More Banking Nonsense

It's been a long while since I've posted, but the past two weeks have really been infuriating me. I went to the bank about a month ago and agreed a strategy to get myself out of debt.

The first month was shaky, we had a hen night, wedding, gig, Jubilee and trip to Cambridgeshire so it was destined to be an expensive one. So I went back to my lovely personal banker who looked at me without judgement and said, ok, let's try a different tactic. I now have a spending account into which money goes on payday, and that is all I have to spend for the month. I also have a savings account to raise money for treats, wedding and eventually my overdraft.

Feeling very proud of myself, Nick and I have since booked a holiday and made a strict pledge to save up money for the flights and spends by September (thanks Mum and Dad for paying for it and for letting us just pay for the flights and not the accommodation).

Nickie and I are doing everything we can to raise the £600.00 each (£300.00 for flights, £300.00 for spending money) by September, and if we can, we will be in Turkey for two weeks in a lovely Villa chosen by Mum and Dad. We're shopping at Aldi, and spending no more that £25.00/week on food. We're taking lunch every day and eating very healthily - all salads and baked potatoes. No meals out, no takeaways (this isn't just a money saving thing, I want to lose a stone and a half by the holiday too). We are going to Chester Races this weekend which was booked ages ago and will serve as the final blow out, although even that is going to be done on the cheap as much as possible.

Our only treats will be Orange Wednesday cinema as it costs just £3.00/person with my Printworks savings card. At night we will be using our Apple vouchers to rent movies, playing on our new Macbook game "Cradle of Egypt" which we both downloaded after playing it on Mum Bernsmeier's computer when we went to visit. We CAN do this, I am determined that in the next three paydays, provided we don't splurge or go to Pride, we can save £600.00 each without resorting to the credit card!

So you can imagine my surprise when, after making this promise to the bank, more banking nonsense starts to emerge. Beginning with NatWest and their abysmal handling of their own personal banking crisis. It affected a friend of ours who banks with NatWest and also works in payroll. She spent Friday saying "Yes, I know, my salary hasn't gone in either". I think people might have been a tad more understanding had the crisis been resolved in a couple of days. But after SIX days of missed flights, lost homes and cancelled children's birthday parties, you could forgive people for being more than a little irate!

I was lucky that it didn't affect me, buI I felt so sorry for people, particularly when I read about the couple who missed their honeymoon! Even at that point I thought, it's forgiveable, it's a possibly unavoidable IT issue. So you can perhaps understand my fury when on Thursday night, unable to sleep I logged on to the paper to read about the Barclays Libor scam. It was 3 in the morning, but even through my sleep deprived haze, I knew that some SERIOUSLY illegal stuff had gone on. As day broke and more of the story about how traders had made themselves approximately one metric shit tonne of extra cash by lying, scheming and fixing interest rates, I found myself positively paralysed with anger. The next story to break was that this dishonesty, this collusion crossed the entire banking sector and through the upper echelons of management. Yes, that's right, whilst you and I were feeling guilty about splurging on that holiday and wondering how we could afford our Love Film subscription of £6.00/month, the banks were literally bullshitting their way to massive profits, and of course bonuses.

Meanwhile in the real world, small businesses were being missold insurance (again? Seriously?) and normal folk who work bloody hard were trusting their bank managers as they said "so sorry, no loan, you're a financial risk!" what the hell? These men, no better than gamblers who damn near bankcrupted the country telling us poor folk (very poor folk sometimes) that we're the ones who can't be trusted.

So, what is to be done? Well first to rewrite my British Spring blog and place the blame on the bankers. I don't think regulation could have neither predicted nor prevented this dishonesty. And then what? How about we protest? On the streets, on the internet and with our wallets! Goodbye to big banks and hello to community credit schemes. A friend of mine told me how she had just stopped paying her loan and it got me thinking. One person refusing to pay hurts only that person. The bank doesn't care. Just another sap who can be charged extra interest and fined up the wazoo! But what if it was a million people? What if it was 10 million? What if every person with a bank loan in the UK all simultaneously ceased paying? What could the banks do? What a glorious day! Perhaps then they will realise they are not untouchable. Sadly this is unlikely to happen as the only thing we fear more than not having enough money to pay for the stupid loans in the first place is bailiffs knocking on our front doors.

