I have just been on holiday in Turkey, visiting my sister who lives there with her Turkish husband and their little boy. It was while on holiday in Turkey a year and a half ago that I came up with the notion of giving up my career and moving out of London to a faraway rural corner of England.

Being on holiday does give one time to ponder, and the complete contrast of my sister’s life with mine was food for thought indeed. Last week I once again found myself on a beach in Turkey going through a similar thought process.

Of course I am in a different position from last time: the dream has partially been realised. But it is now clear that my dream was really only the beginning and that upping sticks and moving to the other end of the country is only the first step. My action was a ‘suck it and see’ exercise, accompanied by no clear vision of how it should pan out.

I am still a free spirit but not a free agent. I have had to submit to a nine to five job to keep the wolf from the door. It’s not a job I find deeply fulfilling but it must serve for now as I am now low on funds and in debt again.

I will be honest: I buggered up the financial side. I had no real financial plan and spent a lot of money. My next priority therefore – dull as it sounds – is to bring the finances back on track. Unless I can do this, I will continue to be a wage slave, albeit one who lives by the sea.

As for the rest, I’m still working on it. I lost sight of the dream for a few months whilst trying to keep body and soul together, but I’m back and focussing on the long term once more.

Read more:

• What dropping out means to me
• True signs of success
• Drop out interviews
  

Newquay is starting to wake up and come out of winter hibernation. Easter is early this year, which brings the start of the season forward. People who went away for the winter are starting to trickle back. The main pubs and bars are getting livelier. On a sunny weekend with decent surf, there are more people out in the water.

Really, summer is what it’s all about here. Obviously summer is a nice time everywhere, but here it is more important to have a good time. You’ve got to make the most of the season before it is all over for another year. You are either planning to work your butt off and earn your money for the year, or trying to decide what will allow you to have the most fun!

I don’t really want to spend the whole summer just temping in an office, so I need to find something that will get me out and about. I would like to get my beach lifeguard qualification but I really need to work on my swimming first.

During the weeks and months that I haven’t been posting here, I have been working on my other website, www.gubernatrix.co.uk, which is growing slowly but surely. Sometimes it is frustrating that I don’t seem to have enough time to do my wage-earning job, work on both websites, train and put my ideas into practice for the future. But then I remember that at least I am in the right place. It would be even more frustrating if I was still stuck in the city and part of that daily grind. Here, at least I can still escape to the beach or hang out with like-minded people! It gives you hope.

I said this to someone earlier today, but realised that this is a very money-centric way of looking at the world. What I really meant was: I’m not sure that this item will bring enough value to me for that price, if at all.

Saying “I can’t afford it” implies that if you had more money you would buy it. Whereas, in fact even if you had ten times the money it still might not be worth purchasing because fundamentally it’s not valuable enough to you. No matter how rich or poor you are, spending money on something you never use is a complete waste.

If you are convinced of an item’s value and you can see yourself happily using it for years to come and getting a lot out of it, then you can probably afford it even if you have to spend some time saving up for it. It’ll be even easier to afford if you stop buying things that aren’t genuinely valuable to you!

I know people whose regular monthly income is relatively low but who have been able to afford things like a motorbike, a round-the-world trip, a house. These things were not a passing fancy. For many they represent months or years of paid employment or years of saving. But if you really want something and you are willing to be hard-working and creative in the way that you go about it, there is very little on this earth of real value that you could not afford.

The other side of the coin is that if you are not convinced of an item’s value in this way, then you can’t really afford the item even if it only costs a pound. You waste energy buying it, the thing takes up space in your life and eventually you’ll waste energy getting rid of it.

See also Tips to curb impulse buying

If your life doesn’t look like that, it is easy to be a bit defensive about it in a social situation. You might find yourself coming out with expressions of justification, such as:

“It hasn’t always been like this, you know…
I used to have a high-powered job…
This is just a temporary situation…
I’ve got a plan to earn loads of money in the future…”

While all of these things may be perfectly true, it would great to be proud of who you are now and where you are heading. But such is the social conditioning that it can take a long time to shed conventional notions of success. It can be particularly difficult at social events, where people you’ve just met are asking, “So what do you do?”

I was at a social event the other day and found myself using one of these justifications. Someone made a remark about a mutual acquaintance being much more high-powered than me, and I instantly bristled and was somewhat affronted. Afterwards though, I felt like an idiot because deep down I don’t really mind if my life doesn’t conform to other people’s metrics of success. But I had still felt the twinge of inferiority as the social conditioning kicked in.

In order to bring out this apparent dichotomy, I made a list of all the aspects of my life that are seen as social negatives, and a list of all the aspects that I see as positive. Here’s what they looked like:

Social negatives - “unsuccessful”

• Low income
• On housing benefit
• Low-powered employment, usually temporary
• Live in rural area
• Don’t own house or car
• Not in demand, no-one needs me
• Don’t have latest clothes, gadgets etc
• No pension or health insurance

My positives - “successful”

• No debt
• No dependants
• Little stress
• Loads of energy and ambition
• Live in a relaxing, beautiful environment
• Fit and healthy
• Plenty of time to work on my own projects
• Have everything I need
• Take time off whenever I want

Those lists are quite revealing. It’s not simply that they show that a low-powered life can be a positive life, but – more importantly - they also show that I have actively made choices to live a certain way. I am not on benefits or doing temporary work because there is no alternative. I’ve chosen these things because they are part of a plan and contribute to making me happy.

Not everyone would make the same choices, of course. Some people really do want to earn loads of money and have a high-powered job. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The challenge for high-powered people is to become genuinely worthwhile, happy and fulfilled. I am sure we have all encountered managers, directors and other executives who have all the trappings of power but are either a waste of space where the job is concerned or are high achievers at the expense of their health, families, sanity!

