"Just because you aren’t doing something for the money, it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be paid or fairly compensated."

+ a guide to respectable occupations for women.

Hi and welcome to The Ladybird Purse, my weekly money newsletter. I’m so happy you’re here and hope you’re having a lovely start to the year.

I saw this book on Instagram, shared by smallwildshop.

Published in 1898, it’s a guide to respectable occupations for women.

I wasn’t going to share all of the contents page, but I just couldn’t choose.

Advertising. Artificial Flowers.

Baked Beans and Brown Bread. Bakeries. Bathrooms for Women. Bedding. Bee-keeping. Bicycle Maid. Birds. Boarders. Bottoming Chairs. Bride’s Assistant. Butter Making.

Candy Making. Canning, Pickling, etc. Canvassing. Card Writing. Caring for Hotel Children. Caring for Pets. Carpet Weaving. Cheese Making. Children’s Clothing. Church Entertainments. City Guides. Cleaning Lamps, Silver, etc. Cleaning Offices. Cooking for Grocery Stores. Colts and Calves. Commercial Traveler, The. Confections and Fruit Juices. Corsets, Bands and Dress Forms. Cozy Corners. Cottage Cheese. Current Topic Parlors. Curtains. Cushions and Pillows.

Day Nursery, The. Designing. Dirt by the Bushel. Doll’s Dressmakers.

Embroidery. Etiquette and Dancing.

Fancy Book Covers. Farming. Flavoring Extracts. Flowers. Food Specialties. Frogs. Funeral Inspector.

Glove Repairing. Greens.

Hair Work. Hares. Herb Gardens. Holiday Gifts. Home Dyeing. Homekeeper’s Agency. Home-made Remedies. Hop Raising. Horseradish. House Cleaning. Hot Beds. Hot Cookies. Hulled Corn.

Infant’s Outfits. Intelligence Office.

Jewellers. Job Printing.

Kindergarten. Knitting Factories.

Lace Handkerchiefs. Lace Making. Landscape Gardening. Laundries. Lettering. Loaning Periodicals. Lunches.

Massage. Mending Bureau. Millinery by the Day. Mittens. Mother’s Assistant. Mushrooms. Music Teaching.

News Stands. Nurse’s Bureau.

Office Supplies.

Paper Flowers. Paper Hanger’s Assistant. Parlor Millinery. Peddling Nuts. Photographer’s Supplies. Piano Tuning. Picture Frames. Pigeons. Pineapples. Playhouse for Children. Polishing Furniture. Polishing Horns. Popcorn. Poultry Raising. Private Schools. Professional Duster. Professional Nurses. Proprietary Goods. Pumpkins.

Refreshment Stands. Remodeling Dresses. Remodeling Hats. Rugs.

Saratoga Chips. School for Dress Cutting. Second-hand Book Stores. Selling on Commission. Sericulture. Sheep Raising. Shopping. Shop-worn Goods. Small Fruits. Soft Soap Making. Sterilized Milk. Story Telling. Swine Raising.

Table Spreads. Taxidermy. Tin Mending. Toilet Counsellor. Toilet Parlors. Towel Exchanges. Transient Housekeepers. Traveler’s Guide. Typewriting.

Underwear.

Vegetables. Vinegar. Visiting Chambermaids.

Washing Fluids. Wearing Apparel. Women’s Exchanges. Wonderful Cupboard, The.

Some of them I’ve done: Fancy Book Covers (probably). Mother’s Assistant. Second-hand Book Stores. Selling on Commission. Story Telling.

Some I’m intrigued by: Caring for Hotel Children. Dirt by the Bushel. Frogs. Hot Beds. Toilet Counsellor (?!). And, obviously, The Wonderful Cupboard.

I’m going to find the book and get more information.

Which have you done? Which do you find most intriguing?

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An interview with Charli Clement

Charli Clement (they/them) is an award-winning writer, speaker & creative discussing identity and systemic issues, often in the context of arts & culture. They have opinion & feature bylines in outlets including the Metro, Independent, Digital Spy, The Lead and The i, and their first book, All Tangled Up in Autism & Chronic Illness, a guide to life as an autistic and chronically ill person, was published in December 2023.

Find them on Substack, Instagram or LinkedIn.

What is your relationship with money currently?

It’s tenuous! I just moved out on my own for the first time, so I have proper bills to pay in a way I haven’t ever had before. It feels like money is the only thing I can focus on and I’m constantly worrying about it or even just thinking about it. I’m a freelancer so I get money at random times and I’m constantly worried there won’t be any more work, so I have to try and plan for that eventuality even if it won’t ever come.

I’m also disabled, so work is sometimes difficult. I don’t like to cancel, so instead I will need time off after I’m done with something, or a flare-up will hit and I will have no choice in the matter when it comes to stopping or resting. I can’t take on as much as I would like, and things like social media get deprioritised but those are the things that help me get the work in the first place. It’s a thoroughly difficult thing to navigate.