Any suggestions on a postcard to...

What Seriously?

UK Citizens to Cameron & Clegg... "That's ANOTHER fine mess you've gotten us into!"

The story of the week has to be the cap on tax relief for Charitable Donations...

Feeling genuinely sick at the prospect of cancer charities and children's charities and LGBT charities losing out on money because these pricks are so determined to avoid a return to the 50p tax!

The people this will hurt are LITERALLY (and I really mean that), the most vulnerable in society. The Manchester Children's Hospital, Age UK, The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research - will ALL miss out (not to mention the rest), because of this bungled, muddled together legislation. In my opinion (and this is only my opinion), if celebrities and rich people want to give large amounts of money to charity as a way of LEGALLY avoiding paying tax, that's absolutely fine. I'm happy for them to keep their tax as long as they are saving children, protecting the most vulnerable and assisting in finding cures for diseases (plus all that other amazing work that charities do!)

In the paper this morning, I've seen some of our richest citizens threaten to stop giving to charity in protest of this new legislation. It would be easy to vilify them for their actions. I mean, how dare they try to avoid paying tax! But it's not about the tax. It's about the charity.

My fab Dad and I were chatting again about this foolish and hasty statute. We talked about who is really to blame and who thought up this ridiculous legislation and we both agreed that it doesn't matter who came up with the idea that a cap on charity tax relief was efficacious to society. Those steering the country (i.e. Cameron and to a lesser extent, nodding dog Clegg) had the final say. Do not let the headlines blind you to the fact that this is a direct attack on the most vulnerable in society and don't forget to focus your blame in the right direction.

Lydia

So What Now?

Thanks for all the feedback on my last post! Knowing that others feel the same way made me feel incredibly humbled and though I don't seek to speak for anybody other than myself, it was reassuring that I'm not going mad!

For a while now, I've felt like a big change is coming, like something's going to happen. I don't know what that might be, but I know I want to be a part of it. Imagine people, members of the public, all classes coming together for a common purpose.

I'm not talking anarchy, or the dissolution of the government, or a move towards a socialist Britain, or abandoning capitalism. I'm talking about 6 million people quietly stating that the status quo is unfair. So what do the people want? I can't speak for everybody, but my requests are simple and small.

1) Take the tax burden away from the most vulnerable (the elderly) and put it on the wealthiest by bringing back the 50p tax.

2) Reduce duty on petrol to allow members of the general public to move freely and get to work.

3) Find a better way to fund pensions which means that we can retire at 65.

Three small changes which will affect every person in the country. So, will you stand up and be counted? Will you reclaim your Britain for the people?

Time for a British Spring?

I've just had my Dad round to do a DIY job (I'm one of those non-manual lesbians!) and after he re-hung the towel rail that I broke about six months ago, we got to chatting as we do (I inherited my soapbox from him) and the conversation turned to politics. This is a volatile subject for anyone in these difficult times but for me and Dad it just seems to set us off. He has been lied to and lied to and lied to through his whole life by a series of never-ending and seemingly never changing political parties - but whereas in the old days you could live in hope for the next general election, today I swear we have one guy who keeps changing his tie - red, blue, yellow... What he said next scared me.

"I've NEVER seen it this bad" 

And why did that scare me?

My Dad is in his 50s, and in his lifetime, he has been through the 3 day week (1970-74), the Winter of Discontent (1978-79), the Introduction of the Poll Tax (1989-91), the Early Nineties Recession (1990-93),  and the Early Millennium Recession (2000-01). He's lived through 15% interest rates, Record Inflation of 10.9%, Sky High Local Rates which forced the family (including a two year old me) out of our home and yet he told me today;

"I've NEVER seen it this bad" 

He, and his whole generation were told they'd retire at 65 and then somebody spent their pensions. I know I'll never retire. I'll probably keel over aged 80 at my desk in my final office job.

