I have decided to try something new today and address some of the questions that my subscribers and followers have asked me on my Instagram, Blog, Facebook and through my emails.
Here is a video to it, in case you wanted to watch it instead:
20 Questions & Answers with Agnes:
1. What do you do for a living?
I am a Financial Controller in a UK branch of a US organisation and I make sure that their books are kept up to date, suppliers paid, receivables collected and I report the figures back to the Head Quarters in the US.
It might seem a pretty boring job to some, but I enjoy doing it. It can get quite daunting and repetitive as I end up doing the same thing over and over again in a monthly cycle. But I like it and most of all- it pays my bills.
2. How would you describe yourself?
I am bubbly, outgoing, ambitious, hot-headed and impatient. When I need something, I want it there and then. My husband calls me stubborn, which probably would be an accurate description. I am also very driven.
3. Why did you become an accountant?
This takes me back to school in Poland where I have studied up to A Levels equivalent to English standards. I did a diploma in Economics and business organisation. One of the subject thought was Accounting and I really enjoyed it. I found it very logical and since I liked the numbers it really seemed easy to me.
When I came to live in the UK and I went to the University however I have initially chosen to study Airport and Airline Management course and since I did not enjoy it I gave it up in favour of Accounting and Finance course.
I have achieved a 1st class degree and later I went on to do ACCA qualifications as well.
4. How long did you study ACCA?
I have qualified as a Chartered Accountant in July 2019 so only a year ago and this has taken me some time. This qualification is comparable to a master’s degree however if I was to do it instead, I still would need to complete ACCA at some stage as that’s what is required in the accounting industry.
Since the course that I did in University was following the same structure as ACCA and was ACCA accredited, I have gained 9 exemptions. I was left to complete 5 professional papers in order to fully qualify. There is also 36 months of practical experience required on top of this plus the Professional Experience Record too- find out more here.
So I began my Professional Papers exams in December 2016 and finished in June 2019. It took me nearly 3 years just to pass 5 exams!
But I had already had children, a full-time job and also many other responsibilities that having a family involves, hence I was taking things slowly. I have also failed many times on the way.
I would like to give massive credit to my husband who kept on motivating me and cheering me on to carry on despite I was wanting to give up on many occasions as this was really not easy.
5. What has been the most challenging in juggling kids, work and studies?
I know that many of my subscribers are mummies that also juggle work and studies at the same time. This is something that I appreciate it is very difficult to do, but it is all about prioritising those things that are more important.
What I would suggest is to commit to consistency. Every single day without a fail spend half an hour or an hour to study. As this way, you are training your brain to get into the habit and it’s much easier to memorise things.
You have to not get bothered by the house not being cleaned or meals being simple.
6. How did you meet your husband?
This is going back 13 years ago.
I used to work at the airport in the foreign currency exchange place and my husband used to also work at the airport too. One day on my lunch break I have bumped onto him and he seemed very familiar. I also thought he was a very good looking guy so I could not miss the chance… We have had a very brief conversation and I had to run back to my workplace. After this we have seen each other a few times and eventually he has asked for my number. He has finally called me after about 2 weeks and we have arranged to meet up for a date. 3 months later we were deciding to get married and 5 months after that, we were married.
It was all a very quick story with us but I guess when you have that connection with somebody you just know. And we had that connection right from the start.
7. How has frugal life benefited you and why you have chosen this lifestyle above any other?
Frugal life was not something that I was aware of living. And I have only come to relise that this was what I was living like because frugality has become quite popular lately.
When we got married we wanted to save up for a house.
Relating:
5 reasons why you should become frugal during lockdown time.
30+ everyday tips and tricks that helped us save over £5k last year
So we have agreed to cut down on unnecessary things and things we could live without. And also we were shopping around for better deals. My husband is really good at looking for deals so whenever I need something I would look it up on the internet and he would then find it at the better price. This has saved us a lot of money and that is why we chose to live a fugal life. And it did help us to buy our fist house and 2 years into our marriage we have bought our fist house. The lifestyles has stayed with us and we are still very careful how we spend our hard earned money and we live a minimalistic lifestyle. We do our research well and have few tips on how to find a better deal.
Relating:
8. How did you know you wanted to start a family and have 3 kids?
When we met with my husband I just knew we were going to have a family together.
Related:
We were both on the same page and wanted to get married and have kids. My husband wanted to have a big family whereas I wanted a medium-size family. Being a single child I definitely wanted to have a minimum of 2 children and the third one was a stroke of luck as I have had issues conceiving.
It was lonely at times to be the only child and now that I am getting older and my parents are too getting older, I have nobody to help me to look after them when my parents will need help. So this is one thing that I have had in mind when deciding that we will have more than one child.
9. Do you feel like you need your own time away from your kids?
Yes, I do and I think every parent does as being a parent is not an easy thing. Especially now during the pandemic, it is even harder as we are just stuck at home so there is not much else going on.
The most important thing is to realise that it is OK to feel this way.
10. Do you and your husband feel you need to have date nights?
Yes, we do.
We have no family members around us so we are raising our children on our own so when we wanted to go out we had to alternate.
It is important to remember that you are a couple as well as the parents and you need the time alone as a couple.
We tend to spend this time together in the evenings and either watch a movie, have a meal or just work out and talk. So these are our date nights and for now, this is enough.
