Month 2, Day 17: Falling off the Wagon

So the weekend spend was £20.38. Nothing exciting, just booze, food and petrol.

The real story is that I fell off the no-news bandwagon. The reason was that I found out about the Bear Stearns collapse. I managed not to read up on it for a day after I found out about it. I gave in this morning, and have wasted virtually the entire day clueing myself up on what’s been happening since I last was keeping track about three weeks ago. It’s quite frightening to see the massive deterioration in the situation since I last looked at it. Most revealing is that all the important people are still saying exactly the same things as they were last time I tuned in. They say that it’s all fine, and the worst is past. Since I last heard them speak like this, it’s got worse by a staggering degree. It’s the worst thing to happen in the financial markets in the lifetime of anyone who’s likely to be reading this. Tune into BBC News 24 though, as I did at lunchtime, and what you’re going to get is literally non-stop coverage of the McCartney divorce settlement.

So with this in mind, I got shot of my 74 dollars, in exchange for £33.91.

Balance = £166.18 (+8.9%)

I need to break my renewed news addiction though, so I solemnly swear not to go onto the news websites again this month. There’s nothing I can do about it, the best thing I can do for myself is get my thesis written…

Month 2, Day 13: Sale of the Century

The idea in selling stuff is that I should get some money for things that have no value to me, stuff that I’ll never use again, and that in other months I would just let gather dust. In this spirit, I sold my laptop yesterday, for the princely sum of £125. It’s not been working for ages now, since I spilt a glass of water on it in my sleep. Minus the postage and the paypal, that’s £109.72 to add the budget. To celebrate, it was out for drinks to the The Woods and the Picture House, net cost £7.45. I said “to hell with poverty, give the cat a canary” and genuinely thought I was going out to whoop it up and spend some serious cash. It’s kind of embarassing that I only spent £7.45 really. I tried to end the night with a meal from the Ming Yin (it’s seriously called that), but they shut the door on my nose. Some ebay costs from last month came in £3.12.

Tonight it’s a haggis lasagne banquet with friends, share the wealth.

Balance = £165.79 (+148.8%)

EAPCCI

1. Houses for sale on my street = 3 (no change, was 2 at the start)
2. Price of petrol at the Tesco down the street = 107.9p/l (up 3p, was 103.9p at the start)
3. Price of 1kg of spaghetti in Lidl = 79p (no change, was 69p at the start)

Day 15: Procrastinor!

So, the final ebay item is sent off. That netted me £8.16. Cost me 40p to send it off. I bought myself a loaf of bread and a tin of beans and sausages to celebrate, £1.36. Pretty good you say.

Not so fast though. Upon my return from The Somerfield, I got a phone call from the guy who bought the wireless router. Not working he says. Turns out it wasn’t BT’s fault for my non-functioning ADSL, it was the router’s! This means that all the internet trouble I’ve had over the last year, all the calls to the landlord, all the visits from BT, the switch to cable and the ensuing dispute with Virgin Media were all because of this damn router! And it’s not done tormenting me yet, it’s just cost me another £11.41 in a refund.

I was expecting another green day today, but it ain’t going to happen:

Balance = £107.54 (-4.5%)

The guy with the router was pretty decent about it, even though he’s clearly lost fruitless hours trying to get it going. It took me all of 10 seconds on the phone with him to offer the refund, recognised the symptoms he described instantly. God knows what kind of joker he must think I am, given that we already had this exchange on the eBay messages:

Dear newgantlord,

can we have the system password for the 3com router

- jimloura

Dear jimloura,

oh god yeah, the system password. It does include a swear word I’m afraid. Promise not to get offended?

- newgantlord

Dear newgantlord,

dont wworry i will not be offended please send

- jimloura

Dear jimloura,

the password is fucksticks

- newgantlord

(cringe)

The real story of the last 24 hours has been my abject failure in getting any work done. I installed a firefox tool called Meetimer on Macca’s recommendation. It tracks the websites you visit, and warns you if you’re procrastinating. It also logs the amount of time you spend on your usual suspect sites. For me it’s Facebook, the Guardian Unlimited, Bad Science, BBC News, ft.com, and some other finance pages. Oh, and Limmy. First day with it was good, only wasted 41 minutes, it
kept me in check. Yesterday was appalling though. In the last 24 hours I spent an astounding 8+ hours of work time on non-work websites. The worst thing is, I can see myself behaving in this terrible manner, but I can’t seem to do anything about it.

I have decided to externalise my demon: I am in the grip of Procrastinor, a fiendish being who has enslaved me. At the top of the page is a blank space. I’m hoping that either Bobby J or Macca would supply me with an artist’s impression of Procrastinor, so I can really picture who I’m battling against. I think both would produce very good renditions, though they would be good in very different ways.

Update: Macca got in their first with his impression of Procrastinor. I’m sure you’d all agree that he’s once more done himself proud. The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that Procrastor has changed to Procrastinor. This is what Macca knows this beast as, and I think it’s a better name.

Off-Topic: Feel free to ignore this. I just want to link to this blog post about Netcetera who have shamefully bowed to groundless legal threats and suspended Andy Lewis’s excellent Quackometer blog. A few more links like this and the holfordwatch piece will be moved from no.11 in the google results for “Netcetera” onto the first page of results.

Day 14: Still Soldiering On

So barring my Valentine’s day expenses (£44.46, for a relationship that ended on Friday – ouch!), I hadn’t actually spent any money since the booze for the little pie party last Tuesday.

Last night, I was kindly invited for dinner in return for Tuesday’s pie evening by the marvellous Phil, Gemma and Colin. I brought along with me 6 creme eggs, £2.38.

I sent away 3 of the 4 things I sold on ebay. £44.47 so far in my paypal account, and £9.78 spent on P&P, for a net change of £34.69. The guy who bought the wireless card still hasn’t paid up though, the terrible bastard.

Oh and eBay never charged me the £1.20 they should have, so that’s a nice bonus.

What does this do to the balance?

Balance: £112.55 (+42.3%)

Yes! That’s much more like it. I reckon I will do as Omar suggested and buy a bag of dried chillies from Asda to celebrate!

I think the real story here is that in seven days the only money I have spent exclusively on myself was the purchase of some toothpaste. Part of the reason that I’m able to put up with all this austerity and self-denial without much pain is that my main concern right now isn’t lack of money. It’s the fact that I have a thesis to write, and it’s weighing on me like a ten-tonne weight. I really share Macca’s pain here, and I want to big him up because he’s so much nearer to judgement day than I am. So it’s quite easy not to spend any money on yourself on a Saturday night, when said Saturday night is spent working in the office till midnight. Thank god I was actually working on the Saturday though, the only thing grimmer and more pitiful than working alone at midnight on a Saturday is procrastinating on your own at midnight on a Saturday.

Not working today though, oh no. It’s been a near total write-off. I’ve spent most of it rubbernecking at the Max Gogarty flamefest. If not that then it’s the upcoming economic trainwreck that steals my attention. Oh, and there’s this delight too.

But all the same, I feel quite good about life right now. Got my guitar, got my bike, got a warm bed, warm house and nice people around me who put up with me even though I won’t stop talking about Max Gogarty or the End of the Financial World. Oh, and I’ve still got my whisky and Cuban cigars. Let’s not shed any tears for me just yet!

Day 10: Happy Valentine’s eBay Day!