Just a quick word to let you all know that I probably won’t be posting much (if at all) until the New Year, as I will be away from home and catching up on some serious sleeping and family time when I am back at Casa InDebtNet.

For those following the home game, I can let you know that the best place to busk Christmas Carols is at a high-class Farmer’s Market.  If you can work the names of the locally produced products into your carols (Wassails are particularly good for this…) then you may even get some free stuff if the vendor is suitably amused :-)  We made about twice what we would normally make on an average shopping night for about two and a quarter hours of music.

I shall be applying my quarter of the month’s takings to my credit card bill, which will make quite a bit of a difference

So now I am off to prepare my holiday cottage for my Christmas guests and then start baking this afternoon!

Blimey.  I am looking forwards to some serious sleep between Christmas Eve and New Year - this December has been the busiest *ever*.

I had one of those epiphanaic moments recently, when I realised that I’m really great at talking about how to make more money, but whilst I can talk the talk, I’m falling down on “walking the walk” far more often than I need to be in order to build some success.

I have a product to sell (music) and I know that there is a market out there for it (past bookings and public reception).  What I need to do is stop procrastinating and just Get On With It.  I’ve been talking with a friend about doing more public and paid bookings, but we haven’t gotten any further than talking about it.  We have a terrible tendency to get together, talk a bit and then lapse into a salad-eating and ‘Robin-of-Sherwood’-watching frenzy.

Now, 2008 has, in common parlance, been a complete bastard of a year.  Many people that I love and respect have passed away this year, and I’ve spent a lot of it feeling a bit punch-drunk.  Just as I recover from one hit, BLAM! Another one comes in.  At this point in the year (having lost a dearly loved friend and neighbour under a week ago) I know that there is nothing I can do to salvage the year.  What I am intending to do, though, is to get utterly bladdered on New Year’s Eve and kick 2008 out of the door with all the venom and savagery that it deserves.  And I shall be welcoming in 2009 with open arms and the intention that it will be a Good Year.

In other words, 2009 will be the year that I actually get my arse into gear and start developing the music career that I both want and need.  I highly recommend that if you are procrastinating about starting a small business or developing your current career in a positive fashion, then you earmark next year as the year to do it.  In order to do this, I have made a list of the steps that I need to take in order to make this happen:

1. Set a regular practise and repertoire time with partner
2. Sort out new costumes
3. New promotional pictures in new costumes with instruments
4. Expand website to encompass new work
5. Record a three track demo
6. Pull together a press pack
7. Compile mailing list and references for potential venues
8. Do a Mailshot
9. Follow up phone calls

I publish this list here as a public mark in the sand, and to let it be known that I intend to create my own luck next year, and to have a good year at that.

Stuff you, 2008.  2009 is going to be MY year!

I’ve not posted for a couple of days as I’ve been running around doing all the Christmas preparations and tasks that everyone is doing at this time of year.

I spent a very pleasant afternoon at my daughter’s school nativity, watching my five year old sing her first ever solo (dressed as an angel) and reduce a roomful of parents to tears - we do seem to be raising a houseful of musicians, one way or the other!   We’ve also spent almost every evening (and several of the days) in December out singing carols.  It’s a pleasant way to earn some Christmas money, but I must say that it isn’t easy.  Both my husband and I are also struggling through coughs and colds, so it’s a little trying to say the least.

My husband’s family are very arts-orientated, and all are amateur musicians, whilst my sister-in-law is also a professional actress and stage fight director.  Talking to her always makes me think about how arts professions are perceived by other people in more mundane jobs.

“Easy money”.  “Nice life if you can get it”. “Ought to get a REAL job”.  These are all perjorative terms I’ve heard in relation to working in the arts.  Without exception, they are all phrases used by people who have never *worked* in the arts.  On the surface, it seems like an easy life - getting paid to do something that other people do for fun.  Not having to get up in the morning.  Playing all the time.

The simple fact is that it isn’t like that AT ALL.  My sister-in-law often gets up at 4 or 5am to drive for miles to the next theatre engagement on a tour, where she has to put up a set, re-choreograph parts of the show for the new theatre, liaise with theatre management and check all the props and costumes - replacing or repairing anything missing or damaged.  By the time she’s finished all of this and run the cast through any changes, it’s evening.  Round about the time that most of us are sitting down to ‘Eastenders’ and a nice cup of tea, she is gearing up to put on a performance, which will likely run until 10pm or so.  Then she has to take the set down, pack it into a van and drive to wherever her accommodation is (often on someone’s mother’s floor, or a looooong drive back home), whereupon she can finally sleep, before getting up and doing this again the next day.  Because it is such a “glamorous” profession, and there is a lot of competition, the pay isn’t very good, so she does all this for minimum wage or less.  She doesn’t get weekends or holidays.  The tour keeps on rolling.  She can be booked into Devon one day and Northumbria the day after.

