Perfectionism

Because apparently being a human wasn't enough. We had to be bloody perfect too.

People Pleasing

Keeping everybody happy is expensive. Cancel the subscription.

Overthinking

Still replaying something you said three Tuesdays ago? Excellent. Us too.

Boundaries

Not everyone needs VIP access to your nervous system.

Emotional Energy

Plot twist: you don't have an unlimited supply.

F*ck Bucks

Your emotional currency. Spend the bloody things wisely.

The Review Panel

Nobody gave them the marking guide. Stop sitting the exam.

What Matters

More peace. More laughter. More life. Less funding absolute nonsense.

Reinvention

You can change your mind. It's your bloody life.

Erica's Books 

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A note from Erica Marlowe

For every woman who has spent herself trying to be everything for everyone.

We were taught to budget our money, manage our time and keep everybody else happy. Nobody mentioned that our emotional energy could run out too.

You are not too much. You may simply be giving too much of yourself to things that deserve far less.

Press play. This one is for you.

THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN

Have you been looking after everyone except yourself?

You remember the birthdays, smooth over the awkward bits, reply to the message and somehow know when the toilet paper is running out. By the time you get a moment to yourself, deciding what to have for dinner feels like another bloody job.

Maybe you have said yes when every part of you wanted to say no. Maybe you have lain awake rehearsing a conversation the other person forgot five minutes later. Maybe you have spent years trying to pass an exam set by an invisible review panel that never hands out the marking guide.

I know that feeling. The F*ck Budget is the story of how I began to notice where all my energy was going, told with plenty of wrong turns, laughs and the occasional spectacular bin incident. I hope it helps you spot a few withdrawals of your own and decide which things still deserve your F*ck Bucks.

There is a whole life beyond keeping everybody else comfortable. You deserve to be in it.

Find your edition Paperback, large print, Kindle and audiobook

The life behind the book

Before she became Erica Marlowe

A few photographs from the life behind THE F*CK BUDGET. The little girl, the family, the messy middle and the woman who eventually learned to spend her f*cks more wisely.

Erica, second from the left, with Audrey beside her and Audrey’s grandparents. Two little girls smiling for the camera, before the gun, the violence, and the strange business of dancing and returning to school as though childhood could simply carry on.
Erica, second from the left, with Audrey beside her and Audrey’s grandparents. Two little girls smiling for the camera, before the gun, the violence, and the strange business of dancing and returning to school as though childhood could simply carry on.
Erica with her Barbie, one of the dolls that gave her somewhere happier to go when real life became too much. In their small, perfect world, she could disappear into fantasy and pretend, for a while, that everything around her was fine.
Erica with her Barbie, one of the dolls that gave her somewhere happier to go when real life became too much. In their small, perfect world, she could disappear into fantasy and pretend, for a while, that everything around her was fine.
Erica in a quieter moment, carrying far more sadness than a child should know how to hold. Long before the language of boundaries or burnout, she was already learning to cope with what was happening around her, even when nobody else could see it.
Erica in a quieter moment, carrying far more sadness than a child should know how to hold. Long before the language of boundaries or burnout, she was already learning to cope with what was happening around her, even when nobody else could see it.
Erica in the blue dress her mum made by hand, with a haircut done at home too. It was a childhood of second-hand things, making do and creating what was needed, where care often appeared through the things Mum made herself.
Erica in the blue dress her mum made by hand, with a haircut done at home too. It was a childhood of second-hand things, making do and creating what was needed, where care often appeared through the things Mum made herself.
Erica fastening something to the shirt of her beautiful mum, Rosemary. By then, the polished, carefully curated Erica had learned to outrun her past, yet beneath it all she remained the same little girl, still searching for safety and belonging.
Erica fastening something to the shirt of her beautiful mum, Rosemary. By then, the polished, carefully curated Erica had learned to outrun her past, yet beneath it all she remained the same little girl, still searching for safety and belonging.
Erica smiling at a table in Paris while living in England, the transformation seemingly complete. She had crossed countries, rebuilt herself and become the polished woman she thought she needed to be, carrying the past quietly beneath the life she had carefully created.
Erica smiling at a table in Paris while living in England, the transformation seemingly complete. She had crossed countries, rebuilt herself and become the polished woman she thought she needed to be, carrying the past quietly beneath the life she had carefully created.

These are some of the people, places and moments that shaped the stories in the book.

The idea behind the book

What if you're not bad at coping? What if you're just overspending?

