The trouble with redundancy money is that it can make you feel quite rich. My personal ‘Gosh I’m rolling in it’ feeling lasted until the end of the first month when my bank account and credit card statements came in and I got a reality check instead of a salary cheque.
It was summer, and hot and sunny, and I‘d spent most of that month enjoying all the unaccustomed free time that comes with not having to get up and go somewhere. I’d signed on, of course, and I was looking at advertisements and working on my CV, but I didn’t feel any sense of urgency because, of course, I had all that money - more money, actually, than I'd ever had in my bank account in my life at any one time. In fact I felt as though I was on some kind of well-deserved holiday, that I all the time in the world to find another job, and that my future was assured and would just take care of itself. I drifted into the library, trawled the bookshops, took picnics to the park, and wandered about looking at stuff, feeling secure and rich - and, of course, spending money.
I didn’t actually spend anything that I wouldn’t normally have spent in an ordinary month - but I’d never appreciated exactly quite how much I was spending in an ordinary month until I saw the hole I’d made in my redundancy money in under 30 days.
I spent a whole afternoon typing out a spreadsheet and trying to work out where that money had gone to, and when I saw the figures in black and white (or, to be truthful, mostly in red given my circumstances!) I realised that I couldn’t even remember spending most of it - or even identify exactly what I’d bought with it, or where.
It was tracking down the nail polish that woke me up to the real world. I’d bought some Revlon nail polish in one of many tours round the shops; and when I looked at the price of it I realised that I’d spent exactly one tenth of my Job Seekers allowance on a small bottle of pink paint that I didn’t really need because I already had lots of small bottles of pink paint.
It was then that I also realised that my benefits were a small drop in the big bucket of my expenses; that if I kept that up I was going to be in real trouble, and that I hadn’t been really concentrating on getting a job, because my redundancy money had given a false sense of security.
I carried on carting around credit cards for another week after that, and then went back to a cash economy. Credit cards made it too difficult for me to keep track of what I was spending. Actually, they made it too difficult to stop spending, full stop. Paying cash makes you think about the immediate price of whatever you're looking at. Not having enough cash with you also gives you time to realise that you likely don't need whatever you're looking at, and probably don't actually want it, either.
It’s usually debt advisory agencies that encourage people to set out a budget on paper, cut out all the extraneous stuff and leave their credit cards at home, but it's actually good advice for anybody – and it’s particularly good advice if you happen to be ‘temporarily self-employed’. You don’t have to cut out everything that makes you feel better or more confident about yourself and the way you look, but you might need to develop a new set of habits - and be a lot less wasteful.
Nail polish lasts really well in the ‘fridge!
Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/
It was summer, and hot and sunny, and I‘d spent most of that month enjoying all the unaccustomed free time that comes with not having to get up and go somewhere. I’d signed on, of course, and I was looking at advertisements and working on my CV, but I didn’t feel any sense of urgency because, of course, I had all that money - more money, actually, than I'd ever had in my bank account in my life at any one time. In fact I felt as though I was on some kind of well-deserved holiday, that I all the time in the world to find another job, and that my future was assured and would just take care of itself. I drifted into the library, trawled the bookshops, took picnics to the park, and wandered about looking at stuff, feeling secure and rich - and, of course, spending money.
I didn’t actually spend anything that I wouldn’t normally have spent in an ordinary month - but I’d never appreciated exactly quite how much I was spending in an ordinary month until I saw the hole I’d made in my redundancy money in under 30 days.
I spent a whole afternoon typing out a spreadsheet and trying to work out where that money had gone to, and when I saw the figures in black and white (or, to be truthful, mostly in red given my circumstances!) I realised that I couldn’t even remember spending most of it - or even identify exactly what I’d bought with it, or where.
It was tracking down the nail polish that woke me up to the real world. I’d bought some Revlon nail polish in one of many tours round the shops; and when I looked at the price of it I realised that I’d spent exactly one tenth of my Job Seekers allowance on a small bottle of pink paint that I didn’t really need because I already had lots of small bottles of pink paint.
It was then that I also realised that my benefits were a small drop in the big bucket of my expenses; that if I kept that up I was going to be in real trouble, and that I hadn’t been really concentrating on getting a job, because my redundancy money had given a false sense of security.
I carried on carting around credit cards for another week after that, and then went back to a cash economy. Credit cards made it too difficult for me to keep track of what I was spending. Actually, they made it too difficult to stop spending, full stop. Paying cash makes you think about the immediate price of whatever you're looking at. Not having enough cash with you also gives you time to realise that you likely don't need whatever you're looking at, and probably don't actually want it, either.
It’s usually debt advisory agencies that encourage people to set out a budget on paper, cut out all the extraneous stuff and leave their credit cards at home, but it's actually good advice for anybody – and it’s particularly good advice if you happen to be ‘temporarily self-employed’. You don’t have to cut out everything that makes you feel better or more confident about yourself and the way you look, but you might need to develop a new set of habits - and be a lot less wasteful.
Nail polish lasts really well in the ‘fridge!
Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/
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