journey.

Being made redundant in the past has made me think differently: I am always aware of the fragility of employment. Not in a scary way, but I always try and think ahead – what’s next? What is my plan B? Having a plan B, this website, allowed me the freedom to go freelance and work for myself and have the freedom to work around my family. Without thinking ahead, this wouldn’t be possible.

Having worked throughout a recession I am always cost conscious. Both in terms of value in paying people (understanding their costs as well as my own) but about the value of items in terms of a reader. I have not always been comfortable with money, and times have been tough, and although we are comfortable now, knowing that others might be struggling, being made redundant and worry about job security at this time is important. I have been there.

It sounds like a cliche but I can honestly say that, looking back, it was the best thing that happened to me. I probably wouldn’t have applied for that job at Red if I was comfortable at Eve, I wouldn’t have then had my successful career and met all the amazing people I worked with, I (possibly) wouldn’t have gone on to have a brilliantly rewarding freelance career, working at Conde Nast Traveller and carving out my own niche on my website. I might have, but I also believe losing my job with nothing lined up gave me a confidence that I could do it. When I handed in my notice to finally go freelance, I had no work lined up but I knew I’d be fine. I’d done it before and I could do it again. A resilience is built up.

If anyone is going through a tough time with work right now, or feeling nervous about the looming recession – I feel you. It’s hard. But I want you to know you’re not alone, there are people to talk to. And probably, speaking to a lot of people who have been through the same experience, with a bit of hindsight, it can lead to positives further down the road (even if you can’t see it yet!). Out of recession often comes the most brilliant, creative ideas and it can be a time of great change. Here’s hoping.

I kind of gave up on the term ‘work/life balance’ a long time ago. I have accepted that sometimes, this concept in itself is too much pressure and most of us are just about resembling a patched together version of ‘normality’. We are not living in normal times currently, so we’re all doing what we can.

I think I’ve kind of got into the groove of working from home with a toddler now (although it does help that she is back to nursery a few days a week!) but with renovations we’ve definitely had to ‘merge’ a lot more of our work and family time lately. I have used Microsoft for work for the last few years – from Teams meetings to my website schedules on Word – and the launch of Microsoft 365 (M365) has helped make the transition to work from home amongst family life a LOT easier.

M365 is a subscription that is now available as a Family and Personal subscription that includes all the apps that I use everyday i.e. Word, Excel Outlook, PowerPoint etc. There are also a lot of new (incredible useful) features which I’d like to talk through, as they have made a huge difference to the way I manage my work and life – it helps me be far more efficient in my day-to-day.

Getting to grips with budgeting (with Excel)

Obviously, I use Excel for a lot of business spreadsheets tracking expenditure etc but did you know you can access amazing templates through M365 for home budgeting, too? We’ve been much more focused on spreadsheets with the renovations and this is something we’re implementing going forward – it sounds simple but spreadsheets (and especially these templates, with pre-set formulas) are the simplest way to keep track of your spending.

Storing and sharing images (with OneDrive)

Work-wise, I use the OneDrive to store all my site imagery. Working from home means it is even more important to be able to access my work from anywhere. M365 comes with 1TB of storage, and the cloud means that Chris can access my imagery at any time and I can access all of the original images from my site (even from years ago!), via any computer or the handy OneDrive app on my phone. There’s also a ‘Personal Vault’ (a protected area within OneDrive that can be accessed via authentication such as a fingerprint or PIN number) for private info like my passport, which I often need access to quickly for work but still need them safely stored and not saved on my computer.

Nailing presentations (with PowerPoint)

Recently I’ve been using PowerPoint a lot more, I’ve been doing more public speaking and online presentations, as petrifying as it sounds. I used to hate presenting but it’s true: the more you do, the more you get used to it – plus there is a new ‘Presenter Coach’ function (available via the online version of PowerPoint only through a M365 subscription) where you can ‘rehearse’ your talk through your presentation and it uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to give you real-time tips on how you’re doing and offers advice and a summary on areas to improve.

Below is my ‘Rehearsal Report’ from my presentation practice run. Unsurprisingly, I say ‘umm’ and ‘you know’ a lot but good to know my pace was right!