And whose fault is it? The government, with their deception, spin and outright lies would have you believe it is your fault, or somebody else's fault, or the bankers fault, or the immigrants fault. These same fat cats are the ones making the policies on tax, health, education etc, whilst constantly and consistently undermining the laws they impose. Choosing private schools over public, choosing private health over the  NHS, creating companies in their own names to avoid income tax.

I used to blame the bankers, but now I realise that anyone will do what they can get away with including gambling with money that doesn't exist, insider trading, price fixing, paying extortionate bonuses to the gamblers, mis-selling PPI, offering poor financial advice to poor people, offering mortgages that people could never pay and then repossessing peoples' homes  - the Government should have protected the country's coffers and the money of the working man with regulation, laws and statutes.

I used to blame the high level of immigration (although I am the product of immigration), but now I finally realise that free movement is the right of every law abiding man woman and child on this planet and capping the number of immigrants who come into this country is a violation of natural law. The government should have made it easier for those coming in so they have no need to live and work here illegally and can contribute to this country.

I used to blame the rich, but once again, I realise that they do what they can get away with including refusal to pay a liveable wage, refusal to protect the environment, refusal to respect their employees health and safety, refusal to provide employment opportunities in the UK and instead sending their business overseas. The government should have protected its people and its industry.

And will it get better? I can't foresee a change for the better within my lifetime.

I used to blame the very poor who claim benefits, but now I realise that the poor sod who lost his mining job in the 80s left school with no qualifications and has been left behind by a society which can't even educate its kids anymore, never mind adults struggling with literacy. Unfortunately, they too will do what they can get away with - claiming their dole, HB, CTB, Tax Credits and Child Benefit, spending it giant TVs, Sky, iPhones, drugs, booze, anything to distract from the monotony of a desolate life. The Government, instead of throwing billions of pounds into developing this benefit culture, should have enforced a liveable minimum wage.

I've ALWAYS blamed myself, but now I realise that I too will do what I can get away with, like other normal people. When I have money, I'll spend rather than save - just like the government and my £10,000 debt is nothing compared to the £1Trillion owed by the country. The government should have set a better example frankly - but I'm not blaming them for my own downfall, that was my own doing.

There is nobody left in our Government who can be trusted to save this once great nation. Each and every one of them lies and deceives. I feel sick that my options in the next general election will be three wolves in sheep's clothing - in fact, no, they're not even in sheep's clothing. They make no attempt to disguise their true selves.

So what next? Is it time for action? Is it time for a British Spring? Or is it time for someone to stand up and say NO MORE? Because it's NEVER been this bad, and the only thing we're all in together is The Shit.

Edwina Currie doesn't live in the real world

I know this is a couple of days ago now, but I've been stewing about it since and dying to get something down on my blog!

Edwina Currie took part in a Radio 5 Live Breakfast show, during which she reduced a mother of two to tears. This woman who has previously claimed that she had great difficulty believing that people in Britain were starving, stating "Are you telling me people in this country are going hungry? Seriously? Seriously?"


I was very lucky to have my partner and family around when I was off work who supported me and kept me fed and in a home. Others are not so fortunate. The woman in question whom Edwina reduced to tears was working as was her husband. She fell pregnant and went on maternity leave - then her husband was made redundant from his full time job. All of a sudden their meagre savings dwindled and they were left in arrears for Council Tax and their mortgage. Now a year or so later, the woman is working two part time jobs and her husband has managed to find a third part time job. They are trying desperately to live within their means - but how is that even possible when the National Minimum Wage is just £6.08 per hour? Ten years ago the NMW was £4.10 per hour. That's an increase of a pitiful £1.98 increase in ten years whilst the cost spirals.


This story made me angry for so many reasons. We are by no means living on the breadline, but some months are difficult and this is through no fault of our own. Edwina Currie would have us living in a bedsit, sitting around every evening in front of a black and white television with 4 channels, no internet access or computer. She would probably tell us to eat Smart Price beans for dinner every night in order to build up some savings, and she probably wouldn't approve of our savings going towards our wedding either. 


