Oh thank the Lord; it’s pay day. I’m able to enjoy pay days now, but for a long time that wasn’t the case. I was really bad with money when I was younger, like actually awful. I think I went to Uni with minus £80 in my account and that was probably the high point of my financial career.
Since then I’ve been to uni, which resulted in another £10,000 in student loans and probably another couple of thousand in credit cards on top of that. But as I’ve told my mother countless times, it was well worth the ten grand and I’d do it all again! I would! I really would! And there’s nothing you can do to stop me! Aha! Haha! Ahahahahahahaha! (she didn’t look pleased).
I left Middlesbrough in 2004 and when I moved back home to Bognor Regis Town. It took a mere 48 hours to realise I couldn’t possibly stay any longer and three years later I finally moved to Leeds. But not before I set my credit cards ablaze and amassed more debt that you can shake a poo-stick at.
I figured that I’d have no money as soon as I left home after moving to a big city, so why not? So with that in my heart and a credit card in my back pocket I went out and spent a lot. Not wanting to miss out, I had one amazing summer, all paid for by mr credit card. I wouldn’t recommend it as a normal course of action, but the £4,000 I spent on gigs and festivals that summer was worth every penny.
It was getting ridiculous at one stage though. I’d ring my mate Jules and say “book that weekend off work, we’re going to the Isle of Wight festival” and “I’ve just bought plane tickets and weekend passes to that festival in Ireland”. Jules was scared to answer the phone towards the end of the year, frightened as to what I’d bought next.
That was summer 2005, after which I found myself in a bit of a financial black-hole, but in 2006 I made plans to leave BRT for good.
Before I moved to Leeds I was working for a Boats and Yacht magazine and arranged to get transferred to the Leeds office. Unfortunately for me, when I turned up at the new offices all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, they told me that I didn’t have a transfer at all, and in actual fact all I had was an interview. An interview for a part-time position at that. I couldn’t quite believe it. I had travelled all the way up to a big new city (Robbie my housemate was still working his notice so I was on my own for the first six weeks) and now I didn’t even have a job!
Luckily I was a little more prepared than my trip to uni and I had about a grand saved up to cover new home purchases, but now I had to use that money to survive instead. It was a stressful time to say the least and inevitably the £1,000 ran out pretty quickly. I still had credit card bills coming out of my ears at that point, and with no income, I had to use credit cards to pay off other credit cards. It all got very messy.
In September 2007 it all got too much and I got a debt management plan to sort out my finances, and it truly helped. A company spoke to and got agreements from all the companies I had credit cards with and now I just pay one lump sum every month, which the debt management company distributes to my creditors.
Not only that, but I properly budget myself now. To the letter, too. I have a really detailed spreadsheet with shows my ingoings, and outgoings and every time I buy anything I mark it down on the sheet. It’s the most important change I’ve made to the way I live my life, and coupled with the spreadsheet, I now have a weekly budget.
Every pay day I go to the bank and withdraw everything I have, leaving only enough money in to cover bills. Then each Friday I pay myself my weekly allowance! It’s quite nice actually, I get that litte pay day rush every Friday and I now know I’ve got enough money to cover food and stuff each week. This also means I never go over my overdraft, and more importantly, I never get charged for going over either. That alone is a massive difference as I was getting charged something like 40-50 quid a month for going over, which is mental.
Although back then, I wasn’t even bothered and those. Only four years ago I would just spend money until the ATM refused to give me any (and sometimes they got terribly rude). I would never look at balance receipts, nor would I be bothered about overdraft charges. I just didn’t care. Now it’s all different. I care about everything, even the pennies when I find out I’ve been taxed 20p extra compared to the previous month’s pay-cheque.
My relationship with money is very different nowadays. Now I actually look forward to pay day instead of worrying that my wages wouldn’t be enough to cover credit card repayments, let alone leave enough money to live. Most importantly I respect money a lot more now too. In the height of my debt I was over £11,000 in the red, now it’s around £7k so I’m doing alright.
This post is dedicated to my Google Docs Spreadsheet. Thank you for all your hard work each and every day. x
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