Has Covid-19 turned your world upside down?

It has done mine.

I left a full-time teaching job in October 2018 to take a temporary post and push me out of the confines of a steady job to the pave the way to full commit to photography. Am I regretting it now? Perhaps just a little.

The attraction of becoming self-employed was always made more alluring because I knew if money started to get tight, I had other income streams - supply teaching and SQA marking. Of course, the pandemic completely wiped out both of these and has left me in the same position as many self-employed: I have only myself to count on to generate cash and the routes I depend on have been closed by lockdown.

To complicate matters further, I’m in the tiny percent who can’t claim any of the support on offer and with all of my payment holidays now coming to an end, I’ve found myself in what is a tricky situation financially.

What do I do?

There’s no clear answer, really. There’s very little I can do. Spendable money - tragically - doesn’t grow on trees and I can’t magic it from nowhere. It seems easier to throw my computer in a corner, bury my head in the sand binge watching TV but, like a dog with a bone, I just can’t bring myself to do that (although I am watching a few hours of Location, Location, Location a day and as much I like the show, it’s not like me to watch so much TV) and my head won’t switch off, as I continue to brainstorm ways to bring in income.