She needs to come out of her £800,000 house and try living in the real world where you have to make decisions like - 

• What's the cheapest thing I can have for lunch today? (usually a Greggs sausage roll or a pound shop meal deal). 
• How can I manage to get to work on time when I live so far away and can't afford to move? (I was written up for my lateness several times before I managed to move to Manchester, but it was never an affordable option before and I couldn't get a job in my home town)
• Can I afford to replace my holey cardigan? (not really without resorting to the catalogue again!) 
• How am I going to afford to feed my kids? (pray for the kindness of relatives, strangers, the church and food banks).

We're very lucky and in a couple of months we might be able to kick start our finances again. I'm hoping to get some more work building websites and both of us may get pay rises (although that's not guaranteed). But there are people living in the UK today who are genuinely missing two or three meals per week so that their kids can eat; who can't afford the bus fare to get to their job; who haven't had new clothes for two years... 


So Edwina (I assume that all fallen politicians who shagged John Major read my blog!) perhaps  you might like to come down from the land of milk and honey where flipping property and appearing on the radio for extortionate amounts is your source of income which pays you VERY well. Come down to Manchester with £1000.00 and rent a flat, get two kids and try and live - I'm sure you'll be screaming back to Chinley before the end of the first week.


PS - John Major? Gross! I imagine that even his spunk is grey!

WINNING!

Anyone who knows me or reads my Facebook will know that I am now officially saving for my wedding... Actually, that's not strictly true at the moment... I have to sort out a few of my bills for the next couple of months, so at the moment, I'm just trying to reign myself in so that come March I will have money to save. The downside to this is that we are not going to Maspalomas Pride in May, which was quite a special one as it represents somewhat of an anniversary for me and Nick (we barely knew each other when we booked it, and had a magical time!) The upside is that if we can save £100.00/month each, we can afford our dream wedding in March 2014... Hopefully on or around our anniversary which is the 4th. This is the first real thing I've every saved for - everything else has been NOW NOW NOW, credit cards, overdrafts, loans. I am determined that 2012 will be the year of my financial awakening - I've had an epiphany (thanks to my Uncle Cliff who had very wise and six months of being on a very low income). My plan is to treat every month as though they were the last month of 2011. It was a very difficult month, my bills matched my income (and only just thanks to help from Mum and Dad and Nickie). I had no spare cash at all. I had to be clever! I didn't go out, I made all my cards by hand, my presents too - baked gifts, hand made decorations etc. I'd say I spent around £50.00 all in all on ingredients and supplies. For that I managed presents for 6 people and cards for 15.

Now the financial situation is marginally better... without Christmas to contend with, I can manage my bills and travel to and from work, as well as a small food budget. Time to get clever again...

Rules for 2012

1. If you can't pay for it straight away, don't spend it - No more Credit Cards or loans. (Not to mention our unfortunate decision to buy a second hand vacuum cleaner with a view to paying for it "after payday" thinking we had enough money in January...)
2. Justify every penny - All outgoings to be added to a spreadsheet and justified. I have a column labelled "Valid". If I can't honestly justify the spend, the cell is coloured red, the plan is to end up with no reds.
3. Don't pay full price for any item that you can realistically live without - So "Whoops" labelled treats and Orange Wednesday movie nights!
4. Don't buy what you can bake - This includes cakes, biscuits and other tasty treats... it also includes presents.
5. Pay £200.00 off the credit card each month - If I do this for the next 4 months, I can afford to reduce it and save the rest.
6. Make Spare Time Pay - Car boot sales, Web Design, Baked Goods, eBay ... If you can make £1.00 profit, sell it!
7. Be Smart - This deals with two things in particular - my NHS Prescription Pre-Pay card and my travel Season Ticket. I'm on so many meds at the moment that £10.50/month is worth it! In addition, I can get a season ticket loan for the bus which will save me £s!
8. Make One Change - I only buy one or two Starbucks coffees each month, but added up over the year, it's loads of money. No more posh coffees on the way to work (obviously if I'm meeting a friend for coffee, I'm allowed to have one!)
9. The Longer You Hold Off, The Greater The Rewards - That's thanks to my bbf Lucy! Why buy it now when you can pay off a few more bills and treat yourself next month?! 

