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Christmas is coming and I'm broke
Dec. 2nd, 2005 09:14 pmOh dear. When I checked my bank balance on payday I nearly keeled over at the cashpoint. I knew that last month had been expensive, but not that expensive! After the initial panic sticken thoughts of "someone's skimmed my card and stolen all my money" I realised that I only have myself to blame. Last month I'm sure that I spent the following amounts:
£130 on hair cut and colour
£170 on CIPD affiliate membership (and that's the reduced price for students!)
£120 on two pairs of 'going out' shoes
£100 on work clothes (because it got really cold and I didn't have many smart jumpers)
£100 donation to the Asian earthquake appeal (my mum went nuts when I told her this)
That's before I even started thinking about everyday outgoings like fares, AOL, contact lenses and the like.
As of today I have absolutely no money in my current account and I haven't even started my Xmas shopping yet. The way I see it I have six options open to me:
1. Transfer money from my savings account to my current account to cover the Xmas shopping - not a good option as I will loose interest on my savings and that's my house deposit.
2. Buy all my Xmas pressies on my credit card and pay it off straight after payday on 22nd December - a good option as it will probably make my credit rating better and it'll help charity as I have a charity credit card. The downside is that I'll have to learn the PIN number for my card.
3. Keep spending from my current account and make (more) use of my overdraft - I'll have to go into my overdraft anyway for everyday costs so I'll have to be a bit careful if I pick this option in case I go over my limit.
4. Wait until after 22nd December payday to buy any pressies - not attractive as it'll involve Xmas shopping on the busiest days of the year.
5. Get an advance from work - possible but not much different to putting it on my card really. I still have to pay it back.
6. Denounce Xmas completely and not buy anyone a present - an idea that appeals to me greatly, but I don't think my nearest and dearest will be too impressed!
Just to make things a bit worse I brought a new a coat in River Island today. It was a necessary purchase though as I'm currently wearing last year's coat and the fake fur trim has gone a bit mangey.
In other news...
Last Friday night I was talking to Plymouth ex-housemate on MSN whilst updating this LJ. He seems quite unhappy at the moment. The problem is that I like him to talk to, but I don't want our friendship to turn into a 'relationship'. Unfortunately, he has told me that women always say that he's 'nice' and just want to be his friend, therefore I'm probably making the situation worse. As I'm the sort of person who doesn't like to hurt anyone's feelings I find it really difficult turning blokes down, especially as I don't get many offers these days. It's also fair to say that I'm not very good at chosing boyfriends the evidence being that my relationships last on average a couple of months. Maybe I'm making a huge mistake but I just don't feel any kind of spark with this guy. My relationship with Cardiff bloke is far from healthy (or indeed existent most of the time) but at least I can feel a 'spark' when I'm with him. Hmmmm. I do appreciate being fancied though so cheers ex-housemate if you're reading this. Anyway, I've sent him my copy of '24 Hour Party People' in an attempt to cheer him up, so I hope he enjoys it.
Press Gang spottings of the last couple of weeks include:
Rosie Marcel (who played Sophie in series 2 at the age of 11) playing a surgeon in Holby City.
Paul Reynolds in Trevor's World of Sport on Radio 4. I hadn't realised that it was radio show as well as a failed TV series. My attempts to record it (Tuesday is Brownie night) were scuppered by the absence of any blank cassette tapes in the house.
Dexter Fletcher in clips from Doom on Film 2005. It looks a much too violent for me to go and watch but I hope it does well. The critics appear to have universally panned it.
Speaking of relics from the 1990s, Take That have announced that they are reforming and touring the UK. Robbie Williams won't be joining them of course. I was never interested in Take That so the whole thing is of little interest to me. In general I only like upbeat songs to that narrowed the options down a bit as far as TT were concerned. I liked 'Could it be Magic' and 'Relight my Fire' but apart from that I avoided them like the plague. Songs like 'A Million Love Songs' make me want to vomit. The only positive thing I can really say about them is that they were at least a bit more upbeat than Boyzone and Westlife! Personally, I was a big East 17 fan. I know that's not cool in the least but at least some of their tracks had a bit of an edge. Saying that quite a few of their songs make me want to vomit too!
Ooooh, exciting news, well it's exciting for me. I fixed my printer. It had been really streaky when printing in colour but I cleaned and re-aligned the printer heads and its OK now. I printed out a photo from my digital camera and a Press Gang screen cap and they both look really good. My printer is only an old Epson C60 but it prints photos really well even on to cheap and nasty Tesco value paper. I'm well chuffed. My next project is to create a Press Gang calendar for 2006 using screen caps.
At uni on Monday we were discussing the decline in popularity of the 'heroic leaders' method of researching management and leadership. When I got I home I asked my mum who she would pick as a 'heroic leader' and she replied that it was David Beckham! I said that he wasn't much of a heroic leader as he had never won anything in his role as England captain. She replied that he won things with Manchester United. I pointed out that he wasn't the captain of Man Utd, it had been Roy Keane. Then she was stumped. Between us we couldn't come up with a single heroic leader role model. Nelson Mandela, Lord Horatio Nelson, Malcolm X, Dr Martin Luther King Jnr and Boudica were ineligable as people had thought of them at uni earlier in the evening but still... Maybe it's because members of my family aren't natural leaders and don't aspire to lead so they don't look for role models in that context.
Yesterday, I went to see a production of 'The Rivals' starring Stephanie Cole and the bloke who plays Inspector Wexford. I didn't enjoy it as much as last time I saw it, probably because I was tired and couldn't concentrate properly. The theatre was full of teenagers so I guess it's a set text for A-Level Drama or English. I felt ancient. I was thinking about it and me listening to early 90s rave music now is to a teenager now like someone listening to Abba when I was a teenager. I am officially old and uncool and there's nothing I can do about it except start wearing 'sensible' shoes and buying my clothes from M&S.
