Take a Tour of My Writing Desk and Home
How I Got My Desk and Home Furnishings for Free
Life hasn't always been easy. Back in June 2018, my landlords sold the house I was renting in the Lake District and all the places I looked at moving to wanted at least six months rent upfront because I had pets and was self-employed. I put an offer in on the cheapest property I could find to buy, anywhere in the UK, and ended up moving from the north west of England to the north east, with the plan of staying in a B&B for a couple of weeks until the house sale completed.
The universe had other plans, the sale fell through and I ended up staying in the B & B (one room with three cats and my dog) for about 18 months, which meant I had to find a way of earning money from my laptop in my B&B room since I could no longer travel for work or leave the pets at the B&B alone all day. I set myself up on Fiverr and Upwork offering ghostwriting, proofreading, and Vellum formatting services, and used any dead time I had to do 'Human Intelligence Tasks' (HITs) on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Some of my favourite tasks included typing in those 'captcha'/'I am not a robot' letters and numbers, or clicking on boxes which featured traffic lights, and sometimes I would have conversations with artificial intelligence about my favourite foods, weather, and the kinds of things that might help Alexa work more smoothly. I got paid pennies for those tasks, but they were super quick and easy. My goal was to earn £15 a day online, which would cover the room at the B&B for the night, allow me to buy dinner and pet food, and to put a bit aside as a deposit for a rented house, until I could one day buy a place back in the Lake District. Believe me, those were very dark days, away from my outdoor swimming, mountain walks with my dog, and everything I loved. Moving to an area I had never been to before and where I knew no-one, and where crime was rife. The B&B was mainly people released from prison or people like myself who had fallen down on their luck and staying for the longer term. Even more frustrating (but empowering) was seeing the books I had ghostwritten for other authors doing well on Amazon and making them a nice chunk of money - that was when I discovered FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early - this is a good movie to watch on the topic), and realised I needed to stop being paid by the hour for client work and to start to creating passive income that would continue to earn me money. I began investing £1 a day in fractional shares on my Trading 212 app and used my tax free ISA allowance to generate monthly dividends. It wasn't a lot but it eventually allowed me to get a start on my new publishing business.
After many months in the B&B, a property came onto the market in an area that had been saved from demolition and had been lovingly renovated (yay for being a pet friendly company). I was finally able to get a rental place of my own. The next step was to work hard and save (and invest) so that I can buy some land, and eventually build my dream home back in the Lake District. My ideal life would allow me to write and swim each day, and hang out with my pets to my heart's content! I'm now working some awesome architects in New Zealand on the design of my forever home, and am forever grateful to be able to work full time on my own business, and to no longer rely on work with clients, which is pretty amazing.
Why am I telling you this backstory? Because this is how I ended up getting all my furniture and my writing office/studio furnished for free (and how I got Vellum for free too). I used those Amazon Mechanical Turk credits to buy Starbucks vouchers, and tech things like iPhones, which I sold online and in places like CEX and Game. I then used that money to buy returned and minimally damaged items from Ikea's discounted section in their store (FYI they are opening second hand stores too), and from Amazon Warehouse. Sometimes I got stuff I didn't need, and then sold it for a little bit extra on Facebook Marketplace to local folks. It took almost a year before I had a TV and sofa, and I slept on a camping mat on the floor of my bedroom for many months before I got my bed. You see, I was time rich, but money poor, but it didn't matter because I knew that I was going to get nice stuff eventually which could one day be taken to my forever home. So I hope that helps any other folks who are struggling and dreaming out there.
After many months in the B&B, a property came onto the market in an area that had been saved from demolition and had been lovingly renovated (yay for being a pet friendly company). I was finally able to get a rental place of my own. The next step was to work hard and save (and invest) so that I can buy some land, and eventually build my dream home back in the Lake District. My ideal life would allow me to write and swim each day, and hang out with my pets to my heart's content! I'm now working some awesome architects in New Zealand on the design of my forever home, and am forever grateful to be able to work full time on my own business, and to no longer rely on work with clients, which is pretty amazing.
Why am I telling you this backstory? Because this is how I ended up getting all my furniture and my writing office/studio furnished for free (and how I got Vellum for free too). I used those Amazon Mechanical Turk credits to buy Starbucks vouchers, and tech things like iPhones, which I sold online and in places like CEX and Game. I then used that money to buy returned and minimally damaged items from Ikea's discounted section in their store (FYI they are opening second hand stores too), and from Amazon Warehouse. Sometimes I got stuff I didn't need, and then sold it for a little bit extra on Facebook Marketplace to local folks. It took almost a year before I had a TV and sofa, and I slept on a camping mat on the floor of my bedroom for many months before I got my bed. You see, I was time rich, but money poor, but it didn't matter because I knew that I was going to get nice stuff eventually which could one day be taken to my forever home. So I hope that helps any other folks who are struggling and dreaming out there.
