To feel I suck at life. (I need positivity)

[Frtarce]

I'm 28 and I still live at home with my parents and i'm a temporary teacher who sometimes also does temporary TA work.
I graduated 2 years ago
I get asked back to schools but i'm always day-to-day.
I live in Wales so NQT can be completed on supply so I have stacked up many NQT sessions.
However, I feel like a complete failure.

I had 2 supply friends.
1 has no changed career and decided to work in a care home and won't be returning to teaching.
The other has just got a 1-term job in a school as a teacher.

I feel sick to my stomach that luck never comes my way. I get interviews but I never get the job.

I have seven thousand saved (however, I feel a lot of this is student finance saved) without the student finance, I probably have £4000 saved. and make on average £300 - £400 a week. My goal is to own a house at some point.
But when I look at my other friends, they seem to be doing well.
One has.moved out with her boyfriend and is on £29,000 a year.
Another is earning £30,000 a year,

And I just can't stop comparing myself to them.
Spent the past night crying and now half-term has approached, it makes me anxious about how much work I will get next term.

I'm happy my friend got a job this term but it hit me like a brick that I don't have one.

Anyone here ever felt down and like a failure but come out of it? I need positive stories.

Have you registered with agencies and looked for permanent TA as well as teaching jobs?

Could you build up a tutoring business on the side? Well paid and in demand at the moment. Try a couple of agencies first.

@MinnieMous3 i'm with 1 agency who treat me really well and do give me regular work like I have only had 2 days off this term since schools returned and they have been great with furlough when schools did close but I'm not sure how to approach them about long term? They say i'm one of their best short-term teachers as I'm reliable and schools ask for me back but the inconsistency is not made for my personality

@thesandwich i am with an agency and they do treat me well; also i'm a primary teacher forgot to say

Do you apply for full time teaching and TA jobs? If so, how many? Would you be willing to move for work?

Oh honey! I have loads of stories about bouncing back.

I cried on the tube aged 23 when I suddenly got fired from my first job. Genuinely thought my career was over. A month later, a friend was working for an amazing company, and got me an interview there.

Felt suicidal when split up from first husband. Genuinely thought love life was over. Six months later I was besieged by men and met the bloke who’s now my second husband.

Each time I felt like I just knew my life was rubbish, and it’d never get better. I just knew. But I was wrong!

You’re wrong too. Everything can and will change. One day it will change.

Two things that might help:

1. You must remember that everyone’s life is like a carousel at the seaside: sometimes your horse is going up and you feel amazing, sometimes your horse is going down. All the horses move on different tracks so they don’t coincide - at any point, some are up and some are down. When your horse is down and your friends’ are up, you feel like a failure. But at a different point your horse will be up and theirs will be down - it’s just life. (I’m not sure how helpful this analogy is...)

1. If you believe in astrology, or even if you don’t, please Google “Saturn’s Return”. Essentially Saturn orbits slowly so it only returns to a specific point in the sky every 29 years. When it does return, it checks if anything is wrong, and if it is, it causes big changes in your life to set you on the perfect track for you. These changes can be dramatic. My 29th year was ALL CHANGE. So you don’t have to worry nothing will ever happen - next year will be very different.

It’ll be ok.

You still live at home with your parents, which means you are in a great position to save money from any work that comes your way and I would hazard a guess to say that your living costs are much less than if you were renting a room or a flat away from your parents. I don’t know what your relationship is like with your parents so hopefully things are good in that respect and that you are not subject to verbal abuse or any other maltreatment. I get that it’s nice to have your independence.

That amount of savings is absolutely fantastic (regardless of how it came to be) and it’s in your best interest to keep adding to it; even if little by little. Because when the time comes for you to move out (and that time will come) you will likely have a very good house deposit (or savings for whatever else you choose to do). Remember also that most students blow through their student finance with very little to show for it.

It’s a difficult time for everyone right now, especially employment-wise. You are doing the right thing and doing temp teaching/TA work when it comes up. You would be wise to keep track of upcoming full-time teaching work - sign up for job alerts, check the job sites for an hour a day, sign up to specialist Education recruitment agencies and other recruitment agencies. You could look into tutoring on the side to supplement your income, as another poster has said.

You’re not unemployed/out of work: you are making the most of the shit situation the pandemic has created and you are actually working. You’re also stacking up your NQT sessions.

Who knows what could come up for you job-wise within the next several months. Whether that’s a full-time teaching job or a contract (i.e. maternity cover) and before you know it I’m sure you too will be on a decent full-time wage with your savings building up. It sounds like you have a strong work ethic and the determination to keep going 👍🏻

Perhaps work on your interview technique (it may not be you at all) if you feel this may be an issue.

I say all this from my position earning approx 10K less than your friends and paying out a third of my wages in rent every month (I’ve always rented since leaving home at 18 and for a long time was on minimum wage/just over minimum wage). I have very little savings, a glass ceiling over my head in terms of career (although I’m planning a career change in 5-10 years which I’m currently studying for that may put me in the same earning bracket as your friends) and I don’t live with my long-term boyfriend and I’m also slightly older than you. I feel like the chance of me having the savings to get a mortgage is unreachable for the next decade.

So reading your post, I feel like you are actually doing very well anyway, not least compared to myself, as your prospects for future earnings as a NQT are better than what a lot of people have to contend with (e.g. retail/admin) - plus your savings, which again due to low wages and renting, a lot of people don’t have that either, despite the outliers. I think you’ll get there and a lot sooner than you think. What you’re currently going through is just a transitory state and you definitely don’t suck at life!

Also what ThatOtherPoster said about everyone’s carousel - and your Saturn Return!

Don’t be unduly hard on yourself 💐

Hello- I meant tutoring agencies, or you could advertise on fb/ word of mouth. Good way to build up income.