Kates Journal

I got my electricity bill today. Sadly it masqueraded as a gas bill, and I expected when I opened it to see a figure requesting a 2 figure amount. When I looked and saw the three figure amount I nearly fainted. Once I realised it was my electricity bill I entered a state which merely could be described as ‘oh god how am I going to pay that’.

It’s actually about what I expected….only it’s about 1,800kWh short. Or 160 quid. For some reason they’ve used the average for the months when I wasn’t living here (I presume) and for when the house was unoccupied (I’d suspect 6-8 months of emptyness). It has made me look at my electricity usage – although there’s not much I can cut back on I suspect I might be able to get away with switching the water heater on in the morning – although I may only get a luke warm shower, it’s better than 3kW for 12 hours which is what I *have* been doing.

And whilst I know that I couldn’t really have cut back over winter – I could over the last month have been a bit more frugal in my heater use.

But I suspect that one of the main costs is the washing machine – or more the tumble drier. Whilst I can now hang clothes out; this winter has been a fracking nightmare for drying stuff, the dryer often having to run for hours at a time so as to get stuff to *completely* dry before I took it out. Being a combined washer drier, the drier isn’t 100% stunning.

At any rate, fortunately for me NHS Professionals rang today, and I should be getting my fast-track application for me to do bank/pseudo-agency work; but until I’ve cleared my bills and credit card debts, the Pyoor Financial Recovery scheme will be operating. This means: no eating out, no more ‘I’m feeling a bit bored so I’ll buy a book/DVD/fun thing’, eating a less exciting (but still balanced) diet, no more trips to see friends (although I’m still going to go and see Kathryn; it’s not that she’s more important than the rest of you guys…but…well, you understand), and only the specific list of things I need to do to keep the car on the road, the tyre for the bike (I need to maintain being able to get to work), and a couple of commitments I made before this debacle began.
I will probably start riding the bike again, if I can make it run okay, because it burns less fuel.

I do, however, have to change the tyres on the car. They’re all cracky and nasty and they’re looking distinctly past it. I’ve racked up 3,000 miles on tyres that were I not so bloody broke I’d've ditched the day I got the car, so I think my luck has been pushed far enough. I will hopefully get them changed tomorrow.

*sighs*

I got my pay slip today and y’know what? It was bloody depressing. By the time I’d deducted all the things that need to come out of it I’m back to being broke and the month’s not even started.
It’s really quite stressful.

On the plus side, Kathryn’s back tomorrow. *smiles*

Other news: I’ve been sharing this link with people, whilst some of the statements are a bit of a reach, it’s still quite scary. And this is just downright depressing.

As an antidote to them, have this…