Stuff that for a game of soldiers.

My husband is in the middle of transitioning from full-time construction and electrical work into being a full-time musician.  This means that for a few years here, he is effectively working two full-time jobs as he builds up a music work portfolio to enable him to scale back his construction work.   His timetable is equally as mad as that of his sister, if not worse, because he has to somehow fit being a father and husband in there somewhere as well.

So why are they working these mad hours?  Because they both have a dream of where they want to be, and what they want to be doing in a few years’ time.  They both realise that sitting back and waiting for someone to hand-deliver the perfect career is not going to work.  There is no such thing as a ‘perfect time’ to start a business, or make a life-changing decision.  Careers and lives are built out of the bricks of determination and hard work.

If you are sitting there, worried about the possibility of losing your sole source of income, or despairing at the fact that you may still be doing a job you hate in another 10 years’ time, then I challenge you to push yourself.  Start something today.  Do something scary and challenging which will move you closer towards your dreams.  Then post about it, and let us all know what direction you are travelling in

0% interest loans aren’t something that one tends to see on every shop window these days.  Which is why I was particularly interested when a musician friend of mine told me about the “Take It Away” scheme.  This appealed *hugely* to me as both a musician and someone interested in personal finance.

“Take It Away” is a scheme run by the Arts Council of England, and it aims to offer 0% interest loans to people in order to buy a musical instrument.  It is not available to school children (over 18s only) and it requires a deposit and then 9 monthly payments to pay off the instrument.  The loan is for up to £2000, and can include instrument, accessories and tuition.

Pretty cool, eh?

It’s a great way to get started with a musical instrument if you’ve always fancied it, but can’t find the money to buy an instrument straight up.  It’s also a fantastic way for experienced musicians to expand their instrumental repertoire.  A classical violinist of my acquaintance used it to buy himself a saxophone - he’d never be able to justify it otherwise - and my daughter’s rock guitarist godfather used it to buy himself a folksy mandocello/bouzouki.  The loans are not limited to beginners and there is no set list of instruments to choose from.

If you are interested, then I recommend cruising past:

http://takeitaway.org.uk

http://myspace.com/takeitawayscheme

or calling on 0845 300 6200

Of course, the important thing to remember is that this is STILL debt, and that you should make sure you have enough monthly income to pay for the installments for 9 months.  The *really* clever way to do it would be to buy something and get good enough in 9 months’ time that you could start getting gigs or busking with it.  Buy it and *apply* yourself to getting really good.  Then you can start replacing what you paid for it with gig/busk money!  Yay!!!  It’s pretty much how I’ve funded most instruments in the past five years, and I now have a policy of “no instrument in without one going out”.  Otherwise we’d be drowning in harps, frankly!

If you’re a parent trying to make ends meet at the moment, you’ll know that the Government isn’t overly fond of giving you much.  Particularly if you are following their advice and trying to buy your own home, work for a living and save a bit.

Fair enough - my decision to replicate my DNA, and I’m *so* not getting into the “Child-free” argument on this blog

However, it would appear that the Government decided to help out parents before the current farcical Tax Credit system kicked in (we can discuss my opinions of how wonderfully that system works for the self-employed at another time when I’ve got a strong gin in my hand to fortify myself…).  Of course, being *our* Government, they didn’t decide to, well, y’know… *tell* anyone about it.  So there’s a pot of money gone pretty much unclaimed, and if it isn’t claimed before the end of January, it will presumably go into another worthy Government scheme, such as the Northern Rock Christmas Party Caviar and Champagne Fund or the Buy Gordon Brown More Ill-Fitting Primark Suits Fund.

So, if you had a dependent child living with you during 2002/2003 then you should be able to claim a tax allowance (the Child Tax Credit) through your tax code.

If you are interested in applying, then you will need to download, fill out and send in the following form:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/11ctc.pdf

I recommend that if you are in the Tax Credit system, you should phone your local Tax Office first and check with them as to whether you have already claimed this or not before you start filling it out forms.  It turns out that I had already claimed this, so I don’t get any extra money (shame!), but it is certainly worth checking for the price of a local phone call!

