Whittling

[j4]

Went to the bank and after waiting for nearly an hour (they said 20 minutes, they lied) finally got to talk to a human being. Apparently I haven't incurred any charge for exceeding the overdraft limit yet, and they've now given me a temporary limit that's a bit higher until the end of the month, by which time my salary will have gone through.

They did however insist on updating all my details (they still had me down as unemployed, despite the fact that I told them when I got the job at ProQuest, and told them how much I was getting paid; they also still had my parents' number as my daytime number) which was horrible because the bank man just looked at me as if I was stupid when I said I didn't know the exact figure for my take-home pay, and didn't know how much we still owed on the mortgage.

Thank you to juggzy for some useful suggestions by email but I really think the answer is that I just have to stop buying things. At all. I don't need anything else really. And I need to shift the mountains of useles stuff that I already have. I also have to stop lending money to people, and buying things for other people on the understanding that they'll pay me back as soon as possible.

I hate money. I hate all the Stuff I own, at the moment, too; I just want to throw it all away. And then run away to an island somewhere and eat berries and fish, and think for a bit, and make some pretty shapes out of sand, and then die.

* * *

Just so tired. Tired and shaky and headachey. Yesterday on the way home from work I came so close to just lying down on the pavement and going to sleep. Today I knelt down to put some of the shopping (thanks to sion_a, we have food tonight) in my rucksack and just couldn't get up. I just stayed kneeling there thinking "I should get up", but somehow I just couldn't. I could visualise myself getting up, but I couldn't make my legs obey, for a few minutes. I think, in retrospect, I wasn't sure why I should get up. My head hurts, and my limbs feel half-numb, as though it's taking longer than it should for signals to reach them and/or get back to my head. And if I rest my hands on the keyboard I can see them shaking.

Wish hoiho could be with me but he's got family crises to deal with. I feel horribly selfish for wanting him to be here when he's worrying about the people he cares about & wants to be with them. Now worrying too that if he knows I'm not well he'll just say I'd be better off without him, which isn't true. :-( Guilt, stress, guilt.

Was wondering about going over to see my parents tonight after the concert, staying for most of tomorrow -- somewhere that's nearly home. I'm just scared that a) I wouldn't be able to manage the drive in this state, and b) if I do get there I'll just cry the whole time and then they'll be worried about me and not want me to come back to Cambridge until I'm feeling better, and I can't call in sick, ever, not after the last job. At least not unless I have something really obvious that I can point to like a broken arm, or measles, or something.

* * *

Town was heaving, with all the nausea that the word conveys. Looking up Sidney Street from ... not Carfax, no, what do you call the, where the barrier is, outside up along from what was Joy and is now Eat (named for our modern gods) ... the hordes of people looked like an army of tiny dolls, picture-perfect with their miniature gesticulations, open-mouthed and mindless and terrifying.

[Somebody is itching to correct me on the road-names. THIS IS NOT A TECHNICAL MANUAL. Try reading rather than debugging.]

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah. I've had an overdraft, um, twice? For about two minths each time, or something. Will do almost anything to avoid it - working class background, I think.

Well, when I was at Oxford, my student account gave me a 500 quid interest-free overdraft in the first year, 1000 in the second year, and 1500 in the third year. (The graduate account then reverses these figures, so by your third year as a graduate you have 500 interest-free, and then after that nothing -- of course, you still have a 1500 pound overdraft limit, but it's not interest-free any more.) Which I realised was a ploy to get people borrowing but I thought "well when I've actually got an income I'll pay it back, for the time being it's an interest-free loan which means I don't have to keep scrounging off my parents any more than necessary". What I didn't realise was that my first job in Cambridge wouldn't leave me enough money after rent to make much of a dent in it, and that the expenses of living in Cambridge (and the fun of having Money Of My Own for the first time) would make it worse and worse.

The other thing is I was already breaking the Never Borrow Money rule because I had a student loan. Okay, maybe that was stupid too, but my parents said it was a good idea, because the alternative would be them taking out a loan to help pay my way, and it was a better interest-rate than they'd be able to get on a loan. Also, I'm not sure quite how I would have managed to pay over 800 quid a term for accommodation -- and that's before any food, let alone books or anything -- with a 'grant' of less than 400 a year.

Although, of course, if I couldn't pay for university, I shouldn't have gone; and my parents certainly shouldn't have paid for me to have an education that would give me stupid ideas above my station. I should have left school at 14 and got a job in Tesco.

Sometimes wonder if I'd've been happier. I wouldn't be as clever but by now I'd probably be married and have at least 4 kids. As it is I'll die intelligent, unhappy and alone.

One of the things you learn if you mix with gamblers much is that, except very rarely, you don't actually help people out by giving them money, you just enable them to carry on doing whatever got them in that mess in the first place.

But if the reason they need money is that they're unemployed and desperately want to find a job, lending them money doesn't make them try less hard to find a job. Really, it doesn't. And if I know that when they get a job they'll be earning something in the region of 50K then it doesn't seem like a huge risk to lend them an amount which will be mere pocket money to them when they have this job. Sure, if they're throwing all the money away on the horses or whatever then it's not going to help, but if they're just trying to stay in a place where they can look for jobs without it costing them a fortune in petrol (which they couldn't afford) to come for interviews, isn't it a little different?

But not having a wad stashed isn't the same as having a negative wad stashed.

Shrug. Looks much the same to me. The money's all imaginary anyway.

Maybe that's the real problem, dahn sahf stuff is so much more expensive you all get forced into that crazy way of not-quite-managing money.

Ah, but that's my own stupid fault as well, innit? I should just move somewhere cheaper. Nobody has a right to live where they want; if I can't afford to live in Cambridge, I should just bugger off.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

Well, no, it's not your fault, it's Society. The structure's totally buggered. It was all a lot easier when I was your age. I got a full grant, which was _just_ enough to stay alive on, I dropped out and spent a year doing bugger-all on the dole which was _just_ enoguh to stay alive on, then I went and got a job, then moved to where I work now and it paid enough to get reasonably set up. Several key items in that sequence are no longer viable, it seems.
Now, if I was dictator....