Money Makes The World Go Round

There's not many things in this world that I can say I truly hate. Rapists, murderers, paedo's sort of go without saying. But the other thing I hate, in fact I despise.. is money.

I've always been fairly good with money. Okay, I will correct that.. I'm sickeningly responsible. I'm tight. I know exactly where my money is going before I even have it.

I know exactly what bill is going out, what day, how much and even if it will be delayed because of bank holidays. I know every incoming and outgoing and I nearly always know how much is disposable.

However, in the past few years I've begun to hate the sight of it. A letter through the door is just another reminder that there are bills to pay. My wage slip is a huge slap in the face that reminds me it's all already spent.

Out of our monthly income, we have on average £56 disposable income. That's after tax and all the bills being paid. £56 is NOTHING. Thanks to tax credits we are able to get by week to week buying our food shopping out of it. If anything were to go wrong.. we'd be screwed. Like royally screwed. There is no spare income. There are no savings.

Recently, we've been hoping to buy a car. We had a whole bunch of savings, more than we'd ever had. But personal circumstances changed and the money ended up being needed. It is all gone.

Back when Ross lost his job, the Job Centre messed up by payments. You may recall a huge, long, rant I had about how useless they were. Well, thanks to them, my credit rating is now equally as shit. Because Job Seekers decided not to pay me for 2 months, I couldn't pay my bills. Even my rent was late. Luckily our landlord is a nice bloke and he let it slide. A whole year later, my credit rating is in tatters and I can't get credit. Not a penny.

I don't blame them. Who wants to lend money to the girl who couldn't pay her bills in time? It might not have been her fault, but that might happen to us. She's not trustworthy.

The one thing that pisses me off the most?

I am trustworthy. I am responsible to the point it drives Ross crazy. I don't buy things for myself. Ever. Because that £20 spent buying a new handbag I spotted last week, is £20 I could have spent on the electric when it runs out. It's £20 less spent on something I don't NEED to live.

It's a sad way to live. No, scratch that. It's a shit way to live.

I know there are people out there far worse off than me. Even in my head I sound silly for complaining about it, but we just seem to be stuck in a financial dead end. It's hard enough to find a job these days, never mind one that pays well. Whilst the cost of everything around us goes up, we're still stuck here on minimum wage just about scraping enough to get by. There are no luxuries. We've never taken a family holiday. Unless you count Skegness.Without a car he can't get a job. Without a job, he can't get a car.

I hate money. I hate it a lot. I'm sure I'd love it, if I had some. But I don't. And that my friends, is what they call a catch 22.