I am no longer a full time artist, I am now a quasi-full-time artist. By that I mean I'm still doing the art as my main job but I now also have a part time job to make sure I have a stable enough income to pay the bills without the anxiety inducing nightmare that is fluctuating self-employed income.

I have to move house in another 12 months or so as that's when the landlord puts the current place I'm renting up for sale so I don't have the option to get settled just yet and I'm looking for a new place now to get a sense of the rental market and what's available. Annoyingly, rent is always significantly higher than mortgage repayments but I can't afford the mortgage deposit to take advantage of that... yet. Houses are pretty cheap where I live now and I like it here so I'm hoping to one day be able to afford a little place of my own so I can escape the rent trap.

In the meantime what this means is I'm going to be working very hard this year to get as much savings as I possibly can together, keep the artwork rolling and hopefully earning me more, and knuckling down with the new job to try and make that as stable as possible. I really hope this all takes me in a positive direction, it's much needed.