Testing the Tools: Week 2 of the Experiment

Assessing where my self-belief and aligned actions are at after week 2 of experimenting

This week has reached another level of rollercoaster-ing emotions on the self-belief experiment 🎢

We finally got word that our 4 year old has secured a place in an after-school club that will collect and look after her at the end of her school day when she starts her new primary next year. Because Junior Infants finish at 1pm in Ireland, which as a UK native was a bit mind-blowing to me when I first discovered it (school finishes at 3pm in the UK).

Combined with confirmation of a childcare place for our soon to be 1 year old starting January 2025, this means that after a whole year of feeling suffocated by childcare and facing the prospect of never being able to return to full-time work (black and white thinking there, but that’s how it felt because child-care is so hard to secure here), we will now have both children in full-time school/care from September 2025.

This is monumental for my self-belief. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted and there is once again spaciousness and opportunity to work in and on my business.

Yet at the same time it feels crushingly terrifying.

Child-care is very expensive in Ireland. Afterschool club for our daughter will be somewhere around €5-7,000 a year. And full-time creche for our son will be €12,000 a year (and yes, that’s after subsidies).

Nearly €20,000 expense just to have time to work, never-mind pay the bills or live.

Coming from a year where my income has been the lowest its been since 2019, the task of earning this much and more feels hugely daunting. It’s been an enormous leap of faith to commit to both child-care options, without currently having any cash in the bank to pay for either.

Let’s get into the detail of how the week has gone and how it’s affected things: