I'm not working, few of us are at the moment and doing nothing is the right thing to help slow covid.
I'm not an essential worker so I'm feeling stranded at home unable to work.
Most weeks I'm only working 1/2 a week it's as much as I can cope with without over stressing, all it takes is a customer wanting to renegotiate my over fair price or worse the rich privileged home owners pay me a working loss which is both insulting and painfully cruel, if we negotiate a price and I do the work renegotiating to pay my only what I would gave walked away from is hard but the privledged home owners often do it which means I never go back and I'm always looking forward new customers and paying for job leads.
Ok I'm not stressing out that I'm working for the privledged rich home owners that are too lazy to work in their own gardens so being home isn't an issue except the financial stresses are there and so are my exhausting thoughts which are getting louder and I have to admit it I'm not coping even for simple things.
Today asked my wife to go with me when I went to purchase a 20kg bad of chook pellets for our chooks, it's not a huge cost but I'm so over thinking things and it's an outgoing expense that's nessesary but I'm at the point I'm struggling to cope with spending $19 with the worry it's not a wise financial decision.
I'm no idiot it's not hard to work out that feeding our chooks costs about $1 a day but we get 7-11 eggs a day and their not small eggs.
If I was a rich investor I'd look at that as a 300+% return so I know in our permaculture garden chooks save us money.
I've tried talking with my wife about thoughts and bills and ongoing expenses but we're in different realities, I've always been a miser I'm not greedy but don't like waste or stupid actions with money.
My wife in all the years we have been together has only ever had 3 jobs, always permanent employment and always management positions.
I've had days where I've worked multiple jobs in the same day, needing to just to get the hours from casual torture just to pay the bills so I won't take risks.
Everyone in our family has separate finances and we each contribute to bills only with 2 working and even that work has changed the household finances are very bad.
Today I asked my wife to go with me to get some chook food, explained I'm worried I'm not sure if I have the money and that I'm too scared to check my bank account balance and adding up receipts is simple math but when stressed I find myself redoing the numbers and then checking and rechecking and realizing the weeks expenses my brain alerts myself zero account balance in x days do something about it only I'm not working and then I'm caught in a thinking loop and realize I fell asleep last night after 4am.
Ok talked my wife into going with me to get chook pellets so getting the pellets is the right thing to do ok I'm relaxed I'm not making a mistake.
Then on our way home we stop to pick up some things I don't know what we need so it's ok, my wife parks in the woolworths car park so I assume that's where were we're going but we walk up the street and my wife visits a craft shop which s ok because I know she will spend $10-20 and keep herself and kids entertained for a day or more and often she makes things to give as gifts so in a way her craft saves money, I do stress but trust her judgement.
Then we go to the newsagent where she purchases her weekly lottery tickets, yea I so don't need to see that.
I know it's not a huge weekly spend and it is her money and presently she's paying most of the bills but it's not something I'm ever comfortable with but today it's eating me big time.
Then we went home, no shopping at woolworths she just wanted some time out of the house alone with me and I'm trapped with my thoughts so wasn't much for conversation but that's ok because listening is usually best with wives and walking a few extra hundred meters away from home was nice.
For lunch everything on the plate came from our veggie garden which is nice to know our permaculture garden is almost self sufficient only we're renting so we have to get creative by replacing some flowers in the garden with veggies.
Mid afternoon next doors kids come over (they come over often to play with our chooks and feed them treats) and they ask for ingredients to put on home cooked pizzas (the kids had raided the fridge and ate the planned pizza toppings), it's nice to be able to help out I know their struggling and I know the pizza doe was going to make enough to freeze several future meals.
2 days ago QLD arrowroot was dug from my garden and sent next door and half returned cliced into thin chips with herb seasonings which also came from my garden.
I like to help and I like to grow food, my hobby is heirloom veggies and my seed collection is often swapped, bartered, traded and used as payment or just gifted to friends, family and those in need.
I work as a gardener with often includes setting people up with permaculture gardens and teaching permaculture.
Right now I'm staying home doing the right thing as we all should be which means no work away from home which means no income.
I'm afraid of wasting my time trying to get help from centerlink scum I've been there hitting my head against the wall many times over the years without any help comming my way.
Huge mental battles just walking near the building or going to their endless looping webpages and right now I'm too stressed to even check my own bank account balance so going to the place of major stress I can't do.
They won't help anyway as I haven't put in a tax return in years, what's the point I never have $100 spare to pay an accountant to insult be with how little I earn.
Usually I will work 7 days a week which gets the bills paid but when there's a challenge to my over fair price or a rich privledged home owner under pays what was agreed I end up recalling and rescheduling the next 2-3 days, if I just push on I'm so scared of not being paid that I start getting angry s as nd doing a terrible job because I'm not being paid right only I could have been looking after that customer for years and never had a payment issue but my mental fear affects my work so I back off take a few days then restart work.
It's not right but it's a system that's working as long as I manage 1/2 a week or more of work,
When I can't work I'm screwed because savings are non existent and with winter garden work is harder come get and with so many out there working for less than the minimum wage I'm stressed.
I'm also worried that one day I'll hit back at the scum rich home owners when after I cut the lawn negotiating $80 for 3-4hrs work with expenses I'm working for less than minimum slave wage so I'm feeling stressed always because there are fools out there that cut lawns once for $20 then vanish but the rich home owner permanently thinks that's the price every slave works for, so I'm scared one day when I'm presented with $20 instead of the agreed $80 I'll just go bank to my Ute get my axe or chainsaw and let the rich bastards know how I feel.
Yes know I'm not coping with things and can't afford the help I need and being in mental health wasn't much help as my financial problems multiply and I need to work to address it and being away from friends and family just rubs it in just how alone I really am, at least being with family I don't feel as alone but when away I know how lonely I am so yes this fear of being left on my own weighs on my thinking too so I'm more careful in seeking help.
I need to work but don't really know if I can or should seriously mowing someone's lawn isn't important but setting up a permaculture garden is and so is teaching people how to work in their own garden to become self sufficient but the problem is that I'll cut 100 lawns for every permaculture job but the permaculture jobs pay better and fit better in my heart plus never has that better quality customer not paid me what I've asked to be paid, if I could afford to advertise I'd just help set people up with permaculture gardens.
If I'm going to dream for the better life I may as well dream the impossible dream and become a privileged home owner but that's never going to happen no matter how hard I've ever worked.
I'm out of options, working when I shouldn't is wrong but I've no choice and it's not like I ever see customers anyway, most of my lawn and garden customers come home from work, see my completed work and they pay me.
It's not like I've earned enough this year to pay tax I've only just kept my head above water.
I'm open to ideas and suggestions, no doubt I've missed opportunities I'm blind to see so can anyone point me in the right direction or add something I've not tried before.
I returned to the sane forum after not being able to figure out how to get into a discussion about sleep issues today, not that my sleep isn't reasonable at present, it's often an issue when I'm stressed but when it's bad that's my warning sign for suicidal thoughts only I realize after the stress events pass so know just how important sleep is.
I'm not good with technology and some days struggle with passwords for access to websites like sane or the bank etc.
I'll do my best to try and return here often I give up with forgotten password frustrations, I will try to
return here.