But perhaps we also know people who are not only enjoying the trappings of power, but are actually using their power to do good things, are working to achieve something they really believe in. Perhaps they have given up a bit of money and prestige to spend more time with their kids or are using their high-powered positions to help a good cause. I have met a handful of people like this and it seems like a very good way to live your life.

One of the lessons of the excellent book Your Money or Your Life is that a happy and fulfilling life is one where everything you do is aligned with your values and life purpose. This will look different for different people and you wouldn’t be able to tell from someone’s job title whether they were in this position or not.

So how will I try to deal with this awkward social situation in the future? By not minding what people think and just being honest. If you are truly happy, fulfilled and positive about your life, this will naturally come across in the way you talk about it.

Have you encountered this issue? How do you deal with it?

See also Advantages of a low-flying career

And here’s another tip: make magazines go further by sharing them with friends or donating them to your local doctor’s surgery.

This post is sponsored by The Magazine Group.

So here are a few tips to curb the impulse to spend, spend, spend!

• Consider how your life would be different if you bought this item. Would you get real benefit and value from it that no other possession of yours could give?

• Try walking out of the shop and see if you still want the item as much.

• Even better, give yourself a 24-hour cooling off period. Don’t buy it immediately but see if you still want it the next day.

• Is there something you already have that could be converted for a different purpose? For example, I sometimes wear a ‘work suit’ jacket with jeans for a smart-casual look, which means I don’t have to buy yet another jacket.

• Do you know someone who has one already? Maybe they could lend it to you (e.g. a DIY tool).

• Shop around - you might find a better and cheaper one elsewhere. Have a look on ebay too.

• Examine your reasons for making the purchase. Are you trying to cheer yourself up? Are you trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ or impress your friends? The chances are that buying something won’t fix the underlying problem making you unhappy, and most people won’t think you’re cool just because you have an iphone.

The problem with instant gratification is that the effects wear off very quickly. It’s possible to enjoy the sensation of not spending money too. You have more in your wallet to spend on the things you really care about and you are not cluttering up your life with useless junk or passing fancies.

Got any other good tips to curb impulse spending?

A low-flying job is one where you work considerably below your abilities or qualifications in a job with little responsibility and career prospects. Why would people do this? Well, if you can cope with the reduced income, a low-flying job has a number of advantages over a high-flying one:

• No-one expects you to do extra time unpaid. Start at 9, finish at 5, take your full hour for lunch.
• You don’t arrive home tired and stressed so there’s no need to spend hours winding down from work or waste money on a takeaway because you’re too tired to cook.
• You are not as intellectually or emotionally involved in the work you do, so you don’t find yourself thinking about work at all outside the hours you are contracted to perform it.
• The work is well within your capabilities so you don’t have to worry about your own performance.
• You don’t go to bed on Sunday night worrying about what faces you on Monday morning.
• You don’t get involved in office politics.
• You have plenty of mental space that you can devote entirely to yourself and your own projects or interests.
• You keep a healthy distance between your work and the rest of your life. Neither impinges on the other.

I’ve enjoyed doing low-flying work more than I thought. I was worried about getting bored at work but this didn’t happen to the extent that I anticipated. Instead, I found I had the space in my head to think about things that were important to me. I could make mental shopping lists, write mental blog posts, plan my little plans!

All of that thinking time translates into being more in control of your life. For instance, have you ever been so busy at work that you don’t have time to consider what to have for dinner or even remember what’s in your fridge? So you end up getting an unhealthy takeaway or grabbing the first thing off the supermarket shelves on the way home.

To some people, it might seem like a waste of your abilities to take a deliberately low-flying job. But how many of us have jobs that really tax our brains or challenge us consistently to come up with new ideas? And in any case, unless you own the business, all your efforts and exciting new ideas are simply contributing to making someone else’s business a success.

Those in low-flying jobs often have a very absorbing hobby or sideline that gets the bulk of their mental capacity. For example, I have my blogs, to which I devote an enormous amount of  intellectual energy. Isn’t it more rewarding to devote the bulk of your mental capacity to your own projects rather than someone else’s?

Has anyone else deliberately taken a “low-flying” job? How have you got on? Is it a long-term solution or only good as a stop gap?

I started looking into getting business cards printed, but then I came across a service called www.ooprint.co.uk which actually offers business cards specifically tailored to blog owners. What’s more, at the moment they are doing a special offer of 100 FREE blogger cards! You only pay shipping fees.

What’s neat about these blogger cards from www.ooprint.co.uk is that you can have your tag cloud on the card, as well as logo, URL and your contact details. So you can really get the message across about your blog.

I found www.ooprint.co.uk really easy to use: you just click on the design you want and fill in the information you want to display on the card. You get an instant preview of how the card is going to look, so it’s easy to play around and change things to get it exactly right.

ooprint’s blogger business cards are a great idea and have certainly solved a problem for me at just the right time!

This post is sponsored by ooprint.co.uk

What was I going to do for three hours at home on a Saturday? When the power went out, I had been browsing the web and looking forward to making a cup of tea and watching sport on TV. Now all those plans had gone out with the power!

But then I realised that actually there was plenty I could do that didn’t require any electric power at all. I could clean the bathroom (it needed doing!), file my post, tidy up the flat, go for a run or finish the book that’s been sitting half-read on my bedside table.

I ended up having the most productive three hours of my weekend and also realised how profligate we can be with our power. So the next time you need to get things done, try banning the use of electricity for an hour or two. Better yet, to prevent cheating, turn your electricity off altogether! You’ll get your chores done and save some money into the bargin.