I’m sure that the US readers already know about this, but I just found it whilst cruising through a “Stop Shopping!” site.

A WalMart worker was crushed to death last Friday by shoppers desperate to get a bargain.

The shoppers, according to other stories, chanted “Take the doors off!” before smashing down the shop doors and charging over anything between them and the sale items they wanted.  They trampled 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour to death, and four other shoppers (including an 8-months pregnant woman) were injured.

I’m just *horrified*.

Something has to change.  Really.

If you’re as interested in direct action as me, take a look at this:

http://www.revbilly.com

Commonsense through humour and sarcasm.  I like it…

My husband and I dropped off to sleep in front of the tv last night, and woke up during a program that we wouldn’t normally watch.  It was a program aimed soundly at the deaf community, and one of the articles was specifically discussing the effects of the Credit Crunch upon various people.

Now, lest the cries of “BIAS!” be levelled against me, I should point out that I have absolutely no issue with people who cope with a disability.  Blindness runs in my husband’s family, and I increasingly help my dear Mother-in-Law with day to day tasks as her sight shrinks to virtually nothing.  The same thing will probably happen to all of his family, although we’re kind of hoping for some research results Real Soon Now…  I worked in the Royal National Institute for the Blind for several years and have several blind and partially sighted friends.  Not an issue.  I’m not involved with the deaf thing, apart from being partially deaf myself, of course :-)  So, suffice it to say, I don’t think I have unresolved problems with people coping with disability.

But I was somewhat astonished at some of the people represented in the program.  I had nothing but sympathy for the researcher who got made redundant on a Tuesday and then found that her husband had been made redundant on Wednesday.  That sucks like gravity.

But I do wonder about the lack of joined up thinking in some of the others portrayed.  One gentleman moved into his own flat, but worried about his ability to pay for the bills.  So he got a loan.  To pay for day-to-day living expenses.  And then blew the rest on a new car.  ???????  How on *earth* did he get that one straight in his head?

And then there was the woman who took every storecard offered to her and spent up to the limit on each one as “you don’t need to think about the future when you’re young, do you?”  *COUGH!!!*  She was degree-educated!  A deaf-rights activist!!!

I won’t even  get started on the chap who sent 3000 texts in a month from a mobile phone contract with a 150 texts per month limit…

After a fifteen minute segment, my husband looked at me and said, “ALERT CAPTAIN!  KLUTZ-FACTOR 10!”  I think he had a point.

The program was trying to portray (I think) deaf people as being peculiarly vulnerable because they didn’t like to read small print in obfuscatory language.  Well, who does?  I understand not wanting to telephone people - my own hearing means that I detest the phone with a violent passion, but that’s why we have email and text phones!

There really is no excuse for not reading the basic terms of any kind of lending, whether it’s a mortgage, overdraft or loan.  I’m not talking about the small print, but rather about the big print that says things like “29.7% APR” and “You may lose your house if you default on this loan”.

Take charge of your debt.  Kick its arse and let it know who is Boss.  Sticking these things into a drawer and trying to forget about something does nothing useful.  Getting angry and confrontational with your debt can, on the other hand, be very useful.  It doesn’t matter if you have poor vision or poor hearing, find a way to get informed about your finances.  The CAB will always provide someone to help read and translate documents, or you can simply demand that companies communicate with you in a form you can read - braille, tape, large print, email, textphone, txts etc.  Legally they have to comply.

Say it loud with me - “I’m getting out of this debt and then I’m not getting in again!  EVER!!!”

So, here I am, halfway through my normal Christmas activity of carol-singing in a costumed quartet, to try and raise money for charity and to pay for gifts and food for my family.  I thought I’d report back and note how this year is different.

Because it really is different - no two ways about that.

The quartet, Piepowder, that I play and sing with in this capacity, started out almost exclusively street-busking.  We were good enough that people started to ask for details, and we started to get booked into paying gigs (that always sounds like a funny word when you aren’t a musician, but honestly - it’s the one that is used!).  I missed the street singing last year, and put in a specific request to do a bit more this year.  The results have been not exactly surprising, but certainly saddening.

This past weekend was the Lincoln Christmas Market weekend.  It’s one of the biggest Christmas markets in the UK, and an extremely big deal to the city.  We had several paying gigs for the market, and between engagements, we decided to go and do some street singing.

