Name: Tristan Williams
Age: 24
Dreams of: Being a social media account manager
Christmas is always my favourite time of year. Everyone just seems a little bit happier, a little bit more joyous, and there’s an extra emphasis on family – which can never go astray. Plus it is a time where I can whack out the Christmas tree and try to squeeze into my elf costume. (Although the elf shirt has shrunk and is now quite the revealing crop top.) So no elf this year. If my nieces and nephews ask why, the answer will be the same one I have used for everything this year: Covid budget cuts.
Which is a joke. But it really isn’t.
When I last left you all, I was hopeful about my financial future. I was starting up my digital freelancing again and was staying afloat with my Centrelink welfare student payments. Life was actually somewhat OK a few weeks ago. I am saddened to tell you that since then life has not only got worse, but it has turned catastrophic.
Over this Christmas period I tried to get freelance work again. I have freelanced the past two years around this time and have always secured a steady group of close clients. There’s a lot of pitching to potential clients, a lot of investigation, a lot of creatively and strategically being in the right place at the right time. It’s a lot of work to get the work! However, this year I haven’t been able to get any clients due to the financial constraints of Covid. Casual work at university has also ended for the year. So Centrelink has been the main basis of my income.
And now that’s been cut. Days before Christmas.
You read that correctly. Centrelink, at a moment’s notice, cancelled my youth allowance student benefit.
I found out the day before I was meant to receive my next payment and I felt many things. Confused. Worried. But mostly just scared. This is my only income and it was taken away with zero warning. After I found out I walked straight to my nearest centre, on the brink of a breakdown, to be told many things that did not make sense to me. There I was explaining to a stranger what was going on, my situation, and was essentially told there was nothing they could do for me. I was devastated. So I did what I knew I could do. I started figuring out next steps to try to fix this problem from another angle. Budgeting, of course, was top of the list.
I don’t fully understand the reason for the cancellation. I spoke to a total of four people along the chain of “support” who all told me different reasons that all led to the same conclusion: there was nothing they could do for me. What that meant was that I had to lodge the quickest Centrelink claim known to man, send it in, plead my case to them with tears in my eyes … to do what exactly? Be at their mercy right before they close up their offices for Christmas? Even now, as I am writing this, I am fighting back tears. I have no idea when or even if my claim is going to be approved.
So I could be without an income until after Christmas. I’m scared. Scared of how long I could potentially have to wait and what that means. Will I be able to pay my rent in time? Will I have food to put on my table? Things that many of us just don’t see, that just come out of our bank accounts, I am counting them now.
I am lucky to have a great support network of amazing friends and a loving family who have stepped up to help me. My parents have lent me money. My best mate has paid the rent on his off week. Those closest to me have offered to take me out to lunches and dinners. I am lucky to have them.
But I am a proud person. I have not liked it one bit. It has been a very humbling experience. I have always been a self-starter and a self-motivator. When I was growing up my family did it tough sometimes. We were supported by The Smith Family through school, me and my four siblings. I’ve worked hard through school and university and as I’ve grown I’ve been proud to be very independent in life and my finances. It is extremely rare for me to ask for help. So when I reached out to those closest to me, to ask for help, some of them actually asked if I was dying.
As I struggle without any kind of steady income, now more than ever I have realised the value of my support networks. My family and friends who have been there during Covid, during this, right now. It’s a great feeling, among the bad, to know I have important and amazing people who have my back going into the unknown of 2021.
Merry Christmas everyone. Dig deep into those who are closest to you. They are what matter this year.