There are also loads of family templates in PowerPoint, such as a colouring activities for kids, or a Manga comic maker (which Chris is very interested in!).

Mastering the never-ending lists (with TO DO)

I actually don’t believe we can have a functioning household without Microsoft To Do, I am a keen list-maker and I have raved about this app many times. I use it for work whereby I can assign tasks to others working from home, without writing lengthy emails, plus I get notified once the task is complete. We have used it for most big tasks at home – the builder’s snagging list as well as our weekly grocery list! I know when Chris has popped to the shop and picked up the baked beans as I get notified when it is ticked off. It is a free app to download but the M365 subscription offers a brilliant extension whereby it automatically incorporates your key tasks (added to ‘My Day’) to your flagged emails in Outlook, so you don’t need to have tons of browsers or devices open to see your To Do list, it’s all in one place.

Perfecting my grammar (with Microsoft Editor)

The ‘Microsoft Editor’ (a browser extension with M365 in Microsoft Edge) also helps you construct emails or post on social media more concisely and looks out for grammar and typos, offering extra refinement within words you use (which often, by the end of a busy day, I need all the help I can get).

The new M365 subscription has a real focus on family, and as Peggy is becoming increasingly interested in screens I know it will be something we will use more together going forward as she embarks on school. The family package offers full technical support and screen limits for kids (with their own profiles) and Chris then has access to his own 1TB of storage too (this is available for up to 6 individuals on the family subscription), as well as all the apps.

Obviously there is a whole lot more to discover with M365 and it has really become part of our daily life but through running a business in strange times without childcare, it’s the little productive wins that help you get through your day that really make a difference.

One of the scariest things about the financial impact of coronavirus is that it is still so unquantifiable. When will businesses reopen? Will people still be able to spend as much with these businesses if they are worried about their own jobs or health? A recession looks inevitable, what is that going to mean for our savings or our debts? 

Uncertainty is particularly bad news for the self-employed. I’m not a fan of the tendency to lump all 4.7 million self employed people in the UK into the same category of “insecure” workers (my job as a freelance writer is very different from, say, a freelance footballer, or a barrister, Deliveroo driver, dentist, or zero-hours contractor) but those who work for themselves face a particular challenge in trying to plan and budget for a totally unknown future. 

Here I’ve waded through the jargon to round up what’s out there to help. 

Cash for sole traders 

The self employment income support scheme (SEISS) gives sole traders and partnerships who have been affected by the coronavirus an injection of cash straight into their bank account. The sum will be equivalent to 80 per cent of monthly earnings, up to a maximum of £2,500, for three months (and the government has said it might be extended). The cash will arrive in June, backdated to March 1. For the highest earners it amounts to a pretty generous £7,500. 

It applies to anyone who has completed a tax return for the year 2018-19 (if you haven’t got round to it you’ve got until April 23) and earned no more than £50,000 of trading profit, either last tax year, or over an average of three years of tax returns from 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19. 

The money is a taxable grant, so you don’t have to pay it back, but you will owe tax on it when you complete your self assessment for the year 2020-2021, and you will receive it even if you are still able to work.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few sole traders who are ineligible. They include those who earn more than £50,000, or those who are newly self employed and did not have to complete a 2018-2019 tax return. It is also only for those who earned the majority of their income through self employment, no help for side hustlers. 

You don’t need to do anything yet, HMRC will contact all those eligible by – it hopes – mid May, and invite you to claim using the gov.uk online service, only. Be wary that scammers will definitely take advantage of this, so ignore any texts, calls or emails claiming to be from HMRC inviting you to click on a link to claim. 

What about limited company owners?

Many of those who would consider themselves self-employed have actually set up as a director of a limited company, taking an income and dividends. The bad news is Limited company owners are not eligible for the SEISS scheme. 

Matthew Brown, a technical officer for the Chartered Institute of Taxation, explains that if you are a director of your own limited company you are not self employed in the legal sense. “As a director you are deemed to be an employee of that company for tax purposes.” That means, in theory, you can take advantage of the government’s job retention scheme available for employers instead and furlough yourself. Furloughed employees stay on the payroll, earning 80 per cent of their salary, up to a maximum of £2,500 a month, no matter their income. 

