{Dear Diary} Ready, Steady, Jump

It's May. Fucking May. Month FIVE of 2015. In a few weeks time I will be turning a year older, before you know it Xmas chocolates will start appearing in shops like parasitic boils and then BOOM - it'll be 2016. So why the fuck am I pissing time up the wall like I have a Tardis stashed in my knicker drawer?

Because, ladies and gents, if I'm being melodramatic, I am drowning in a tsunami of fear. If I'm trying to be lighthearted, I am pooping it. If I'm in total denial, I'm a little anxious. The reality is more of a paralysis/deer in headlights situation where I'm so caught up in my own fears and self-doubt that I can't move in any direction.

It's an awful thing to admit, but that's the truth. At the end of March I left my job with £3,000 of hard-earned cash, enough to live off for 2 months while I went freelance and started my own production company. I am going to do this, I said, to myself, to my friends, to my family. I may as well have got it printed on a t-shirt or tattooed on my nose, I was that determined. "I'm going to put myself out there and I'm going to Make. It. Work."

How Much Should I Be Paid?

What you should be earning and how to ask for it.

Last week I turned down a job I'd wanted for years. Because it didn't pay enough. 

I know what you're thinking: surely if it was my *dream* job, I'd do it whatever the money? Yes, in an ideal world I would do that job for free because I love this industry and I love being a part of it. And many people sacrifice a wage for the sake of advancing their career, through un- or low-paid internships. Admirable? Maybe. Wrong? Definitely.

We have a National Minimum Wage (£6.50/hour, working out at £12,675/year) but we also have a Living Wage, for a reason. Basically, if you are expected to live off your wage, it must be equal to/more than £17,843/year in London, and £15,308 in the rest of the UK.

The job I was offered was at a *top* independent production company and they offered me just £17,000. It is almost impossible to live off that amount of money in London - so I asked for more. What surprised me was that the company didn't immediately shoot me down and were willing to negotiate. So this has led me to write this post!