Following these 9 rules should eventually get me back in the black!

Today was a particularly fortuitous day. I've been telling Nickie for ages that we should try to trade in all of our unused gaming equipment and today we finally did it... We got £130.00 (store credit) trade in for various Wii related equipment (£12.00 extra due to staff incompetence - what do you mean the controllers don't work?! Turned out the "new" batteries they tried were actually dead!). We won't be going out very much so all those new games will definitely be useful!

We also took a set of knives back to Next. They were 11 months old (the finish was chipping and they were going rusty!) and we got the full price back £35.00 onto a refund card. If we're very lucky, we'll get a new set in the sale and then we'll have a little bit to treat ourselves with!

It's a good start... In the next few weeks, we're hoping to do some car boot sales, and putting some old designer clothes on eBay. In March we're opening a joint (scary!) savings account and every extra penny will go into it. I just hope my resolve will keep firm! Wish me luck!

*amendments are in italics

Another Year Over

This time last year I was suffering terribly with the flu, I was laid up in bed and I had just been dumped. How different my life is now! In the past twelve months, so much has happened that I feel I must make a record of it. In spite of everything, 2011 has truly been the best year of my life, mostly thanks to one person, but I'm getting ahead of myself now...

Waking up on New Years Day 2011, I had a bad headache which was annoying as I hadn't drank a drop of alcohol at the party the night before. My heart ached as badly as my head and for some reason, I was still missing my ex-girlfriend. I had made no plans for 2011, no resolutions as I find them impossible to keep!

A few weeks into the new year, my wonderful Mum said the words that set me free;
"If you want to move to Manchester, I will look after Austin."

Austin is my gorgeous Collie cross whom I couldn't imagine giving away. He is almost six years old and I've had him since he was 8 weeks old. My Mum had previously (and understandably) refused to take Austin. He was my responsibility and so I had lived with Mum and Dad, sharing walking duties (they have a dog of their own), and the costs of feeding for five years since splitting up with the girl who had given him to me! I remember at the time I couldn't bear the thought of keeping such a permanent reminder  of such a short and disastrous relationship!

I'm not sure what changed my Mum's mind, perhaps after seeing the lengths I was prepared to go to to keep him (moving in with the horrid rat people for a month in 2010), she realised how hard I would find it to say goodbye. Maybe she fell in love with him as I did, watching him grow from a wilful puppy into a mature and handsome protector.

Within a few days, I had arranged several viewings around Manchester, and by the following week, I had chosen the flatshare which would be my home for two months. At the end of January, I said goodbye to my family and Austin and moved into a flat fifteen minutes walk away from work. It was a little crowded and my landlord tended to stay up late, smoking in the living room. I didn't mind much as I smoked myself.

After a month of living there, I performed my first real Gig 'Grrrrl Meets Boi' for the Lesbian Community Project and ran a workshop on being a Drag King. I had a wonderful night hanging out with all my friends and partying in the Village. The day after Grrrrl Meets Boi, I decided to pay for a subscription to Gaydar Girls. I was finally over my ex and I wanted to find somebody. Within a day, I'd met a girl who was a self confessed geek. We started chatting, and then we moved onto emails. I'll brush swiftly over the next bit, as it involves me dating two girls at the same time, but by the end of that week, I met Nickie for the first time and I immediately knew that she was the one. I knew that I would one day marry her. I was terrified to let myself fall in love after what had happened the previous December.

I ended up moving in with Nickie after a month together. That is its own story and if you'd like to read it click here. We settled into life together and it felt as though we'd known each other our whole lives. We spent the next few months enjoying ourselves. We went on holiday to Gran Canaria and partied like nobody's business, I managed to get Nickie out in Drag and she offered to manage my performance career. We met some wonderful new friends and started volunteering for the LCP as a board member. It was around that time that Nickie discovered she was to be made redundant at the end of September.