We budget money because we know it runs out. We protect our time because there are only so many hours in a day. But emotional energy? Somehow we spend that stuff like we've got an unlimited account.

The F*ck Budget asks one very simple question:

What actually deserves this much of you?

So... what exactly is a F*ck Budget?

A F*ck Buck is one unit of emotional currency. It might be your attention, your worry, your guilt, your sleep, your time, your anger, your mental rehearsal or the energy you keep pouring into something long after useful thinking has finished.

A F*ck Budget is simply the decision to stop behaving as though that currency is endless.

Where the book came from

The idea grew out of years spent worrying about what people thought, trying to get things right, replaying conversations that were already over, meeting expectations nobody had actually written down and attempting to perform life correctly.

Eventually a pattern became impossible to ignore: an enormous amount of emotional energy was being spent on things that weren't actually improving anything.

Some of it went to perfectionism. Some to people pleasing. Some to guilt. Some to fear. Some to the imaginary panel of people we assume is quietly grading our appearance, our choices, our parenting, our work, our homes and apparently whether we replied to a text with the correct number of exclamation marks.

The point isn't to stop caring.
It's to care less about the wrong things so you can care more deeply about the right ones.
01

Notice where it's going

Worry, guilt, approval, perfectionism and imaginary arguments all cost something.

02

Decide what deserves funding

Your peace, relationships, health, laughter, curiosity and actual life need a budget too.

03

Stop funding absolute nonsense

Some things deserve reflection. Some deserve action. And some deserve precisely zero F*ck Bucks.

Watch the story

So what exactly is a F*ck Budget?

A little introduction to the idea behind the book, emotional overspending and why some things simply do not deserve that many F*ck Bucks.

♡ Watch. Laugh. Reconsider a few expenses.
Behind the book

Meet Erica Marlowe.
Spectacularly spent.

Erica Marlowe, author of The F*ck Budget

Erica Marlowe

Writer. Mother. Overthinker. Former professional funder of absolute nonsense.

CURRENTLY REBALANCING THE BUDGET

She didn't arrive here via a vision board.

Erica Marlowe has lived enough different versions of one life to know that things rarely move in a neat, inspirational upward line.

There were years of having very little. Years of working, building and creating. Years when money finally arrived and life looked reassuringly successful from the outside.

And then there were the years when things became complicated again. Money disappeared. Plans changed. Relationships shifted. Work became difficult. Bodies did inconvenient things. Animals behaved appallingly. And the carefully constructed idea of what life was supposed to look like began falling apart.

Somewhere in all of that, Erica realised she'd become remarkably skilled at spending something even more valuable than money: herself.

“

I knew how to make a financial budget. Apparently I needed one for my nervous system.

She spent emotional currency on being liked. On getting things right. On guilt. On fixing things. On worrying about people she loved. On replaying conversations nobody else remembered. On expectations. On keeping the peace. And occasionally on situations that should probably have been denied funding at the first committee meeting.

The F*ck Budget grew from that realisation.

Not from having life perfectly sorted. Quite the opposite.

It came from looking back at the glorious, painful, ridiculous mess of it and asking: what actually deserved that much of me?

Started With Less

Money wasn't always plentiful. Ambition, apparently, was.

Built Things

Businesses, careers, plans and a convincing impression that everything was under control.

Lost Things

Money. Certainty. Plans. And occasionally the plot.

Kept What Matters

Love, family, humour and the people worth spending the good stuff on.

Some things are still fully funded.

Erica loves her mum, Aspen and Audrey fiercely. Family, love, laughter, connection and the people who make ordinary life worth showing up for remain firmly in the FULLY FUNDED column. The budget was never about caring less about them. It was about wasting less of herself elsewhere.

These days

Erica is retired, rebuilding the reserves and re-saving her f*cks.

Cover of I Am Woman, Yet I'm Still Responsible for Dinner by Erica Marlowe

Book Two Coming Soon

I Am Woman,
Yet I'm Still Responsible for Dinner

Ever finished a full day's work, walked through the door and been asked what's for dinner by someone standing within reach of the fridge?

Erica Marlowe returns with the messy stories and familiar absurdities of being a woman who can do anything and somehow ends up doing bloody everything. From the family jobs nobody remembers until you stop doing them to menopause, ageing and the guilt of sitting down, she looks at what we're still carrying and how it got handed to us.

The men get a say too, as Erica explores the expectations that leave women exhausted and men wondering where they fit, with plenty of room to laugh at ourselves along the way.

The next book from the author of The F*ck Budget. Release details will be shared here.