Here I write mostly about food and travel. I’ve started a substack to write about everything else I’m interested in (which turns out to be a lot): stuff like fashion, politics, interiors, books (about food and not about food), TV shows, films, music, my granddaughter and any musings that occur to me. It consists of short notes. My substack is more like my blog was at the beginning.
I’ve stopped sending out my posts via mailchimp because it cost me $120 a month and at the moment I’m not even earning that. I’m reducing my outgoings as much as I can: I haven’t had the heating on for two years now, I’ve stopped streaming services and am extra-careful about all expenditure.
I’ve bought some new clothes as I’ve lost weight and my old ones literally had holes in, partly because of moths and also because of age. Things wear out.
I’m constantly pitching for new work – paid work, not free work like this. You may have noticed I don’t have ads, I don’t do sponsored posts. The only income I get from this blog, and this is so minimal, is the Amazon affiliate links when I review books. Since the pandemic starting in 2020, my income is a fraction of what it was, and it’s never been very much.
As a resourceful ex-single mother on benefits, I’m used to surviving, but things are getting ridiculous. Plus I’m no spring chicken. One article I pitched actually (and got turned down) was the singleton tax – how you pay just as much for utilities if you are single as if you are a family.
Perhaps there should be a council tax style discount? This will increasingly affect people, because the trend is that more people are living alone, 13% of the UK, but almost 1/3 in London. Here is an interesting article on Londoners living alone.
This particularly affects women because let’s face it, men die earlier. Women! Even if you are married/in a partnership, you may end up living alone. Old age poverty tends to be female poverty, and this exacerbates this trend.
In an ideal world people will pay a little for my substack plus they send out the weekly newsletter for free.
If this interests you and you are not on my mailing list (which I transferred to Substack), then please subscribe here
(https://kerstinrodgers.substack.com/)
I will keep this blog going forever though; the fashion for new platforms is fickle and msmarmitelover.com (estab. 2008) is my baby. That’s a shit tonne of work.
Thanks for reading.
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