Our kids are growing up and soon they will be big enough to stay home alone so we can restore the proper dating. But for now, we are happy.
11. Do you spend separate times with each child?
This is a difficult question as I am a very busy mummy. I work full time, blog part-time and I have many other responsibilities and this is why I really do not have much time left to block a separate time alone with each child. That’s not to say that I am not spending time with them, only not as an individual. I read stories for the boys and bathe them when we giggle and laugh.
When I cook my daughter loves helping me so we talk while cooking.
So despite having very little time I do make sure I spend time with them even if it’s not as much as I would like to.
12. How is it raising a family from two different cultural backgrounds?
This is a very interesting topic.
I’m from Poland and of Roma Catholic religion.
My husband is from India and is of Sikh religion.
So we both have different cultural beliefs.
And we live in England the kids are exposed to an English culture too. So we have to find a middle ground.
We cook different food, we speak different languages and we teach them different traditions which is quite nice to see them embracing it all.
With all this, they will be able to hopefully pick the best bits out of three and benefit from it.
13. What are you teaching your kids from your country?
Similarly to the question above, we teach our children the traditions, different tastes and different languages.
As much as my kids can understand all 3 languages, they can only speak English and Polish as my husband had the least chance to teach them his language.
14. What do you find the most challenging thing in your life at present?
I think everyone seems to be struggling with the Pandemic at the moment and this is what we are to struggling with. This is a very strange time we are all going through and hopefully, very soon we will see things going back to normal.
15. What made you decide to start a blog?
With the frugal life that I was talking about earlier, we have always been interested in how to improve our finances. One day I was scrolling down the internet and came upon the blog written by Ken at TheHumblePenny.com. Ken has a very successful blog about Financial Independence and he was talking about a Side Hustles in one of his post as a mean of getting a passive income. One of the side hustle he was recommending was writing a blog. And Ken was an accountant himself and was able to turn his side hustle into the main thing and has quit his full time 6 figure job. So not only I felt like I could relate to him as he too was an accountant, but also I started to believe I could do it too. I always wanted to do something like this. I just didn’t know where to start how to start and whether I could even do it as I have no IT skills.
So I have listened and read and learned and decided I will too start my own blog.
You can visit Ken’s YouTube Chanel too
At that point in time, I was finishing my qualification and I have set this goal in my head that once I’m done with it I will start working on my blog. I knew I will have spare time and I could focus on something else. I thought since I have done my qualification being a full time working mummy, I could inspire and motivate some other mums out there.
I have been now blogging for 9 months and I already had so many people reaching out saying I have inspired them, and this was my goal so I am happy I could help and inspire other mums.
16. When was the actual moment when you decided to start to write your blog?
It was just before finishing my ACCA qualifications. As I was reading things that Ken put up on his website I realised then I will too start a blog soon.
17. Give recommendations on resources on how to start a blog?
If you want to start the blog – there are tons of free recourses on YouTube to start with. Many bloggers to help other bloggers to start their blog. Here are my personal top 3 recommendations (I am not an affiliate to none of them)
Ken @ TheHumblePenny Youtube video
Alex and Lauren @ Create and Go (6 figure bloggers of a popular Avocadu blog)
Ricky and Jim @ The Income School– these guys really know it all about blogging, vlogging, Youtubing and SEO.
I would not recommend using any books as they get outdated quickly and blogging really evolves very quickly so you want most up to date information.
18. How much time do you spend blogging?
It varies greatly and it depends on how much time I can accommodate.
I mainly blog in the evenings as I work full time. I spend anything from half-hour to 2-3 hours on the weekdays to even 5-8 hours on the weekend. I have many other responsibilities too so I am not spending blocked time all at once but doing bits whenever I can find a time.
Blogging doesn’t only entice you just writing the blog post. There is so much more to it that you need to do other than just writing. If you just write things and put it up onto the internet then no one is going to read it. You have to also promote your blog posts by creating Pins for Pinterest for example, to make sure people actually see your posts. And this is how my YouTube Channel has developed as well as I wanted to reach more of my audience and this is a part of the marketing that I am trying to do.
19. Do you enjoy your blog and what do you hope to achieve by doing it?
I do enjoy blogging and everything that blogging entice. I never thought I would enjoy it that much. There are ups and downs when it comes to the process as I would love to have the blog where I would reach lots of audiences and start making money out of this, but I think this is because I am in a very competitive niche. Some niches are much more profitable than mine. There are many other mum blogs that are good so it is harder to reach the audience.
What I’m trying to achieve? I hope to inspire and motivate other mums to reach for their goals and unleash their potential.
When I was back on my ACCA journey I only knew other accountants that have managed to complete their qualifications before becoming parents. And I felt like I had no one I could get inspired with. Hence I thought I could be the one inspiring others.
20. What kind of information can people find out on your blog?
On MumCanDoIt.com blog you can find tips and trick on parenting, relationship, professional education, fitness ideas working mum struggles and everything else in between.
You can also find plenty of positivity and good vibes.
That’s it!
These were 20 Questions and Answers with Agnes- mummy behind the Mumcandoit.com blog.
I really hope you have found it interesting and I know it was a bit of a long one but I have tried limiting it to the most relevant information.
Please let me know if you have any other questions and I would be happy to answer them for you.
Thank you
