How would you prioritise savings, home improvements and retraining in midlife?

[thepigeonofwisdom]

I am not bad with money (as in I can save, cope and budget effectively) but I am confused when it comes to organising finances for the long-term. And I have obviously taken a lot of wrong turns in life unfortunately which has led me to be in this situation where I am now despite lots of chances of getting things right. I am just not good at this!

I am single, last cohabitating relationship ended over a decade ago.

Can anyone tell me how's best to manage please?

Through a comedy of errors, although I have post-grad education and a diploma (degree equivalent) I am in a situation where I earn very little. I have name changed for this post, because I am going to detail my (more or less, as close as I can!) actual figures here.

I earn about £1600-£1800 a month from a PAYE job. I also get roughly £60-£150 a month from freelance work.I have a quite lucrative freelance contract coming up soon too, which will mean I am earning more but it will be two evenings a week which on top of my 'normal' job will mean I am shattered, no doubt.

I own 3 houses (as a partnership) so have rental income, but most of that is eaten up in various costs. If I am very desperate I can take a bit out, if I struggle one month but usually neither of us touch the rental income. Partner in that business has a much higher income than me and never needs to take anything out, and is quite uppity if I ever need to but that's a different story.

I have just moved into my 'forever home'.
Mortgage is around £950 per month.

I rent my old house out, tenant pays me £750 per month.

My ex partner still lives in our old property, but I still own half of that too. I pay for any costs/repairs but I don't have to pay the mortgage on it.

I have around £3K in savings of my own, and £11K in monies leftover from when I bought this house.

I am in my mid-forties now.

My new house has two bedrooms that are 'done', one small bedroom that cannot be classed as a bedroom because it has no window (but has a bed and unit) and another room that hasn't been finished at all. No flooring or proper wall coverings, just a shell of a room really.

Should I spend what I have in savings on making this house finished, perhaps? Have a window installed in the small bedroom and have the other room finishes?

Or should I save it in case I need it for something important?

I also would like to retrain so I could potentially earn more, should I leave the house as it is and spend money on that?

I will be honest, part of me thinks 'sod it, spend any extra money on enjoying yourself while you're still relatively young!' but I do have a sensible head on me. As it is, I do struggle month-to-month if any extra expenses come through at all or even if I have a rare day or night out or such, at the moment. I could dig into my savings but I don't, I just skimp in order to allow for any extras.

I do keep trying to find more lucrative work but the job market is dire of course. And now I need to make sure to not look at anything that could interfere with my new contract work.

What would you do in my situation?

Once you have enough rooms done to live in, I think I'd prioritise retraining (if it will lead to a better job) over doing up 2 bedrooms that aren't really needed.

Do you need to retrain? Or just change employer?

Do you have a functioning kitchen and living room? If so, I'd put home improvements at the bottom of the priority list right now.

Yes, and this is a lovely house overall.

I've thought about taking a lodger in in the already-done spare room and then my financial worries would be over! But I have done that before and things have gone very wrong (long story again) so I am a bit reluctant.

That's true, they're not needed. If more than one person wanted to stay over for a night the little room is fine even without a window, isn't the end of the world.

Doing the rooms up would put value on the house of course but it would take a drastic lifestyle change for me to want to sell it. Remortgage in the future, maybe.

Frustratingly, my employer pays more than competitors do for similar jobs! It's exploitative, in my opinion. I am a professional who trained for four years, we should at least be on a salary we can live on.

Having said that, I am sure there are countless people much worse off than I am. Once freelance work picks up (I am a tutor in the subject I trained in) I will be absolutely fine. But of course these contracts don't last forever.

Retraining, I do not trust myself to pick the right thing if I do do that this is my secondary career and I was led to believe it could be lucrative. I have a Master's in Sociology and did used to teach that, but I was made redundant in the recession (as were many of us) and have struggled to find anything remotely releated since. I would like to work in research or similar. I applied for a job related to neither of my professions recently but have heard nothing back, and I rarely see anything remotely suitable for me that pays the same, let alone more.

I have considered doing an OU degree in entomology but that's a personal interest of mine, whether it could lead to any better prospects is a different thing altogether!