A day in the life of my money
#3 - As a self-employed writer, it's a wild ride 🎢
Welcome to The Lighthouse! A newsletter written by a Canadian author (Cait Flanders, that’s me!) who found herself living in the middle of nowhere in the UK. It’s deeply reflective and also intentionally lighthearted. There’s enough darkness online and in real life. Let’s hangout in the light.
This is dispatch #3. 🕯️
Hi friend,
If you asked me what ONE THING I thought about most in November, my answer would be money. Not politics. Not work. Not the holidays. Not my people. Not The Lighthouse. I did think about those things, but mostly I thought about money, which impacts + is impacted by all of those things too.
I first got the idea for this post in the spring, but couldn’t quite figure out how to bring it to life… until now. Because I am spending so much time thinking about money, I feel incredibly connected to it—and thought I could easily write about my experiences with it. This was a little different for me but felt fun to write.
I hope you enjoy reading!
xx Cait
A day in the life of my money
9:33am - I open my bank’s app to send Tall Man £2. Yes, that’s right, £2. All couples handle money differently, and I love some of the creative solutions I hear people come up with. Tall Man and I try to split all our shared expenses 50/50. We spend more nights at his house than mine, which means he probably spends a little money on food for me. So sometimes (and because we’ve agreed this feels fair), I will bring him a few staples: the coffee he likes, extra milk, oats, bananas, etc. Other times, it’s easy to do a 50/50 split. Like this weekend. He bought the nice £4 loaf of bread we like and I ate a bunch of it. So this morning, over another slice of toast, I asked if I could send him £2 and he laughed and said sure. Like, it’s not essential but if I want to, go for it. And I do want to. I love that we talk openly about these little expenses, because the little things are the big things—or become the big things. I want to be in a relationship where we talk about it all. Including if we can split the cost of the nice loaf of bread.
I send him the £2. It’s easy because we use the same bank, which has a great app that makes it simple to send money back and forth with your “favourites.” He is certainly mine. Then I quickly look at my recent transactions and see my weekly deposit into my retirement account also came out this morning. I realize I haven’t opened my investing app in a while and wonder what the balance of that account is now. Mental note: check my retirement account later.
11am - Back at The Lighthouse, over coffee, I map out the week and try to think of all the different expenses that could come up. A friend is coming to stay until Sunday. (For the old school Blonde on a Budget readers: do you remember Roomie? Who I grew up with in Victoria then lived with in Toronto? After all these years, I’m finally hosting her! And in the UK, no less! Life is definitely an adventure.) I have some money set aside for that. But I also want to get a Christmas tree this week. And potentially a few Christmas gifts. I am writing this all down on paper, then open my bank’s app and look at the balance. This should be interesting, I think. I don’t remember what it was like to budget with salaried paycheques, but this seems to be one of the most common things I say to myself, as a self-employed writer who earns + has to budget with lump sums of money. Every time the lump sum starts to dwindle, I think: this should be interesting. Because I know more money is coming soon, but I don’t know exactly how much or how long it’ll last. That’s the pay cycle I operate with…
I look at my upcoming scheduled payments and think about all the bills that come out at the start of the month, including my new monthly loan payment for the (newer) used car I bought a couple weeks ago. That’s a debt I knew would be coming one day, but wasn’t expecting in 2024. Still, I was intentional about it, and worked with my budget to come up with an amount I felt comfortable borrowing and paying back each month. Now, I have a more reliable car, a small loan, and the first payment comes out next week. Yep, this should be very interesting.
The Lighthouse is a reader-supported publication. I’ve been told each dispatch feels like something you want to boil the kettle for and curl up with. If you want to read them all, consider becoming a paying subscriber. Whether you pay and stay for a month, six months, a year, or many… it’s all appreciated. ❤️
1:22pm - I leave the grocery store with four bags of food, enough to fill The Lighthouse for most of the week. It cost me just over £60 and I felt totally neutral about that amount. Groceries are the one category of spending I somehow do not stress about1, because I love food and know how important it is to nourish myself. I will cut out shopping and any other category of spending entirely, in order to eat well. Having food in the house also makes me feel rich. I largely stick to staple or recipe items when I shop, but will occasionally buy myself a few treats. This week I bought a few further still, knowing Roomie is coming, and oh my gosh I’m just so excited to see her and have morning coffee together and eat some yummy meals with my old friend!
2:31pm - Back at The Lighthouse, I check my email and see one from my literary agent’s office. It’s the most recent royalty statement from the publisher of my first book, THE YEAR OF LESS. It tells me some interesting things, starting with the fact that it sold another 7,300 copies in English in the first half of 2024 (this is just for the paperback and ebook, not audio—that was a separate deal with a different publisher). This feels kind of amazing, considering the book is almost 7 years old. There are also advance payments for two foreign language translations. And in fun news: enough copies have sold in Brazilian Portuguese that I’ve out-earned the advance from my publisher in Brazil too! There’s an extra $38.60 USD on the cheque I’ll be getting—my first royalties payment from Brazil! I am somehow most delighted by this news. I think about how impossible it seems that I’m still earning money from this book, but especially from countries all around the world. What a wild and wonderful journey this continues to be…
I scroll through the statement and see the full amount (in USD) I’ll be getting later this week. I do a quick conversion to GBP and discover it’s enough to cover all my living expenses for almost 2 months. Including Christmas. Including my new car loan payments. Not including some things I actually need to buy soon, like new running shoes and the hiking boots with the hole in the toe that I’ve been meaning to replace all year. But I don’t have to worry about money again until January. I am so relieved, and so grateful to everyone who buys my books.