I have some weekly hours with a Virtual Assistant from Access to Work¹, which help greatly, but realistically in the future I need to find some funds to pay for more support, particularly to help me navigate in person working.

I’m definitely not in as bad of a money position as I think I am - I think growing up with enough, but really only just, means I’m someone who is always on high alert. I would love a bit more stable, consistent work that covered the basics - it would give my nervous system some room to calm down, I think. But also, trying to remember I’m only 25. It’s okay to just be figuring it out.

What’s your earliest money memory?

We grew up not very well off - not on the poverty line, but with very little for extras and no real flex in the budget. I remember hiding a letter for a school trip because I didn’t want to put that burden on my parents. Obviously, not the best idea I’d ever had, but it really sticks with me as something that showed the type of person I was and have continued to be - someone who worries about others, often more than myself.

The other is that I had separated parents, and my nan on the side I didn’t live with would give me bits of pocket money when I visited them. I think that let me get really good at understanding saving vs allowing yourself bits of joy. I was attached at the hip to my Nintendo DS Lite (the original! Take me back) and got most of my games that way, and books, too.

What advice would you give your younger self about money?

Get an ADHD² diagnosis. Okay, that’s a little tongue in cheek, but I’m kind of serious. I’m not perfect around not impulse spending or with money management generally now, but I’m so much better now I know why my habits are what they are, and I’ve managed to hack around a lot of the problems I was having because I’m both more gentle and more firm with myself. More gentle in not beating myself up, but more firm in implementing strategies and not just allowing money to get frittered away.

I got an ADHD coach just under two years after my diagnosis, and we did a lot of work on money. Some of that was small things, like accountability to set up a LISA which I’m so glad I did, but we also talked about my motivations and systems that would stop me from spending so much, like adding in friction points before a purchase could be made.

Also, stop buying up the entirety of Lucy & Yak.

What’s the biggest money mistake you’ve made?

Probably signing a book deal without an agent. There’s a reason they exist! They get you a better deal and understand exactly what you’re signing, which I didn’t. I had someone read over it for legality, but that doesn’t get to the core of whether it’s a good deal or not, and what sort of compensation you’re going to end up with.

Just because you aren’t doing something for the money, it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be paid or fairly compensated. I loved writing my book and I’ll never regret it, but I wish the compensation lined up a little more with the work that went into it.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever spent money on?

My therapist and physiotherapist. I stopped getting any NHS care of that kind a long time ago because my conditions are long-term (AKA forever!) and not seen as needing that sort of care, but I need both in order to stay vaguely well and functional.

I wasn’t seeing anyone for a few years after my inpatient pain rehabilitation I had when I was 19, but then I crashed out of my second year of uni with both my physical and mental health. I’ve been seeing my therapist and physio ever since at varying frequencies as needed.

It’s something I shouldn’t have to pay for, realistically, but in this version of society where I do, they have both been worth their weight in gold. From being able to go back to uni after a year out to now having moved out, none of it would have been possible without them. I am forever grateful.

How are you planning for retirement?

Short answer? I’m not. I think 2026 will be the year I finally get an accountant and start thinking about it properly. I’ve been filing my own tax returns for years and I know I’ve got teeny pockets of pensions from my part-time employed roles I’ve had along the way that probably need looking at.

With my health the way it is and the working age rising constantly, I think it feels very difficult for my brain to even consider retirement ever happening for me, so it’s never been the priority. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be prepping for it! Don’t take me as a good example on this one.

What would you do with £10,000?

Probably the super boring answer - half into my LISA for my house deposit that I fear is never going to happen, then the other half to give me some room just to breathe when it comes to rent, bills and work. It would mean I could work on the things I wanted to for a couple of months rather than having to scrape together work just for my fixed expenses. I’m desperate to finish my proposal for my second book and then have enough space to write it, so a couple months of expenses being covered would definitely let me get there.

This plan, of course, ignores my student loans, but at this stage, they are so high I can’t ever fathom paying them off and £10,000 wouldn’t even touch the interest rate, so I think that’s a fair thing to do.

A more exciting answer would be going on a holiday with the ability to have enough budget to make it accessible for me - things like having more nights away so I can rest more and have days off between things. I haven’t been out of the UK since I was 18 and I’ve never been on a plane!

What little luxury could you get with a tenner?

A cinema drink! I am such a sucker for a fizzy drink from a fountain/draught. I recently got a cinema membership so I can go as many times as I like in the month, so that part is covered, but I am a firm believer in my need for a drink - I don’t care how overpriced it is. For a tenner, I could get snacks too, but I normally take in my own so that would be from the shop down the road.

1. Helen wrote about her experience of Access to Work last year. (Some of the information may be out of date.)

"I was in the depths of ADHD burnout before I left my last job."

2. More interviewees with ADHD.