This is where I saw a huge difference.  People seem to be scared to engage with you as a street performer now, in case you ask them for money.  Very few people are throwing money anymore, and those that do are throwing very small denominations.  But it isn’t so much the money that worried me on this occasion - it was the attitudes.  People seem so *scared*.  Scared to make eye contact, scared to talk, scared to engage on almost any level with someone who might ask them for money.  In previous years, I’m quite happy to admit that the money has very much been a secondary consideration for us - we’re all dreadful hams (after all, we’re hanging around on street corners dressed as victorians), so we love to interact with people.  We’re all unashamed “child-smilers” (small child looks, we smile and wave - hopefully they wave back!), and never happier than when posing for photos with tourists.  With the notable exception of asian tourists (Bless them - I’ve never seen a depressed japanese tourist!), this year, we managed very little crowd interaction.  People just didn’t want to respond or engage.  We weren’t about to demand money for allowing them to join in, after all!  We have lyric sheets, for heaven’s sake!!!

It was sad.

Monetarily, we collected £11.00 in the time that we would have collected £30.00 in previous years.  That’s quite a drop.

So, what’s my advice?  Well, at the moment, the problem isn’t necessarily with you, the act.  We’re certainly better than we were two years ago.   My advice is to make the most of whatever contact you can get.  Make eye contact, smile and stop to say “Thanks!” when people *do* drop money in.  If the opportunity arises to talk to people, then do so - very often a conversation might lead to a paying gig.  With busking rates being what they seem to be at the moment, even a low-paying indoor gig can bring a similar rate of return, with the possibility of further leads.  We’ve also picked up at least one good gig and contact through having flyers available in our collection basket - if people like what you do, then let them contact you to book a gig!

We’ve kept our takings up by targetting our appearances and trying to figure out what sorts of venues we can complement - we now have a lead with at least one stately home in the area, and have a booking with a high-class tea/coffee shop, which we hope might lead to further work.  We talk regularly to local business groups and ask how we can help *them* in difficult times.  A little bit of goodwill goes a very, very long way. We are blessed with a helpful local council, too, and try to keep in contact with them before the key earning periods - they book a LOT of entertainment at certain times of the year, and having your name at the front of their minds as a helpful, can-do sort of a person is key to getting the bookings.

There is money to be earned out there, but a pro-active attitude has never been more important.

I’ve had a moan about this on my private blog, but it’s something that really warrants mentioning further I think.

My husband, myself,  father-in-law and brother-in-law are all self-employed or running small businesses.  We are all blessed with enough work on our books to carry us through the current economic downturn (hopefully things will pick up sooner, rather than later).  However, we have all commented on the thing that makes the current economy shaky for us:

Late payment.

When you are late paying the gas bill, they send you red letters.  When you are late paying a small business…  Well, quite frankly someone’s children are going hungry.  For most small business owners, prompt payment is a matter of survival - the work gets done promptly, so why make people wait for their money?

I have heard (particularly at this time of year) - “Oh, I’ll get it sorted out in the new year!”.  Well, it might be a nice, convenient way to forget about obligations, but the year that it happened to us, our children had a very thin holiday season.  Thankfully, they are not avaricious little rotters, but it still made me feel awful that I couldn’t provide the bounty that I had planned for, and (most importantly) my husband had done the work for, over six weeks previously.

When I have mentioned this to other small business-owners, they have all noted similar things, as well as the insidious (and unforgiveable) fact that those with the least amount of money are the best payers.  If my husband installs a new light-fitting for an elderly person or a single mother, the money is usually on the table by the time that he has finished the tea and biscuit they have made him whilst he works.  Large landowner?  Hmmm.  Don’t bargain on payment before six weeks is over.  Ooooh, it makes me cross.

I was also recently warned of an unpleasant business practice to be aware of: businesses commissioning work on liquidisable assets (plant machinery, houses, tools, etc.).  As soon as the work is completed, and the asset maximised, the company sells off the asset and then declares insolvency, and you - the contractor - are left with an unpayable invoice.  It’s just *nasty*.  I’m very, VERY glad that I was warned of this, as I suspect that we have just been offered a job on similar terms, and we know to avoid it like the plague!  The person who warned me of this has also informed me that his (large) company has also started credit checks on dubious work orders - I think this is a sign of things to come.

So, I shall be looking at our standard invoices and printing the words “All invoices to be settled in full within 7 working days or a late payment fee may be levied”.  It’s legal, and most of all - it’s *fair*.

