A pause in the proceedings.
We interrupt our normally scheduled ranting to bring you this somewhat depressing report.
Today was an odd and rather miserable day, a wake-up call back to reality, as it were. I received a phone call from my mother. She had some good news and some bad news.
My step-grandfather is dead.
This is not the bad news. He was an unpleasant man to say the least and none of my family are particularly upset to hear of his passing.
The bad news is that as my father's retirement looms nearer, I am facing poverty. Sorry, MORE poverty. I am informed that in approximately seven months my allowance will be cut off. I had anticipated this. I had already given this a test run by leaving my allowance in a savings account since October and not touching it. Over this period I had not paid the bills for the council tax, the gas or the electric. I was still over my overdraft limit when I went to the bank today.
Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe it's my upbringing. I believe I come from what many people would call a privilidged background. I was not the sort of child who could have anything I asked for. I was taught the value of money from an early age and was also taught that 'I want' doesn't get. I'm not a materialistic person and I'm not high maintainance when it comes to stuff. However, I am not used to having to make a choice between heating and eating. I always took these things for granted. We may not have had a big TV or a fancy car, but we had a full fridge and a warm house, and I made the foolish mistake of thinking that these were basic human comforts that everyone in the civilized world can expect. Hah! BIG MISTAKE!
I wouldn't mind being poor if it was self inflicted. If I was one of these women who had landed myself a swanky well paid job in PR but blew my salary on clothes and make-up and maxed out my cards on a monthly basis and therefore had no money, I would happily hold up my hand and say, "Yep, you got me. My bad." But I'm not, so I won't. The truth is, I don't spend money. Ask anybody who knows me and they will tell you how very very rarely I will show up with a new purchase of any description, and if I do its normally from Primark and I will be waxing ecstatical about how cheap it is. I am thrifty. I am a bargain hunter. Hell, I'm a MISER! If I forget my bus pass I'll walk to work out of sheer bloody-minded refusal to pay £3.50 for a bus ticket having already forked out £52 for the monthly saver ticket that I've got stuffed in a coat pocket somewhere.
I am not being punished for being a materialistic cash-waster. I am being punished for being a member of one of the poorest social groups in the most expensive country in the world. Except for Japan. Everyone always pleads for the pensioners, but - here I stamp my foot on my soap box in a moment on total self-absorbed selfish whinging - what about me? I, safely ensconced in the 18-25 age bracket, have done what every model young person is expected to do. I focussed on my studies. I got excellent straight-A exam results. I went to university, I got a degree. I was then propelled from the academic system into the real world where I discovered very quickly what a terrible mistake I had been making. Contrary to what my teachers had been telling me all my life, I was not anything special. I was not destined for greatness. I was not going to go far. And, contrary to what Mr Blair was telling the country for years, education is not the key to a bright future. I was an unemployed inexperienced rather naive young thing with a couple of letters after my name and a student debt as long as my arm.
I did what a huge number of graduates end up doing. I signed on. Well, I tried to. You see, like all good children, I had been taught to save. Save for your future. Save for a rainy day. Save because you can. Save because you have to. Save whatever you can afford. Save even if you CAN'T afford. I had savings. Like a fool, I declared them. The benefits office reviewed my case and told me to fuck off.
Six months later I was still unemployed, largely due to the fact that I had not been given any instruction on how to look for a job in the past seven years and didn't have the faintest clue what to do with a BA in English. I had asked the Job Centre for advice. They said they could only help me if I was signing on, which I wasn't, because they wouldn't let me. Eventually I had spent all my savings on extravagant luxuries such as rent and heating and food, so they let me sign on.
Looking back, I should have blown all my savings on holidays and designer clothes and would have ended up in exactly the same place I am now, albeit with a lot more happy memories and a lot less evenings spent eating cold baked beans in the dark. The System, you see (I use capitals in the same manner as one would when discussing The Man) hates people who are responsible. They want to reward the unscrupulous and the wasteful.
"Do you have any savings?"
"I did, but I spent them all on this enormous statue of Wayne Rooney."
"Oh, what a pity. Here, have a cheque for three grand."
"Do you have any savings?"
"Yes, I've been squirrelling money away in a post office account since I was seven. I plan to form my own business selling homemade sweaters and I'm going to donate half my profits to the NSPCC."
"Oh how lovely. Fuck off."
I could, alternatively, go and get pregnant. They would probably give me money then. Perhaps in this enlightened world where women are putting their lives and careers first, the government feel they need to bribe young women from poorer backgrounds to encourage breeding. (Worryingly, the suggestion was made to a young woman who had lost both her parents in a house fire and was trying to claim benefit in order to continue her schooling.)
Apparently though, by the time I am 25, I will be entitled to income support. A fair amount of it actually. But ONLY once I am 25. I don't quite know how they work that out. Maybe once you are over 25 the desperate need to own more than one pair of shoes becomes too much to bear and they have to throw some cash at you to stop you turning to drugs and petty theft. However, I have well over a year to go before then. So, until then, I have to survive on £720 a month in a world where bills can easily exceed £500 (if you are wasteful and greedy and do stupid things like putting the heating on every day in January and stocking the fridge more than once a month). This has of course put pay to my plan to rent my own little place somewhere within walking distance to work so as to scrape the rent together out of the cash I would save by not having to pay for bus passes and taxis. Looks like I will be sharing for the forseeable future. At least until I'm 25.
Of course, before that time comes, I plan to blow what little remains of my savings on a holiday and a car. I've fucking well earned it.
