Ca$hing In

I acted responsibly for once this weekend.

I’d managed to build up nearly £900 in my bank account after the decision to take £300 as a Christmas advance (something that I soon found out I didn’t need – not in the slightest!), the major temptation with that amount of money is to blow it on something big. It’s happened time and time again with me, Xboxes, Macs, PS3′s. When it comes to money and gadgets – I have form!

However, the circumstances are currently a little different. My contract at the ILF is only a seven month affair. It started the 1st of September and runs until the end of March, so wasting copious amounts of cash wouldn’t be the wisest move. In all likelihood they will keep me on with another short term contract, but just to be on the safe side I need a back up plan.

Hoarding the money seemed the better option, until my parents pointed out that spending a large chunk of the money on outstanding bills (£250 at Argos, £360 at Home Shopping Direct) would be better for a possible jobless person such as myself, as these respective companies wouldn’t be hounding me monthly for a tiny portion of what I owe them. With the end of my mobile phone contract (possibly the last ever one, i can’t see anyone taking me on with my credit rating!) the only money I have outgoing each month is board and £60 on a bus pass. Marvellous!

It’s good that these bills are settled, although I now have the rather more substantial matter of the £2100 i owe HSBC. But having made the jump into responsibility by paying off these bills, I could see myself debt free within the year – should the news about my job be positive…

Of course it wouldn’t be me without some sort of mad purchase. And within a few months I will have just that. I’ve got my eye on a brand new TV (yes, another one), that will replace the monitor and old 28″ telly that currently reside in my bedroom. It’s a Sony Bravia LCD 37″ TV that looks awesome, and is a snip at £600 at Amazon. I feel I’ve done the responsible part by paying off the bills, now onto the mad part where I spunk away all my cash on needless technology.

Which of course is the best part!

Joining the Elite

It’s been four weeks since I started my new job at the ILF, i know it’s been that amount of time because I received my payslip the other day!

So, a month of hard work (!) and I get rewarded with £50 short of a grand. It was very pleasing to be given that on Friday, shame I won’t get it deposited into my account until Wednesday – last day of September and that – but i’ve earmarked the money already. Bills are most important, as is board of course, but i’m rewarding myself with a big fat treat. I’m going to buy an Xbox 360 Elite.

Iain is to blame, he showed me a game or two on his Xbox last weekend. There’s also the redesigned Xbox Live and the fact that Iain is planning on getting Call of Duty 4 and playing it online. The best thing about that game is the multiplayer, i’d love to get in on the action! I only ever got rid of my 360 in the first place because of what I believed it did to my games. I had Assassins Creed and was annoyed that the 360 scratched it so badly that it wouldn’t load. I was furious. It also did a similar thing to my copy of Burnout Paradise.

What with the release of Grand Theft Auto 4 just around the corner, I decided to trade it all in for a PS3 and be sure that no disc-scratching antics would happen on my new console. A good while after I’d done all this I found out the reason as to why the 360 scratched up the discs so badly. I’d changed the way I had my 360 standing, from horizontal to vertical. Apparently the 360 has a hard time reading the discs properly when it’s on its side, so it scratches them. I’m not entirely sure how or why, but here I was blaming my console for ruining the games when all along I was to blame.

By this point I’d had my PS3 and was happy with it, and still am! It’s just that I miss the 360, have more friends on Xbox Live than on the PSN, and am now in a position to spunk £200 on a new toy!

Back to my new job, I’m happy that I’ve made a good enough impression on them. My one to one meeting went well, my team (all 5 of them!) seem happy enough with how well i’m doing and how well i have adapted. I just need to keep this up so when it comes to the end of my contract, they renew it rather than pass. The one major obstacle in my path its the likely change of government next year. David Cameron isn’t a great fan of these offshoots of the DWP like us, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens next year. What hasn’t helped the ILF at all is what was reported in the Sunday Times the other week. Oh dear…!

Big week this week, getting paid, Goose Fair is on, a ‘working lunch’ on Thursday where all of our team go to the local Italian restaurant for a bite to eat and the likely purchase of a new console. Yay!