And that's it for another week.
£130 on hair cut and colour
£170 on CIPD affiliate membership (and that's the reduced price for students!)
£120 on two pairs of 'going out' shoes
£100 on work clothes (because it got really cold and I didn't have many smart jumpers)
£100 donation to the Asian earthquake appeal (my mum went nuts when I told her this)
That's before I even started thinking about everyday outgoings like fares, AOL, contact lenses and the like.
As of today I have absolutely no money in my current account and I haven't even started my Xmas shopping yet. The way I see it I have six options open to me:
1. Transfer money from my savings account to my current account to cover the Xmas shopping - not a good option as I will loose interest on my savings and that's my house deposit.
2. Buy all my Xmas pressies on my credit card and pay it off straight after payday on 22nd December - a good option as it will probably make my credit rating better and it'll help charity as I have a charity credit card. The downside is that I'll have to learn the PIN number for my card.
3. Keep spending from my current account and make (more) use of my overdraft - I'll have to go into my overdraft anyway for everyday costs so I'll have to be a bit careful if I pick this option in case I go over my limit.
4. Wait until after 22nd December payday to buy any pressies - not attractive as it'll involve Xmas shopping on the busiest days of the year.
5. Get an advance from work - possible but not much different to putting it on my card really. I still have to pay it back.
6. Denounce Xmas completely and not buy anyone a present - an idea that appeals to me greatly, but I don't think my nearest and dearest will be too impressed!
Just to make things a bit worse I brought a new a coat in River Island today. It was a necessary purchase though as I'm currently wearing last year's coat and the fake fur trim has gone a bit mangey.
In other news...
Last Friday night I was talking to Plymouth ex-housemate on MSN whilst updating this LJ. He seems quite unhappy at the moment. The problem is that I like him to talk to, but I don't want our friendship to turn into a 'relationship'. Unfortunately, he has told me that women always say that he's 'nice' and just want to be his friend, therefore I'm probably making the situation worse. As I'm the sort of person who doesn't like to hurt anyone's feelings I find it really difficult turning blokes down, especially as I don't get many offers these days. It's also fair to say that I'm not very good at chosing boyfriends the evidence being that my relationships last on average a couple of months. Maybe I'm making a huge mistake but I just don't feel any kind of spark with this guy. My relationship with Cardiff bloke is far from healthy (or indeed existent most of the time) but at least I can feel a 'spark' when I'm with him. Hmmmm. I do appreciate being fancied though so cheers ex-housemate if you're reading this. Anyway, I've sent him my copy of '24 Hour Party People' in an attempt to cheer him up, so I hope he enjoys it.
Press Gang spottings of the last couple of weeks include:
Rosie Marcel (who played Sophie in series 2 at the age of 11) playing a surgeon in Holby City.
Paul Reynolds in Trevor's World of Sport on Radio 4. I hadn't realised that it was radio show as well as a failed TV series. My attempts to record it (Tuesday is Brownie night) were scuppered by the absence of any blank cassette tapes in the house.
Dexter Fletcher in clips from Doom on Film 2005. It looks a much too violent for me to go and watch but I hope it does well. The critics appear to have universally panned it.
Speaking of relics from the 1990s, Take That have announced that they are reforming and touring the UK. Robbie Williams won't be joining them of course. I was never interested in Take That so the whole thing is of little interest to me. In general I only like upbeat songs to that narrowed the options down a bit as far as TT were concerned. I liked 'Could it be Magic' and 'Relight my Fire' but apart from that I avoided them like the plague. Songs like 'A Million Love Songs' make me want to vomit. The only positive thing I can really say about them is that they were at least a bit more upbeat than Boyzone and Westlife! Personally, I was a big East 17 fan. I know that's not cool in the least but at least some of their tracks had a bit of an edge. Saying that quite a few of their songs make me want to vomit too!
Ooooh, exciting news, well it's exciting for me. I fixed my printer. It had been really streaky when printing in colour but I cleaned and re-aligned the printer heads and its OK now. I printed out a photo from my digital camera and a Press Gang screen cap and they both look really good. My printer is only an old Epson C60 but it prints photos really well even on to cheap and nasty Tesco value paper. I'm well chuffed. My next project is to create a Press Gang calendar for 2006 using screen caps.
At uni on Monday we were discussing the decline in popularity of the 'heroic leaders' method of researching management and leadership. When I got I home I asked my mum who she would pick as a 'heroic leader' and she replied that it was David Beckham! I said that he wasn't much of a heroic leader as he had never won anything in his role as England captain. She replied that he won things with Manchester United. I pointed out that he wasn't the captain of Man Utd, it had been Roy Keane. Then she was stumped. Between us we couldn't come up with a single heroic leader role model. Nelson Mandela, Lord Horatio Nelson, Malcolm X, Dr Martin Luther King Jnr and Boudica were ineligable as people had thought of them at uni earlier in the evening but still... Maybe it's because members of my family aren't natural leaders and don't aspire to lead so they don't look for role models in that context.
Yesterday, I went to see a production of 'The Rivals' starring Stephanie Cole and the bloke who plays Inspector Wexford. I didn't enjoy it as much as last time I saw it, probably because I was tired and couldn't concentrate properly. The theatre was full of teenagers so I guess it's a set text for A-Level Drama or English. I felt ancient. I was thinking about it and me listening to early 90s rave music now is to a teenager now like someone listening to Abba when I was a teenager. I am officially old and uncool and there's nothing I can do about it except start wearing 'sensible' shoes and buying my clothes from M&S.
And that's it for another week.