Today was an odd and rather miserable day, a wake-up call back to reality, as it were. I received a phone call from my mother. She had some good news and some bad news.
My step-grandfather is dead.
This is not the bad news. He was an unpleasant man to say the least and none of my family are particularly upset to hear of his passing.
The bad news is that as my father's retirement looms nearer, I am facing poverty. Sorry, MORE poverty. I am informed that in approximately seven months my allowance will be cut off. I had anticipated this. I had already given this a test run by leaving my allowance in a savings account since October and not touching it. Over this period I had not paid the bills for the council tax, the gas or the electric. I was still over my overdraft limit when I went to the bank today.
Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe it's my upbringing. I believe I come from what many people would call a privilidged background. I was not the sort of child who could have anything I asked for. I was taught the value of money from an early age and was also taught that 'I want' doesn't get. I'm not a materialistic person and I'm not high maintainance when it comes to stuff. However, I am not used to having to make a choice between heating and eating. I always took these things for granted. We may not have had a big TV or a fancy car, but we had a full fridge and a warm house, and I made the foolish mistake of thinking that these were basic human comforts that everyone in the civilized world can expect. Hah! BIG MISTAKE!
I wouldn't mind being poor if it was self inflicted. If I was one of these women who had landed myself a swanky well paid job in PR but blew my salary on clothes and make-up and maxed out my cards on a monthly basis and therefore had no money, I would happily hold up my hand and say, "Yep, you got me. My bad." But I'm not, so I won't. The truth is, I don't spend money. Ask anybody who knows me and they will tell you how very very rarely I will show up with a new purchase of any description, and if I do its normally from Primark and I will be waxing ecstatical about how cheap it is. I am thrifty. I am a bargain hunter. Hell, I'm a MISER! If I forget my bus pass I'll walk to work out of sheer bloody-minded refusal to pay £3.50 for a bus ticket having already forked out £52 for the monthly saver ticket that I've got stuffed in a coat pocket somewhere.
I am not being punished for being a materialistic cash-waster. I am being punished for being a member of one of the poorest social groups in the most expensive country in the world. Except for Japan. Everyone always pleads for the pensioners, but - here I stamp my foot on my soap box in a moment on total self-absorbed selfish whinging - what about me? I, safely ensconced in the 18-25 age bracket, have done what every model young person is expected to do. I focussed on my studies. I got excellent straight-A exam results. I went to university, I got a degree. I was then propelled from the academic system into the real world where I discovered very quickly what a terrible mistake I had been making. Contrary to what my teachers had been telling me all my life, I was not anything special. I was not destined for greatness. I was not going to go far. And, contrary to what Mr Blair was telling the country for years, education is not the key to a bright future. I was an unemployed inexperienced rather naive young thing with a couple of letters after my name and a student debt as long as my arm.
I did what a huge number of graduates end up doing. I signed on. Well, I tried to. You see, like all good children, I had been taught to save. Save for your future. Save for a rainy day. Save because you can. Save because you have to. Save whatever you can afford. Save even if you CAN'T afford. I had savings. Like a fool, I declared them. The benefits office reviewed my case and told me to fuck off.
Six months later I was still unemployed, largely due to the fact that I had not been given any instruction on how to look for a job in the past seven years and didn't have the faintest clue what to do with a BA in English. I had asked the Job Centre for advice. They said they could only help me if I was signing on, which I wasn't, because they wouldn't let me. Eventually I had spent all my savings on extravagant luxuries such as rent and heating and food, so they let me sign on.
Looking back, I should have blown all my savings on holidays and designer clothes and would have ended up in exactly the same place I am now, albeit with a lot more happy memories and a lot less evenings spent eating cold baked beans in the dark. The System, you see (I use capitals in the same manner as one would when discussing The Man) hates people who are responsible. They want to reward the unscrupulous and the wasteful.
"Do you have any savings?"
"I did, but I spent them all on this enormous statue of Wayne Rooney."
"Oh, what a pity. Here, have a cheque for three grand."
"Do you have any savings?"
"Yes, I've been squirrelling money away in a post office account since I was seven. I plan to form my own business selling homemade sweaters and I'm going to donate half my profits to the NSPCC."
"Oh how lovely. Fuck off."
I could, alternatively, go and get pregnant. They would probably give me money then. Perhaps in this enlightened world where women are putting their lives and careers first, the government feel they need to bribe young women from poorer backgrounds to encourage breeding. (Worryingly, the suggestion was made to a young woman who had lost both her parents in a house fire and was trying to claim benefit in order to continue her schooling.)
Apparently though, by the time I am 25, I will be entitled to income support. A fair amount of it actually. But ONLY once I am 25. I don't quite know how they work that out. Maybe once you are over 25 the desperate need to own more than one pair of shoes becomes too much to bear and they have to throw some cash at you to stop you turning to drugs and petty theft. However, I have well over a year to go before then. So, until then, I have to survive on £720 a month in a world where bills can easily exceed £500 (if you are wasteful and greedy and do stupid things like putting the heating on every day in January and stocking the fridge more than once a month). This has of course put pay to my plan to rent my own little place somewhere within walking distance to work so as to scrape the rent together out of the cash I would save by not having to pay for bus passes and taxis. Looks like I will be sharing for the forseeable future. At least until I'm 25.
Of course, before that time comes, I plan to blow what little remains of my savings on a holiday and a car. I've fucking well earned it.