One Sunday morning in July (in case you've been living in a cave and hadn't heard), I woke up and couldn't get out of bed. My back had completely ceased in its function as the main support of my frame and I was in agony with even the slightest movement. I took a few days off work, went to the hospital and was prescribed painkillers and went back to work. After a week, it became clear I could no longer work in the office. My attempts at altering my workspace and standing at a raised workstation didn't help the pain, the painkillers made me drowsy and sick, and I was crying, unable to concentrate and making silly mistakes. Little did I know that when I left the office that day, I wouldn't return for almost five months. I think if I'd thought that at the time, it would have killed me.

To begin with, I had a little bit of work to keep me going in the shape of a website I was designing for The Happy Theatre Collective. I was still volunteering for the LCP and I was busy most of the time. I was still in agony and could barely move between bed, sofa and bathroom. Nickie made miracles happen on my birthday, planning lunch with my parents, dinner with my best friend Lucy who is amazing and fabulous and her husband Matthew who is also amazing and fabulous (they're four months away from giving me my first niece/nephew), a party at the flat AND an afternoon of board games and food with our other best pals in the world Katie and Emma. 


Pride was an unmitigated disaster, I wasn't able to perform on stage or man the LCP expo stand as I'd planned, and worse still, I slipped in the bathroom at the hotel and made my back worse! 


After Pride, I really thought I'd be back at work, but my back was no better and worse still, I hadn't yet had my MRI scan and so I still had no diagnosis. I was struggling to accept my limitations and Nickie was telling me off a lot for trying to hoover and iron. She had to work for two weeks in Edinburgh and after a lot of consideration and thought, I went up for the weekend, taking the train and taking my tablets as I boarded to ensure a swift descent into sleep for the duration of the journey. We had an amazing time in Edinburgh, even with the ever present shadow of pain, we "did the castle", took a bus tour and saw the sights and took an amazing tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia. During the week, Nickie had a phone interview with a new company and I was so proud when she was offered the job a couple of days later. 


Nickie was made redundant as planned at the end of September and she coped amazingly well. She had been with the company for twelve years and I don't know how I would have felt in the same situation. I finally had my scan and things were starting to look up. Nickie took me on the most amazing holiday to New York. It was the break we both needed. More strong pills and a gin sent me to sleep for the flight. I woke in time to watch the descent into JFK. She'd organised a Limo to our hotel (The Plaza) and we spent the next five days being utter tourists, taking a river cruise around Manhattan Island, seeing my Uncle who lives in New Jersey, shopping, shopping, shopping and shopping, and of course eating! 


Returning to the UK, 27lbs over our weight limit (whoops!) was so hard and after finding out that my scan had shown NOTHING. I slipped into crippling depression. I was still in pain and my finances were not good. Once again, my lovely Mum and Dad stepped in and along with Nickie, supported me through my very own recession. 


Nearly finished now and onto December and the best month of this past year. I finally returned to work and applied for and was offered a fantastic month long secondment. Nickie and I planned for Christmas, preparing for the arrival of my lovely mother in law and her dog. I spent the whole month making Christmas Decorations, Baking and making cards and presents. Nickie, who has settled into her new job marvellously, moved furniture round (whilst I gave instructions) and we went to the Christmas Markets in Manchester. Our love for each other grows every day, and last Sunday on the 18th December, I asked Nickie to marry me and she said YES! I have never been happier, and this alone would have made 2011 a bumper year! But everything, EVERYTHING else that has happened, falling in love, my birthday, new friends, New York, Edinburgh has made this the best year of my life. The good has not only outweighed the bad, but it has totally eclipsed it and I can't keep the smile off my face!


I hope that you are as happy as I am as we move into 2012 and that you smile as much as me! Best wishes and have a very Merry Christmas,


Lots of Love,
Lydia