I’m also happy to note that one of our outstanding invoices has just been settled, so we can eat again!  Hurrah!  We celebrated by  going out and buying a tonne of food at the Cash and Carry!  I now have enough custard to float a small dinghy!  Hurrah!!!!

Winter appears to have arrived with a vengeance.  The temperatures have fallen and the wind has taken on a certain “lazy” aspect (you know the sort - it’s too lazy to blow around the outside of you, so goes straight through the middle).  This means that it’s a bit chilly here at Casa InDebtNet, and if I want to still feel my fingers, then I really need to sort out something about warming up the house.

I tried turning on the central heating early yesterday, but ended up with all the heating migrating upwards, resulting in a top floor so hot that the kids couldn’t sleep, but still only just tolerable downstairs.  Hmmm.   So today I have experimented with lighting up our woodburning stove in the living room.  This is lovely and warm, but the main problem is that I can’t work from the living room as the WiFi doesn’t reach through.  However, I had a cunning plan…

Five minutes later, aided by a piece of aluminium foil, some card, two rubber bands and a paperclip, I have managed to cobble together an antenna-booster thingummy, which I have duly shoved onto my wireless router antenna, and tried to pick up a signal in my living room.  I am pleased to report that my laptop is now picking up an “excellent” signal from where I am currently sat on the sofa, in front of the log fire.  I’m pretty happy with that!

So, on to some top tips for keeping warm on a budget this year:

1. Thermal underwear.  Yes, I know, it’s a bit of a joke for a lot of people, but it’s really, REALLY helpful when the weather plummets.  The good thing about warming yourself, rather than the room, is that you stay warm, even when you move away from your heat source.  Thermals work best if you wear trousers a lot - they don’t look great peeking out of a short skirt :-)  Primark do a very good range of pretty (if you’re a girlie!), practical (if you’re a bloke) and cheap ones - give them a go!  If you can’t face the prospect of thermals, though, do at least give a little thought to layering t-shirts and leggings…

2. Fire.  If you have a fireplace in your house or flat, give some thought to using it.  Restoring a fireplace doesn’t need to be expensive - large garden centres and DIY stores can often be a source for firebaskets and grates, and if you have a chimney, you can usually get it swept for about £30.  Many things can be burned on a fire, and it’s a great way of disposing of confidential documents to minimise the possibility of identity theft.  I’m also often to be seen scouring the streets after a big storm as branches tend to fall down a lot…

3. Only heat the space that you are in.  Central heating is great, but if your family only use one or two rooms, then you are throwing away vast amounts of energy and money to heat the entire house.  The *most* efficient way to heat the space that you are in is to actually heat just *yourself*.  Hot water bottles, microwaveable rice pillows and chenille blankets are all things that we use with glee in the winter.   Rice pillows are VERY eay to make - fill an old sock with rice and tie a knot in the top.  Microwave for 1.5 minutes and presto!  Very nice to rest feet on, or snuggle at the back of your neck.  Also, give some thought to closing the doors of the rooms that you are heating, or else you really are heating the rest of the house, and minimising the benefit of being in the room that is warm.

4. You have insulated your house, haven’t you?  If not, then do it NOW!  If you can’t afford insulation then talk to your local council - they may well have a grant scheme for insulation.

5. Draw your curtains as soon as it gets dark - windows lose way more heat than walls, and covering them with your curtains will ensure that you keep as much of your heat in as possible.  Hang door curtains over entrance and exit doors - if you don’t feel confident enough to  fit a curtain pole over your door, buy a net curtain wire and hang it from the door frame - cheap and easy.  You can then suspend tabtop curtain panels from them - it’s what I’ve done with my front door and it makes a surprising difference.  We jut take the wire down in summer!

6. Get a nice woolly hat.  You may think that wearing woolly beany hats indoors is the province of teenage boys, but they are really onto something - it keeps you much warmer!  You’ve got a jumper on too, right?  The more skin you cover, the less space there is to lose heat from.  Mmmmm.  I love my woolly jumpers!

7.  Investigate cheap space heating options.  Last year, during a period of broken boiler, we bought some radiant heaters.  800watts and very directional.  Whilst I wouldn’t have them on for long periods of time, we have kept them around the place and use them to boost room heat for short periods when they are really needed (ie. children getting out of the bath).   Boosting heat just at the times that you need it is much more effective than attempting to plan ahead and warming the whole house for much longer than necessary.

8.  Hot drinks!  Yes, a cup of tea is a wonderful and warming thing.  Well, I’m english - what did you expect?