Buckle up kids, this August update is gonna be a journey.
As I write this, I’m sat on my sofa after a day of work, attempting to spend some time with my family and also suppressing a breakdown. I have a list of things to do as long as my arm, I go away in a couple of days, I’m tired, my whole body hurts, and I’m entirely aware that I do this to myself. So, without further ado, let’s talk about my August, shall we?
Mentally, I've done some digging
I know I’m an overthinker. I know I’m an over-planner. I know that I don’t seem to be able to say no to things, and I overbook my time and I stress myself out. I know that I put too much pressure on myself. But guess what? I continue to do it. And I may have hit my breaking point this month.
If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I went away to Morocco on a family holiday for 10 days this August. We stayed in a beautiful hotel, and I knew going into it that the hotel would only have WiFi in the lobby. To a lot of your surprise, I was okay with this. I was actually the one who was the most okay with it in my family. Even though I do all this online stuff, I thrive equally without my phone and the internet, so knowing that I’d have to go to the lobby anytime I wanted to check in with the social media world wasn’t that bad. However, things started getting bad when we got there…
I had planned to have my four (Yes, 4) posts a week scheduled and ready to go before I left, along with my tweets, so that I could be free when I got there. However, that didn’t happen because I totally booked up my pre-holiday time in true Jas fashion. With 5 posts that still needed writing, I convinced myself that it would be fine and I’d do it in the hotel lobby in my downtime when I got there. However, then I got there and the WiFi was terrible, no pictures would upload and I found myself pulling my hair out over something I couldn’t control. For who? A readership that would understand and probably wouldn’t notice? It was stupid and too much stress and I had a cold hard reminder that I need to be easier on myself. So, once I uploaded the branded ad that I actually needed to get up, I actually used my holiday to take a well-deserved break. And I was far better off for it.
Physically, I'll keep it brief
At the moment, I’m overworked, I can tell that my body is exhausted, and I keep neglecting rest time, so everything hurts. Plus, I think I’m developing some sort of intolerance because my stomach hasn’t been right for weeks. Also, there’s been a lot of alcohol and holiday activity and buffet food, so I probably haven’t been nurturing my body the way that I should. However, I’m not mad about it; I refuse to punish myself for “good” foods and activities and “bad” foods and activities. Now that August is over, I’m delving into fitness a lot more, but this month, I’m okay with the fact I let go.
Blog-wise, I'm cutting down
I won’t go over this too much, as I wrote a whole post about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, but essentially it’s all getting a bit stale and churny, so I’m cutting down to two posts a week (Apart from sponsored content). Now, you’ll have regularly scheduled posts to look forward to on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and I shouldn’t be clogging your inbox as much as I usually do. Fun times for all involved if you ask me… You’re getting a better end of the stick this way.
I’m planning to go into this more in my finances, but I’m enjoying watching my blog income become a bigger percentage of my monthly income. I’ve said countless times because that I couldn’t see me doing this full time, but it’s good growing and being able to add to my savings, and knowing that I can make some sort of viable income from this. My ideal life would involve doing loads of little jobs to create an annual salary… Sort of like a career tapas. So, tracking how my blog income balances with my part-time job income is a great way of testing whether that’s viable in the long term.
Time-wise: I'm tired and I feel bad
I’m battling a bit with this because I currently feel incredibly drained and stressed and tired, but I feel like I’m not entitled to feel that way. I won’t pretend that I never got to relax on the holiday that I just got back from, because I did. However, I came back at 5pm, went straight to a friend’s leaving party, had work the next two days (And met another friend/blogger for a content shoot after work), had to entertain my cousin the following day, had one day to unpack and sort out my life because my two lovely friends came to stay at mine for two days, worked the two consecutive days and then had one day to pack for Sorrento before I left.
I’m exhausted and achey, but I’m fully aware that it’s a privileged position to be in. It feels like me saying that I’m tired if the same is screaming “Woe is me, I just have too many friends to hang out with, too many holidays to go on, and I have to work two whole days a week.” and I don’t want to do that at all. So I’ve had a bit of an internal battle for most of this August.
Another reason I feel like I can’t be sad about it is that – as I said at the beginning – I put this all on myself. I chose to go to Sorrento for my birthday, I chose the dates that my friends were coming, I chose to shoot blog content with my friend after work… The list goes on. I have a terrible habit of looking at the small free spaces in my (Obviously) colour-coded calendar and taking that as a cue to say yes to more plans. However, I’m not a person who can live jumping from plan to plan. I gain my energy from alone time, and without a sufficient amount of that, I start to depleat. Which I have been this August.
After I get back from Sorrento, I have no real massive plans, other than some theatre trips here and there. So, I’m hoping to dedicate some time to doing nothing, and hopefully, I can regain control of my life because right now it feels like I am spiralling.
Money and Things
As always, this is the section of the post where I see how the financial aspect of the year out is faring. I share a fancy (I say fancy, but it’s incredibly basic) pie chart of where my monthly impact is coming from, and comment on how I feel about it. So, here’s August’s monthly income:
2 "Gifts"
Sanne from Walker Books sent me an email after reading this blog post and asked me if I wanted to read a couple of their books. I’m making my way through them at the moment, review coming soon!
Some hair products (Details next month!)
Income Streams
2 Ads
Both of my Ads this month were Instagram based, which is very odd for me because I’m not cool enough to be an Instagram Influencer, but they were for…
This is my third month of planning where my income comes from, and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. Though the income percentages have shifted from month to month, the total figure has been incredibly consistent, and it’s helping me get closer to my savings goal one step at a time.
This pie chart is actually a little bit wrong because I forgot to add in my blog affiliate money. However, the whopping £2.50 I made from that didn’t make that much of a difference… It brought the final August percentages to 68% part-time job, 31% blog stuff and 1% other, which came from a referral code I gave to my dad so he could get a Monzo card and we could both get £5 (You can register here if you want £5 and a Monzo card too.)
All in all, I’d love to say it’s been a fantastic month and I’m thriving, but the truth is, I’m exhausted. I’ve been so busy and had a great time, and this has definitely been a month of stepping stones and I know what my next steps will be. However, it’s all swings and roundabouts. Then again, that’s what a gap year is about I suppose!
How’s your August been? Let me know all about it in the comments!
Lots of love,
Jas xx
REST PLEASE! Thank you, that’s all for now. You need to start celebrating that free time by doing nothing. Can we add a colour to the coding system for nothing time? I love the idea of career tapas as a business model x
Sophie
?? I love you ❤️ Yes I am actually considering scheduling in time for nothing-ness