Ernie is a 51-year-old male who lives in Blackpool. He used to be the size of a bus but is now the size of a home computer, a weight loss of which anyone would be proud.  On his MySpace page Ernie describes himself as “slim/ slender” but is cagey about his height.  One of his favourite movies is The Bridge on the River Kwai, he likes a bit of Kylie Minogue and enjoys watching Countdown in the afternoon.

All in all rather bizarre behaviour for a computer created for the sole purpose of randomly generating numbers.  Ernie (aka Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment, can see why they went with Ernie) generates random numbers each month and if one of them’s on your Premium Bond certificate then you can win anything from £50 to one million.

Premium Bonds were something I was very much encouraged to invest in as a child and so whenever I’d accumulated enough Birthday money, Christmas money and pocket money I’d be sent from the bank to the Post Office with my savings.  If you ever see a feeble looking child skipping towards the Post Office clutching a bulging brown paper envelope, rob them, they’re carrying at least a hundred.

The other day I convinced my parents to surrender all the Premium Bond certificates they’d been squirrelling away, after all it is my money and I need to pay Council Tax and buy bread.

Week commencing 23rd February (blogged six times this week, is madness I tell you)

Incoming: £4,100 in Premium Bonds (there’s still a few left over but I’m going to try and save those).

Outgoing:

• £46 food
• £10 drink (there is a lot to be said for 99p pints)
• £95 repaid to Damian
• £2,135 repaid to HSBC
  
• £504 repaid to Nationwide
  
• £284 Council Tax
• £100 utilities (water, electric, gas, internet, protection money)
• £10 paid to Mr Piggles
• £2 transport
• £7 additional

Total: £3,193

End of Week Total: -£3,029

It’s at this point that I realise that the debt total on my spreadsheet and graph doesn’t include my overdrafts, so what should have made a big impact makes little more than a dent.  It is for this reason that I am not redrawing the graph this week (sorry to disappoint and all).

Next week I promise to recalculate the debt, come up with some interesting topics to blog about, be a better writer, be a better accountant and generally be better.