Directors can also be furloughed. The problem is that unlike the self-employment scheme, furloughed workers are not allowed to continue to do their normal job.

Mr Brown says furloughed directors can carry out minimal directors duties such as filing accounts, but you can’t do any income producing work, which he points out is a problem for sole directors of limited companies who want to keep in touch with clients and suppliers, and line up work for future.

He suggests you could furlough for the minimum of three weeks, then return to work for a few days to complete tasks, then furlough yourself again, but this is not clear cut.

HMRC confirmed to me that you could, however, do a completely different paid job while furloughed. Martin Lewis has suggested a work around. While you can’t work for your limited company if you furlough yourself, you could still offer your services, and get paid, as a freelancer. This would obviously only work for certain professions, such as writing, but could help you keep a relationship with clients. 

Another issue is that many people pay themselves only a small salary, but large dividends. Unfortunately you cannot claim for any lost dividends, because dividends are not earnings. HMRC argues it cannot differentiate between dividends used in lieu of wages, and those from investments.

This week Paul Scully, the Small Business Minister, agreed to look into whether this technical problem could be tackled in order to help the 2 million businesses that pay themselves in dividends, calling on accountants for ideas, so watch this space.

Grants and loans available

If you need finance, the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) could help with a loan of up to six years, with the first 12 months interest free. They are offered by banks but backed by the government, find more information here. If you were eligible for small business rates relief as of 11th March , then you can apply for Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF) of £10,000.

Some industries and organisations, such as the Arts Council and the Authors’ Society, are offering struggling freelancers financial support and grants. Journalist and freelancer-rights campaigner Anna Codrea-Rado has put together a brilliantly helpful list of emergency funds for freelancers. 

More time to pay tax 

Those who complete self assessment returns usually have to submit a payment on account by July 31 2020. This deadline has been pushed back until January 31 2021, which might help with cash flow. This is automatic. If you are registered for VAT and have a bill payable between March 20 and June 30 2020 you still need to file your return, but won’t be required to pay until March 2021. 

Cut your costs, and try not to panic 

Nick Maynard, is founder of Practice, an accountant for creative businesses. He says that cash flow is crucial, at any time, but especially now. “Go through invoices and make sure you call in overdue payments, you want to be first in line if there’s any chance your clients get into trouble themselves. Think about asking for payment in advance for future work, lots of people are understanding that this is a tough time for freelancers and small businesses. Look at how you’ve been paying yourself. If you are a director of a limited company it’s likely that you’ve been paying yourself tax efficiently through salary plus dividend, so do you have any surplus cash in the business that you could draw on? Think about how long you can last on this and set yourself a budget and cash flow forecast. This will mean cutting costs in some areas, like unnecessary subscriptions, or even applying for a mortgage holiday for your home.”

Apply for universal credit

If you are one of those who has slipped through the cracks you should apply for universal credit. Those over 25 can claim up to £409.89 a month to cover income, and more for housing costs. The local housing allowance rates have risen to cover up to 30 per cent of market rent in your area.

It is usually the case that if you have £6,000 or more of savings it will reduce how much universal credit you will receive, and if you have any more than £16,000 of savings and you’re not eligible at all. But the government has agreed that if you can demonstrate that your savings are to pay your business tax bill then the rule will be waived.

Time to Pay tax bill

If you are still worried about being able to afford your tax bill, you might be able to negotiate  some breathing space with a Time to Pay Arrangement. The government has set up a helpline, on 0800 024 1222  to discuss options, including paying in instalments.

All information correct at time of publishing 16/04/20. We will try our hardest to update if any new legislation comes to light.

Just a quick one in case this can offer some help to anyone not used to working from home – obviously we have used our office space for the last few years but I am also pretty much a #WFH veteran.

