Lucky Number 13

By the end of this month I will have moved house a total of 13 times. Within the past 10 years, I have packed boxes, downsized to what I absolutely needed and hauled my things to a new address. Sometimes this meant many carloads between locations where as sometimes this simply meant packing my backpack with all I owned and strapping it to my back as I walked out the front door to face new adventures.

Of the last 12 places I have lived, I did not include the time I called a campervan my home when in Australia nor did I include when my only home was the tent in my pack as I walked across New Zealand. And so, without those - this next change of address will be number 13.

I am hoping this next place of residence will be my lucky number 13. I am not going far - really just down the road a bit - but I am hoping my choice to live somewhere more affordable with a few other people in a house will allow me to have more flexibility in what I want to do with my life. Financially. Socially. Everything in between.

And so the next couple of weeks will wrap up the last 8 months I have lived in Wellington - it really doesn't feel as though I have been here that long and yet it feels as though I have lived here forever. This little place I call home was the start of the next stage in my life in so many ways and it will be bitter sweet to say goodbye.

I find it difficult to even conceptualize all that has happened in the past few months. Since I last wrote, I have started (and nearly finished) a position of Youth Development Coordinator at work where I have been working on developing a new support service for young adults with disabilities. Between balancing that and my other role of Outcomes Facilitator (supporting individuals with their goals in life) there has been little mental energy at the end of the day for much else. Things such as my art have gone by the wayside as I have been concentrating all my time in sinking my teeth into giving 110% at work.

But I have managed to start to make some connections in the community. I've picked up rock-climbing with a weekly group, continued to go to the markets each Sunday, explored the wide-variety of food and drink in Wellington (a Cambodian restaurant has taken the top of my list), gone to Roller Disco, watched a couple of rugby games and even had the pleasure of showing my mom around this little city I call home.

So as things get hectic in the next couple of weeks as I balance work, moving and sorting out Immigration (yes, my work visa also expires this month) I simply look forward to when the dust settles again and I can press on with all I want my life to be.

Waiting for the Ball to Drop

It's taken me the entire weekend to finally be able to take a breather and wrap my head around all that has happened this week. Not a lot when has happened when I get down to it, but I've definitely felt everything kick into gear as I have started my new job this week.

All of a sudden the pressure has been on for me to be somewhere at some place at some time. Regardless of the weather, my mental state or how much money I have in my pocket - it's all just a matter of getting it done and though I am thrilled at my new job and everything I get to learn, there is a part of me that is sad to know that my freedom to do what I want when I want is slipping away. Particularly when it is pouring down with rain and I have to walk in it only to get to where I am going and have it stop.

Each day that goes past I am torn between jumping in with both feet and reminding myself that I still do not know what my future holds. Each day that goes by is a brilliant gift where I am allowed to stay here in New Zealand, but it only serves to increase my worry of what tomorrow might bring. For at the end of all my effort to make my life into everything I have ever dreamed it to be, Immigration holds the power to decide if I can continue on this journey or if I must start a new one.

There's something to be said about living each day as though it is your last, but there are aspects of that that are incredibly exhausting on the nerves. It becomes difficult to plan ahead - difficult to know if I should buy the bigger box of tea bags or if it will all be a waste of my time, money and effort should I have to leave it all behind. All I can do is hope that I hear a final answer soon. Tomorrow would be good. Yesterday would have been better.

In the meantime, I continue to try and push forward and plan for my future just the same. My Etsy store online - Paper Kite Creations - is coming along well and I even had my first sale this week (thanks Janelle!). Though my hours are now more limited for creating projects, I am still finding inspiration for new designs that I am excited about being able to create when I do have time.

Time keeps on ticking and one day blends into the next - at least my cats continue to find new ways to entertain themselves.

Back to the Bare Essentials

This week has been one of reassessment on my part in a few areas of my life. I have been excitedly preparing for when I start my new job this Monday and through it, I have managed to reassess my budget based upon what I will be making. Seems simple enough, but this project of mine turned into one of frantically counting pennies to work out something I could actually live with -- wish I could justify living without electricity, but the thought of cold showers and cooking over an open fire didn't seem doable in the long term.

Most of this came through the realization and decision that my new job being part-time hours is a brilliant opportunity for me to seriously pursue my art as a form of income. Completely terrifying, but somehow I am at peace with it. As a result, my  budget is only half of what I could be making right now because I am starting from complete and total scratch with my art. Because of this decision, my budget became a series of negotiations with myself this week, wriggling the last $5 around to find somewhere I could justify would be the best use for it.

And the funny thing was that once I was done and able to put my pencil down, I realized that by scrounging and skimping on everything in my life, I am forcing myself to live a lifestyle where I get more exercise by limiting my bus route. I eat healthier as I simply can't afford to go out for dinner nor buy the package of chips or chocolate that's on sale as a "treat." I also fulfil my life through a variety of DIY methods whether it's mending my own clothes, reusing toilet paper roles or making my own bread. Funny that life's "luxury's" are the very thing that keep us from living a healthy lifestyle. We'll see if I still feel the same way in a few months.

In the meantime, I now fill my days trying to do as much as I can with nothing. The internet becomes my friend as I have since learned new recipes and how many families (yes, families with kids and stuff) live on less than $40/week with their groceries. I wonder if I could do it with $20. As the months get cooler here, the layers start to pile on indoors until I start to look ridiculous as I avoid using my electric heater, but now I figure maybe I should just turn on the oven and bake another loaf of bread instead.

