Dosh

If there's one thing I hate, it's money. It's a little bit of bullshit that ruins wallets and ruins lives.

It's implemented to create a balance to greed. Back in the day if someone was greedy, they would simply steal whatever it was they wanted. Food, machinery, even homes.

Money is a pleasant distraction from the temptation of simply taking things away. There's at least a balanced trade, where you can sell food for money to buy another machine that you apply to your home. A simple chain of events.

Greed is centred on the one aspect, rather than just “having it all”, and to earn it you work for it. You earn more and you spend less, mostly to save some sort of money so you can use it for potential emergencies.

That's what I hate about money though. It's trying to manhandle the crap that comes with the responsibility of having money.

Just recently I had to move, and after saving money every week to actually guarantee that I'm going to live in the new residence, I have all but drained myself of money. I'm lucky to have my credit card to get me by without getting charged an arse-tonne of overdrawn fees and whatever other bullshit the bank can pull out.

Although my new landlady is very loose and uncaring of how the situation pans out (i.e. Pay it when you can so long as you do pay it) I hate having to owe money. I still owe money to my mates for getting some stuff back in the country for me, and while I know they won't be disappearing any time soon and that I can get the money to them, I still feel guilty for not having paid them back yet after 2 months.

Then there's the car rego. I have a car that I can't drive because I don't have my Open license yet. I don't even have my provisionals because either I don't know anyone who has the spare time to let me drive them around for an hour or two for 100 days (Sporadically or not), I don't have any money to get lessons from a driving instructor, or I'm just lazy.

But I paid the 6 months rego so that my brother-in-law, who is caring for and using the '88 Toyota Hilux, can drive it without getting pulled over and the both of us copping a fine, and possibly me losing my learners without trying.

Otherwise I have my phone bill which I botched up royally. Instead of going out and buying a $50 phone from the local Telstra Shop, I figured it wouldn't be any harm to simply call them up and have them send a new one. No worries, I thought. I get a new phone without any problems.

About a month later, I receive a letter in my mailbox that was 2 weeks late, informing me that my bill was 4 digits long, and 57 cents. Separation fees account the remaining amount on the current plan along with a handful of other fees, and while I was in the US I made a few overseas calls to the US. So I get doubly charged by calling from the US to AUS and back to the US.

Gladly the only amount actually overdue was the calls, to which I roused up some money and threw it at them with a few harsh words in tow. So now the only amount I owe is the separation fee which remains until the original contract ends late next year. That should slowly be whittled away now, especially since I don't send many texts and make many calls these days.


After having a conversation with my landlady we discovered that we got a little lost in translation. She requested a week in advance. “Week in advance” to me meant that I needed another weeks rent to pay her for emergencies. But no, that's just a weeks worth of rent that I don't have to deal with and can put into other things. Like Groceries.

Food is an annoying thing to deal with because you always fucking need it. It's not an issue of “Oh he's a boy, he won't know what to get for himself to cook, cos he doesn't do that sort of thing”. That's not true. I can do a pretty greasy spaghetti bog, if I do say so myself. And Stuffed potatoes? I'll probably need to get a steamer for the microwave, but that's about it. Butter, Sour Cream, Coleslaw, Fried mince, diced tomatoes, shallots, some grated cheese and voila. A pile of food you can make vicious dinner to.

But the other problem is that I go to Harrys Diner every day. I have a Tab there and so I pay him whatever I've racked up at the end of the week. Now my diet usually consists of one, maybe two cans of V a day. Yes, this is very unhealthy (I like to think I balance that out with water and no caffeinated drinks over weekends (Short of Jager Bombs)). Then I have whatever takes my fancy at Harrys, which can be anything from a Bacon and egg sandwich, to a Harrys Hotdog, to a Harrys Breakfast. One time I asked for baked beans and toast, and it was good. But it all adds up and over the past couple of weeks my tab has been a little too high. I need to get off the caffeine and lower myself to 2 meals a day, breakfast and lunch, with no snacks in between. It's hard because those paddy cakes with the Pink icing and half covered in Hundred and Thousands taunt me with their deliciousness. They're so fluffy I could die with every bite!

Luckily this week, I'd either done really well or James had forgotten to put things on the Tab, so my tally was a reasonable number under the usual. So that extra cash is going towards groceries.

And all through this, I'm still saving because my ING account direct debits my savings account every week. So while it may slim down my weekly budget, it's being put in the right place. Otherwise, I would have to dip into the cash I have left over from the US.

Tell you what, I'm pissed off at the Exchange Rate these days. I wanted to come back and get a profit from what I have left from my visit to Jenny. I wanted to get at LEAST an extra half of extra money. But nooo, apparently some ponce decided to see how bad the dollar can get, and now we're almost at equal dollar value.

I tried explaining exchange rates to Jenny, but I pretty much just confused her. I thought about it the other day another way to explain it and I figured Apples and Oranges may be the way to go.

Say US Dollars are Apples.
Say AU Dollars are Oranges.
You can exchange Apples for Oranges, but you wouldn't necessarily get the same number of apples or oranges.

When I went to the US, I would get 80 percent of an Apple for each Orange I traded in. I was hoping to get the same when I got back, or if the exchange rate had changed, I would end up with more Oranges than I originally traded in.

So I went there with 100 Oranges. I traded in and got 80 Apples. If the exchange rate had changed from 80 apples per 100 oranges to 70 Apples per 100 oranges, I would have 80 Apples to change back to Oranges, which works out to be 114 Oranges.

However, my hopes were dashed when the exchange rate continued to balance. At the moment, we're getting ~99 Apples per orange. So with those 80 Apples I have, I will get back 80 Oranges (And a lemon peel). So with the exchange, I've lost 20 Oranges.

Fingers crossed that makes some sort of sense to her? Fact of the matter is, I want to get this dosh out of my friggin house and into my savings account so that I have a reasonable amount of emergency money. Call me greedy, but it's nice to have a contingency stash. Not to mention, I can use it to spend on Jenny when she gets here.

*Sigh* I hate money. Can't live with it, can't live without it.


Damnit! I can't resist a big block of crunchie.