Over the last 5 years I have relied on a few apps to enable myself to work efficiently from my desk at home, or my phone whilst on the tube! It’s not super productivity based (I don’t use Asana or anything like that), there’s nothing I fear more than a Zoom call and I only signed up for a digital calendar last year(!). But these are ones I feel make my work life easier…

MICROSOFT TO DO

FREE

I used to always use a notebook for my To-Do list, which I would always leave at home. Then I started to use Notes in my phone, but I ended up with so many it got me stressed and I found that my to do list was huge, whilst Chris didn’t even have one. He just relied on me reminding him. Then I discovered Microsoft To Do (it was actually called Wonderlist originally but it’s changed now) and I’ve never looked back. You can set up different To Do lists and then invite others to have access to them, and you get notified when someone has completed a task. You can assign tasks, prioritise them and then add certain ones to ‘My Day’. Its especially great for the food shop as you can edit as you go and I know what Chris has picked up from the corner shop when out (and I can add something in last minute without having to call). It’s great now that some of us are working from our homes, as I can update a work to do list rather than email someone constantly.

GENIUS SIGN

$4.99 (one-off fee)

In my line of work, a lot of my projects are contractual, this Genius Sign app allows me to sign on the go and converts to PDF so things can keep moving when I’m not in the office, and saves paper and printing etc etc. It saves your details and signature, printed name, date of birth etc so you just tap the ones relevant to the form. So easy.

GENIUS SCAN

FREE (options to upgrade but I use the free option)

Again, something I use on a regular basis – it enables me to scan documents as PDFs and email them immediately. Great for scanning receipts for expenses (especially if you need to add to an invoice), as it automatically crops out all the ‘noise’ behind in an image and saves it as high res. Sometimes this can also be useful if a client insists on you signing in ink but requires you to email the document.

ONE DRIVE

(5GB for free, and then you pay after this is used)

I worked with Microsoft a little over a year ago and they introduced me to One Drive. At first, I found it a headache as it was new and I HATE change. BUT I wouldn’t use anything else now. It’s essentially another version of a ‘cloud’. Everyone who works with The Frugality uploads everything we work on to my One Drive – it means I can access anything for my site at any time. Contracts, fonts, images, copy etc. I remember the Microsoft guy’s advice was to never save anything to your computer, always to the cloud, that way you can never really lose it (of course I have things backed up, too, as well!). Whatever computer I work from, whether it’s my laptop, tablet at home or my phone, I can access my desktop and everything on it always. Even if I fancy using a pic I took 5 years ago for a new post, I can access it within minutes.

GOOGLE SHEETS AND DOCS

FREE

For ease, I use google sheets and docs for all work that is submitted to me to edit for the site. It’s pretty universal and easy to use, plus I love the tracked notes function – this makes it easy for sub editors to add comments to copy etc for me to approve.

CANVA

FREE

This one is more for creatives. I use Canva on my desktop to create imagery with text and collages etc. It’s free, but you can upgrade and pay if you want to use your own fonts etc. It’s especially brilliant for social media profiles – Pinterest tiles, Facebook and Blogpost headers etc.

These apps/tips are ones that I thought would be more universal for working from home right now, but if you are more into ones I use specifically for social media, you can read that here (it’s an old post but still ones I use everyday).

Fashion is one of the few industries where women are in the majority. We have all-female editorial teams, and women (in the modelling industry) are generally paid more than men. It is an industry where women’s issues, women’s bodies, women’s time and women’s rights are by and large respected and celebrated. How bloody brilliant! What a total privilege, that I have never once had to worry about my gender being a hindrance at work. My race, however, whilst it has not been a hindrance, to say I fall under the ‘ideal candidate’ bracket would be stretching the truth.

Have I faced ‘out and out’ racism whilst working in fashion? No, but here is where I feel it is necessary to note my privilege. I am a light-skinned black woman and I am middle class, with a neutral London accent. My name, Chloe Forde, doesn’t indicate any notion of ‘otherness.’

I am aware that the above makes me more ‘palatable’ or ‘more relatable’ to someone who may not have been so kind to my darker-skinned counterpart interviewing for the job. A CV with a West African sounding surname may well have been put to the bottom of the pile.

