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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to know how all these people earn a living titting about all day?

268 replies

Pipbin · 03/08/2014 19:32

Seriously, there is a guy on countryfile right now who is an expert on foraging, and there was another guy who was a free diver. Not to mention the two women who were artists.

I want these jobs. I want to spend all day just titting about and somehow still earn a living.

OP posts:
BalloonSlayer · 04/08/2014 09:33

My nephew has earned money from playing computer games and filming them and putting them on Youtube.

< bows to ultimate titting about ninja >

TheWordFactory · 04/08/2014 09:35

Balloon my DS watches some dude on Youtube palying FIFA and commentating on the game, which is, apparently, hilarious.

The dude uploads new clips each and every day and makes a shit load of cash!

MarshaBrady · 04/08/2014 09:48

How do you make the dosh on youtube? Is it advertising?

noddyholder · 04/08/2014 09:52

Son's best mate has a whole FIFA industry on youtube earns about £600 a month started at 15 and told no one until one day they rumbled him

Anilec · 04/08/2014 09:53

Some might say that I too tit about as a self-published author. I write for a couple of hours a day and make a damn good living. However, where I am today is the product of twenty years of writing before full time work, after work late into the night, at work... millions of words and years of rejection. I've bloody earned my titting about award :)

noddyholder · 04/08/2014 10:06

I agree anilec I work my butt off 3 months a year and then do very little but initially I earned nothing Still not wealthy but am happy with the return for what I do and the time free is worth all the initial sacrifice

bibliomania · 04/08/2014 10:10

ATruth, I read the book written by the woman running a bookshop on a barge. She's subbed by parents and at least on occasion by a boyfriend. I liked the book, but was annoyed by her business model - bloody self-indulgent. She doesn't even stock guaranteed bestsellers, just books that meet her approval. Still, maybe the book will have helped with the finances.

TheWordFactory · 04/08/2014 10:11

And let's not forget that Mumsnet started as a bit of titting about from some bored middle class mums!

TheWordFactory · 04/08/2014 10:14

anilec I think making a good living from publishing is a hard game! The writers I know who do so, put out a hell of a lot of work and obviously have no help from editors, PR etc...I take my hat off to you!

SaucyJack · 04/08/2014 10:17

I know an alleged artist.

She claims ESA and works cash in hand as a cleaner.

LindaMcCartneySausage · 04/08/2014 11:01

It's all about having rich parents or partner. You can do whatever non-job you like if you're bankrolled.

A school friend of mine once had a go at me for selling out and being awful and money grabbing because I'd left my home town and accepted a decently paid graduate job down south. I had huge student debts, no savings, couldn't afford to live anywhere other than a shared house with ransoms in a shit area and couldn't afford to run a car.

She was the same age as me and we started off doing similar degrees, but she got a job as a part-time librarian in a local stately home looking after manuscripts - a job she loved and still does 17 years on.

But she has a beautiful, large house in a v smart postcode, a fabulous new car, and goes skiing to Courcheval for two weeks each year with her family, on top of various safari/adventure holidays in exotic locations. Daddy paid for it all.

prettysox · 04/08/2014 11:08

I do a bit of titting about in the arts. I don't sell much, but have got funding for residencies/projects, grants to do an MA and now a PhD. I'm not from a rich family, I've depended on grants/loans/tax credits to top up my income, although these days I do have DH supporting me. But I was titting about on different funding streams for years before we got together. I haven't done an ordinary day job for over a decade, though most of my artist friends have had to.

noddyholder · 04/08/2014 11:37

I have neither rich parents or partner that is a myth I know a lot of people running their own show on their own merit and making a good living. I earn more than my parents and my dp

SolidGoldBrass · 04/08/2014 11:51

OK a few people can actually earn a living from titting about. But that's more to do with luck than anything else. It doesn't necessarily mean they work that much harder than other people doing similar things, or that what they do (writing, singing, arts'n'crafts) is better than other people's, just that they got lucky.
My field is writing and I make very little money from it. Though I'm hoping this is going to change, not so much that my actual work is going to get better, more that my ability to market and network will improve - though that's the stuff that eats your time.

Petitgrain · 04/08/2014 11:53

ILick I wish! that guy makes millions. He's friends with him though, PewDiePie has publicly admired his work.

CFSKate · 04/08/2014 11:54

I know there was a BBC programme, What Do Artists Do All Day? but I didn't watch it, so I can't tell you!

noddyholder · 04/08/2014 11:55

I work hard and its not luck. I know a lot of people who do what I do and who have made nothing and given up! Writing is a hard one everyone thinks they can but few do. Its the same as what I do if you are good it will eventually pay but you need patience and to be prepared to live on very little to get there. It is the assumption that 'titting about' as it is being called is the easy life which leads to many a downfall. You need the ideas and skill for sure but having a bit of a business/entrepreneurial head doesn't hurt.

SirChenjin · 04/08/2014 12:04

I suppose it's a case of where titting about stops and when it starts becoming a job, eg interior design following a short course, living off the income of someone else and then selling a bit to your mates who are also living off someone else's income = titting about. Being fully qualified, having your own serious business that didn't start up with income from DH/mummy/daddy, making your own very decent living through your own ability, skills and by getting widely known on the back of that, etc etc = not titting about.

noddyholder · 04/08/2014 12:07

Yes it has to sustain you at a level you are happy with. I have no qualifications in interiors I don't think you can learn it or if you do its limited. I love the artistic side but am not prepared to live like a pauper so had to be a lot more driven than rich wives who like to potter in little shops!

GreatAuntDinah · 04/08/2014 12:45

I tit around half the year but earn a full-time salary. Best of both worlds I love being an academic

ToffeeMoon · 04/08/2014 12:52

Lets face it, acting has to be the biggest titting about job there is. Or maybe playing sport professionally? I know they out the hours in, but it's still a hobby.

ToffeeMoon · 04/08/2014 12:52

*put the hours in.

5Foot5 · 04/08/2014 12:54

There were people on the Shed of the Year thing who were titters about.

That sound's like my kind of titting about. I think my ideal job would be Shed Correspondent for The Lady.

Anilec · 04/08/2014 13:00

Solid, when I started self-publishing about 3 years ago I made absolutely bugger all and it's only this year that I've been earning a good full time income (enough to be the breadwinner). It is luck, a bit, but it's also never giving up, getting better at what you do and learning what works and what doesn't. And you're right, the actual writing time isn't the bit that takes up the time, it's the editing, marketing, promotion etc etc.
Noddy, you renovate houses, don't you? I agree that a lot of people think that's an easy way to make money and it's clearly not!
Definitely no rich parents/DH here. I support him!

Stinkle · 04/08/2014 13:01

I'm a titting-about-er, albeit very half-hearted

My titting about is photography. I don't earn a fortune from it, but I go into it to stop me going do-lally from being stuck at home.

I'm a foster carer, which I absolutely love, but it's not exactly 24/7 so was going slightly insane with all the Homes Under The Hammer repeats. My local authority don't allow foster careers to work outside the home and photography is something I can pick up and out down when it suits me.

I sell landscape-y stuff through local galleries (I live in a very touristy area so landscape stuff sells quite well) and do the odd portrait sitting and product photography for a friend who runs a local lifestyle magazine (also titting about Grin )

I don't make millions, but I earn enough to pay for a few luxuries/days out with the kids/etc. DH works full time which pays the bills