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Having my nap interrupted by mum telling me the student loan office wanted slightlymore money* than I firmly remember from the beginning of this year, I did not flail or panic (much). Instead, I sat down and recalculated my financial picture until January 15th. It can be done. It will be done. It's just painful and upsetting and there's various reasons for that:
1) Rejigging the budget cuts into my Yay All For Me Whoo! guilt-free spending allocation (one book+one DVD+one game (+interchangable category gift rule. I can declare up to two categories as being gifts. The value this frees up can be spent on as many gifts as I want)). So much so that I may have to drop it entirely and come up with a separate rule for guilt free money spent on me and guilt free money spent on gifts. This troubles me as introducing more rules means introducing more loopholes, therefore more ways in which I can fail.
2) Rejigging the budget means I won't be able to reduce my overdraft nearly as much as I had promised myself which in turn means I have a) broken a promise to myself and b) there will be no iPod until later in 2013. So I've currently got a massive conflict going between the adult ("No iPod until we fullfill these prerequisites!") and the child ("You promised us we'd get an iPod!"). I know I need to get through this and not fall for the trap of "well, there's no way I'm going to succeed now, so might as well buy the shiny anyway..."**. I've never succeeded before now, but I must be able to do it. It's not an arcane talent, surely.
3) The Large Chunk o' Money I have been setting aside for the past three months (1/3 of my monthly salary, to give you an idea) has not been Large Enough. This one's triggered my "why do we even bother" response something fierce. There's only one thing in this that I do not have any control over and that's the exchange rate. Had I got to the cut-off date in December and realised I was short a few quid short due to exchange rates, I would have been annoyed, but it would not have necessitated a kermitflail and complete redesign of the budget. I should have double-checked the amount DUO wanted at least three/four months ago, which would have allowed me to redo the budget earlier without all this drama.
Of course, now the brainweasels are regurgitating all those things we should not have spent money on in the last few months,
- Phosphor (we could've kept using the laptop even though it was noisy and cumbersome and at least 5 years old and had started to cough when messing around with large text files and also wasn't really ours).
- Trip to Plymouth and Weymouth and the Netherlands (because, well, who needs to spend time with people you love!)
- Glass blowing classes (who does glass blowing these days? Also, now we've got asthma, we won't be able to go with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
azekeil anyway because people who are ill and can't manage their money don't deserve to give cool gifts to loved ones nor do we deserve to share said cool stuff with them)
- Clothes (because wearing worn and faded clothes makes us feel so attractive!)
- Hair (because fuck wanting to look nice!)
Fleh.
It's going to be fine. It's just going to suck until I get there.
* 'bout three quarters of the initial sum remembered extra, in fact. Can I get a pained hiss from everyone, brothers and sisters?
** Erm...Not that I think anyone's going to do this, but I want to make this absolutely clear: do not even think of gifting me any kind of MP3 player, iPod or otherwise. Nothing new, nothing refurbished. No teaming up. No chipping in. Not for Christmas, not for Hanukkah, not for FuckitItsDarkLetsSpoilOurFriends. Not even for OhButShesTryingSoHardSheDeservesANiceThing. This one's mine and I'm going to earn it and if you cross me in this, I will set my attack raptors on you. And also never speak to you again.
1) Rejigging the budget cuts into my Yay All For Me Whoo! guilt-free spending allocation (one book+one DVD+one game (+interchangable category gift rule. I can declare up to two categories as being gifts. The value this frees up can be spent on as many gifts as I want)). So much so that I may have to drop it entirely and come up with a separate rule for guilt free money spent on me and guilt free money spent on gifts. This troubles me as introducing more rules means introducing more loopholes, therefore more ways in which I can fail.
2) Rejigging the budget means I won't be able to reduce my overdraft nearly as much as I had promised myself which in turn means I have a) broken a promise to myself and b) there will be no iPod until later in 2013. So I've currently got a massive conflict going between the adult ("No iPod until we fullfill these prerequisites!") and the child ("You promised us we'd get an iPod!"). I know I need to get through this and not fall for the trap of "well, there's no way I'm going to succeed now, so might as well buy the shiny anyway..."**. I've never succeeded before now, but I must be able to do it. It's not an arcane talent, surely.
3) The Large Chunk o' Money I have been setting aside for the past three months (1/3 of my monthly salary, to give you an idea) has not been Large Enough. This one's triggered my "why do we even bother" response something fierce. There's only one thing in this that I do not have any control over and that's the exchange rate. Had I got to the cut-off date in December and realised I was short a few quid short due to exchange rates, I would have been annoyed, but it would not have necessitated a kermitflail and complete redesign of the budget. I should have double-checked the amount DUO wanted at least three/four months ago, which would have allowed me to redo the budget earlier without all this drama.
Of course, now the brainweasels are regurgitating all those things we should not have spent money on in the last few months,
- Phosphor (we could've kept using the laptop even though it was noisy and cumbersome and at least 5 years old and had started to cough when messing around with large text files and also wasn't really ours).
- Trip to Plymouth and Weymouth and the Netherlands (because, well, who needs to spend time with people you love!)
- Glass blowing classes (who does glass blowing these days? Also, now we've got asthma, we won't be able to go with
azekeil anyway because people who are ill and can't manage their money don't deserve to give cool gifts to loved ones nor do we deserve to share said cool stuff with them)- Clothes (because wearing worn and faded clothes makes us feel so attractive!)
- Hair (because fuck wanting to look nice!)
Fleh.
It's going to be fine. It's just going to suck until I get there.
* 'bout three quarters of the initial sum remembered extra, in fact. Can I get a pained hiss from everyone, brothers and sisters?
** Erm...Not that I think anyone's going to do this, but I want to make this absolutely clear: do not even think of gifting me any kind of MP3 player, iPod or otherwise. Nothing new, nothing refurbished. No teaming up. No chipping in. Not for Christmas, not for Hanukkah, not for FuckitItsDarkLetsSpoilOurFriends. Not even for OhButShesTryingSoHardSheDeservesANiceThing. This one's mine and I'm going to earn it and if you cross me in this, I will set my attack raptors on you. And also never speak to you again.