For the sake of this piece I can only talk on my experience. I have worked in fashion for over 10 years and began my career as a freelance assistant working my way through the industry and I am now a freelance stylist. My first real job as a stylist, was as part of the core team on the X-Factor, I have styled covers for some of my favourite magazines and styled adverts for high street brands. Every day I feel so lucky to have had the career that I have had so far. Through work, I have met lifelong friends, travelled the world and had experiences that I will forever cherish.

There are so many moments of joy that will stay with me forever. And I feel loyal to this industry that has allowed me to earn a decent living, spend my days surrounded by fantastic women and given me the space to be creative. I’ve not once dreaded going to work.

So to pull out the negatives feels almost like I’m bitching about my best friend behind her back, but 10 years ago, before Edward Enninful was editor-in-chief of Vogue, when being black wasn’t particularly ‘in’ and publications weren’t hiring black women by the truck load, or even really putting them on their covers, it was a different environment.

I remember the first time I heard an editor say ‘oh I’ve been lumbered with shooting the black girl, great!’ I was 19 years old and on my first week of work experience, wide-eyed and delirious with excitement to be sat in a conference room with proper adults talking about fashion. Her colleagues chuckled, one patted her back with a sense of condolence, six adults, all white. I’m not sure how I felt, but I remember chuckling along too, probably in the hope that nobody would notice that I was in fact black.

Now as a 32-year-old woman, looking back and putting that incident into writing makes me feel nothing but sadness for the teenage me so desperate to succeed. I don’t think there is any other time in my life where I have felt the desire to shrink my blackness. I have always been proud of my identity. The women that raised me and the young women raised alongside me are largely women of colour. Why would I think we are anything but brilliant?

Fast forward, it’s 2013 and I’m no longer the work experience being allowed to sit in and listen to a fashion meeting, I am now a proper assistant, whose opinion is sometimes asked, and whose place in those meetings is required. I have a voice and the team I work with are glorious. There is no mention of being lumbered with a black girl and diversity is something we have all learnt to embrace.

Once a year, a black woman will grace the cover of the industry’s top magazines. It is usually the likes of Thandie Newton, who is fair-skinned with caucasian features, slim, and has straight hair, but she is a black cover girl nonetheless.

As a black woman hired as a full-time member of staff, I am on the Payroll, I don’t feel ‘othered’, I am not forced to push my blackness to one side. I have a seat at the table.

This is still all ‘before Edward Enninful at Vogue’ and at events, shows or dinners I am still the odd one out. Not something I usually notice straight away, I’m usually too busy catching up with old friends, looking at the collections, or drinking the prosecco that’s being handed around like tap water. But in a quiet moment, at the dinner table that looks dressed as beautifully as if it were a wedding, amongst colleagues from a variety of publications, I will notice that out of the 40 chairs, only three of them are filled by women of colour. I can name the handful of black PR’s, editors and assistants across leading publications and if we’re talking about designers you’d be hard stretched to name double figures.

But today, over five years have passed and the shift is real. Shooting a black woman isn’t a chore, it is now a necessity. We have had Skepta the black UK Grime artist sitting front row at the Chanel show. Virgil Abloh is the black artistic director at Louis Vuitton. Stormzy and (black) friends were on the cover of Elle. Halima Aden, the black hijab-wearing model was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And of course Edward, Edward Enninful the London raised Ghanaian man at the helm of one of the most iconic fashion titles in the world, British Vogue.

As a culture, we have worked hard to be recognised, to be equal, to be heard. Things aren’t perfect, they are still massively disproportionate. Black has always been beautiful but it seems the fashion industry is starting to see it now too. I take great pride in being a woman and even greater pride in being a black woman.

Hi, my name is Alex and I spend a lot of my time online. I share a lot of my life, personal thoughts and feelings here as well as create imagery, useful content and tips.

But with this growing online presence comes a new, different responsibility. Primarily, the expectance to be ‘on’ at all times, and to answer everyone’s questions on pretty much everything. Instagram, in particular has made everyone so accessible and really broken down barriers in terms of contacting your favourite chef, asking the opinion of a great stylist – it’s all at your fingertips (literally!).

