Happiness

Erin spent the evening writing up the various interviews she did this week.

I kept her company whole she did it, which mostly consisted of lying on the bed reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (I'm working my way through the whole Narnia series), propped up by the double duvet. I opened the window after a bit, as the room got a bit stuffy and I realised it was pouring with rain outside.

I lay there, listening to the rain pouring down outside, reading my book, and I suddenly realised that I had the warm contented feeling that I used to have when I was a kid on holiday, no pressure, nothing to do, wrapped up in a good book while rain drummed on the roof of the tent, wrapped warmly in a sleeping bag. I felt simply happy. It lasted about 20 minutes and was quite the nicest I've felt in a very long time.

The Money Blues

Myself and Erin just spent an hour going over our money situation. Now that she's just had her first proper paycheck we wanted to see how much spare money we had.

The answer is absolutely none.

Well, that's not entirely true. The answer is £47. Which, considering the erraticness of our finances, is pretty much a negative figure. We've got 6 months of phone bills to go through and pay off, three months arrears of electricity/gas and ADSL to pay off and all the usual debts we're working through.

I'd never been at all good with money, with the result that I managed to survive solely because I was paid fairly well and could therefore afford to be pretty free with the money I had. I didn't worry about my debts because I could afford to repay them. I then got together with Erin, who came with her own debts, and no job. And then couldn't get a job for several months because she'd only ever gone for temp admin jobs and everyone that interviewed her realised that she'd be out of there as soon as she got a real job. Which is entirely true, but sadly unfortunate and was very expensive.

So, anyway, our standind debts for the month (Food, Rent, debt repayments, etc.) is £1266. We could probably shave £50 off of that by eating cheaper, and we probably will. But, it's still pretty much my whole wage cheque, leaving Erins money to pay for things like phone bills, birthday presents, etc.

The one shining light in the whole money situation is my parents generosity. I don't like asking them for money if I can possibly avoid it (they lent us £5000 for a deposit on this flat 4 years ago, and we're drastically behind in paying it back), but last time I visited my Dad told me that an insurance policy had reached term (or somesuch, I forget which savings type thing it was) for more money than expected, over the 30 years of investment, and thus he was giving each of his 3 children £250. We were allowed to spend it on anything, so long as it was something we hadn't been planning on buying at the time and we bought it within 2 weeks.

Which is why Erin has a shiny new bike and I have a copy of Nobilis on order and a copy of Grand Theft Auto with my name on it (and a couple of other fripperies, like a Goats.com T-shirt and a copy of The Meaning of Life).

Provided Erin's income keeps on incoming, we can start paying off our debts and get ourselves sorted out and even have some spare cash. It really does feel like we've finally turned the corner, and as long as we can actually keep ourselves above water for this month, we're going to actually make it. But the figures for the next 30 days really don't look good.