In all my reflection - I've managed to summarize what I hope to do with a few rules to live by:

- Only eat when I am hungry . In the past couple of months I have been trying to do this and I have been amazed at how often I go to grab something to eat when I am not hungry and how many other reasons I have in my head to eat something. The reality is, food is for nurishment and if my body isn't actually hungry, I am just wasting my money.
- If I don't need it, don't buy it . Again, just started doing this and it has really helped to clarify things no matter where it is that I am at, particularly when it comes to those hard-to-resist sale items. It has also helped to write a list of whatever it is I actually intend to buy before I go out - if it's not on the list, I obviously don't actually need to buy it.
- If I can recycle it, I can probably reuse it . I have been finding more and more ways to reuse everything that I generally put in my recycling bag - most of it helping with storage around the house (tin cans, plastic containers), but I've also discovered how I can create things to brighten up the house out of what I'd normally be throwing in the bin.
- Dress for the weather and walk there . With a bus stop right outside my house it is SOOOOOOOO easy sometimes to get a ride to where I want to go. The reality is - my legs work pretty good at getting me where I need to go, so more often than not I need to just quit whining about it and save a few bucks by walking to where I need to go.
- If it isn't dirty don't wash it . Primarily this is referring to laundry. It's so easy to just dump the clothes I've worn for one day into the laundry basket, but the last time I did laundry I had a thought as to how many clothes in that load were ACTUALLY dirty. I'd say 99.9% of them were not. It's not like I need to wear clothes for months on end as I did walking Te Araroa Trail, but every load of laundry I can skip is money saved through electricity and water.

It should be an interesting couple of months, but I am hoping it will ease up a bit as a result of my art gaining momentum. Fingers are crossed.

The Truth Will Set You Free

I think one of the most difficult things to do in life is to be honest with ourselves. It's easy to be honest with others, about things, in life - but with ourselves? All too often we tell ourselves things that aren't true. Small things. Big things. Things that change the way we see ourselves or even live our life.

In the past couple weeks I have been trying to do better on being honest  with myself, but it has meant a certain amount of pain. It has meant that things I have took at face value for so many years are suddenly not what I thought they were. It has meant that I have had to take a deep breath and seriously look at myself and decide if I really want to be the type of person I am - not who I thought I was.

This past week I had an incredibly humbling moment. I say humbling, but at the time it felt more humiliating than anything else. For the past few years I have made choices in my life that have resulted in a lifestyle that would just let me get by financially. Whether it was the job I chose, the apartment I wanted to rent, the groceries I spent my money on, the school I went do, the countries I travelled to - whatever it was, financially I have just gotten by. And in a lot of ways, that's okay - it's pretty great really.

Lately I have had to take a hard look at myself and realize that though money is something I don't much care for, all that I want to do in my life costs money - money I don't have. A while ago I had to be honest with myself and admit that I have a problem with credit cards -- it's not that they don't agree with me, it's that they agree too much. Over the past years I have managed to whittle away at my debt until I am officially now at a point that I no longer have credit cards (yay me).

But I am yet to be debt free. There's still money I owe for student loans and money I owe family. That's not where I had to be honest with myself this week. Having no job has thrown me face-to-face with the reality that I have never actually kept to any budget in my life. EVER. It seems ridiculous to me that that is a fact in my life now that I have admitted it to myself, but it's the truth. And having no job just made it that much more apparent. There was no safety net of knowing when my next paycheck would come in - no smokescreen to hide how I handled the money I did have. And the reality was that I hadn't a clue where my money went.

The past couple of months I have been religiously writing down everything I spend in a budget journal - right to the last penny. I've been that annoying person at the corner store asking the clerk to print me a receipt when there's a line of 10 people behind me. I've been the person that has an envelope of receipts and actually schedules time each week to go over my budget and every month I plan the next budget. It's been excruciatingly painful at times to walk away from purchases I normally wouldn't have taken a second thought at buying. It's been hard to focus my grocery budget on the cash I have in my hand rather than the fabulous meal I have been drooling about making for the past week. It's been difficult, but I've started to get the hang of it. But that's not what I had to be honest about with myself this week.

This week the moment came when a cheque from Canada didn't get processed like I thought it would this week. And I was stuck. This money was exactly the amount I needed to get me through to when I do actually get paid from my new job and now it wasn't coming. It could take up to a month for them to process it as it is an international cheque. I didn't have a month. I had barely a week to come up with the money needed for rent. And I had nothing.

And so I had to ask my family for temporary help - and though I know it was temporary until the cheque cleared, it was one of the most humbling and humiliating experiences of my life. It wasn't the asking that was difficult, it was the response I got. It was the realization that my financial and lifestyle choices over the years had left an imprint on my family's mind of the type of person I was. The type of person with financial problems. They type of person that might not be able to pay back the money borrowed. The type of person that had no safety net. It was the realization that my financial support was not just going to come from my mom, but also from my Grandma who is retired and my sister who is three years younger than I am.

THAT's when I had to get honest with myself this week. Yes, the money borrowed from my family was a temporary loan to help me while I wait for this cheque to clear, but the bigger picture is the reality that I knew from the depths of my soul that I never wanted to be thought of as "that person" ever again.

It would be easy to lie to myself and gloss over the situation I am in to say that I have a job and it's just a matter of being paid. It would be easy to say that my budget situation is getting better and that I shouldn't worry. It would be so easy to just brush off my current loan and say it's "only temporary," but the reality of it all is that this is just the last thing that has happened in a string of support from people in my life to help me "get by." And I no longer want to be that person. I never really realized I was that person - but I don't want any part of it. I no loner want to be just "getting by." I want to feel secure with where I am financially. I want to actually be reaching my financial goals and living my life based off of my priorities - not what happens to be on sale in the next store window.