Now this isn’t a moan – I actually love this part of my job, I used to work for magazines and brands where no one interacted – no would ask a question because they never expected a response. Personal relationships (and dare I say friendships?) are what I love about Instagram – it’s ‘social’ media, after all – and I love how engaged everyone is.

But with it comes a whole host of what I would call ‘less friendly banter’. With the introduction of ‘Direct Message’, people can send a private message, one that no one but the recipient will see. And as you can imagine, some aren’t that pleasant.

Now, this isn’t meant to be a ‘pity’ post, I am 100% for free speech and often, a well argued point has made me rethink some things. I am very fortunate that I have very supportive readers but there are lots of accounts that receive unnecessary trolling everyday (I even reported someone on another account today). So this is for them, too.

I am a big fan of turning messages off when it gets too much, I get around 200+ DMs a day on top of my daily workload (some days it has been more like 700), personal and work inbox, Instagram comments section etc and generally love having a natter with my readers – I’ve even had some 5am laughs during my delirious baby-feeding all-nighters.

But what I am saying is that this is new territory for us all so I thought it could be useful to put down some thoughts on etiquette. This is meant to be light-hearted, not a complaint – and might open just some eyes to the kind of messages we receive….!

1 If you’re not willing to post your message publicly, does the message need to be sent? I am all for constructive feedback, but often there is a reason the message is being sent behind closed doors.

2Don’t correct people on grammar if they haven’t asked for feedback. This is something I have written about in my newsletter before  – it gives people a complex, mistakes happen, most bloggers are one-person bands, they don’t have sub editors, most are self edited and published, they might not be good at spelling, perhaps dyslexic.

3 If you’re typing a question in the middle of the night, think about whether you really need to know the answer. I used to be a middle of the night emailer at work – I’d email to ‘get things off my chest’, often to junior members of staff. It was rarely important, but I had no idea how it affected other members of my team, they would open the email just before going to bed and then be thinking about it as they went to sleep. This wasn’t my intention but I try not to do it nowadays.  I think it’s nice to think of this for Instagram too.

4 Please be kind.

5 I know we’re all busy but perhaps word the question as a phrase, don’t just type ‘shoess?????????’ under a picture.

6 If you can help it, try not to give away plot spoilers to a programme I have said I’ve just this evening started watching. I know it’s tempting….!

7 Just because we (bloggers) have a public, online account does not mean we ‘owe’ anyone information or content. A few people have told me recently that I have a responsibility to share certain things; I try my hardest to be mindful, polite, helpful but it is, at the end of the day, okay for me to use my channel as I so wish. I do not owe anyone anything other than what I put out there. Equally, some people have a moral compass, some don’t. It’s life, I tend to unfollow accounts that I don’t feel are authentic to themselves before I get too annoyed.

8 Try to remember Instagram isn’t real life. Even the seemingly realest of real accounts aren’t showing you everything – it’s still a highly edited version of what people wish to portray. If someone isn’t ‘real’ enough for you, unfollow them – some people prefer to be real, others don’t. It’s their choice.

9 Let’s not be outraged when people disappoint you. People change, mature, their opinions develop. If it’s not how you want them to act, that’s okay but it’s their choice. People can be lots of things, most of which seem at odds with each other: nice yet annoying, seemingly perfect yet flawed, feminist and love makeup, care about the environment and clothes. We’re complex beings and that’s what makes us interesting.

And finally: remember there is a human at the end of the message. Not an automated assistant, it takes time to respond to people and sometimes a quick, icy message just reeled off on a bad day (sometimes even well meaning) can be the message that keeps the respondent awake at night or ruins their evening.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Instagram and it has brought so many lovely opportunities but sometimes it can be a great big time vacuum…which is why I love the blog so much – I can write long articles, have more focused discussion and debate and share with less anxiousness. The way we’re consuming media is changing at such a rate it’s nice to have my own, personal platform to place my thoughts. And I count myself lucky to have lovely, engaged readers who love to share their thoughts and recommendations with me, but as with most popular platforms, it seems to come at a price.

Reading list:

Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life, by Katherine Ormerod

Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions and Get REAL Work Done, by Jocelyn Glei