The other day my friend’s Facebook status read “Stan Chau has no money till Friday :(” and instead of responding with “sux 2 b u lolz” or whatever the correct etiquette is these days I decided to type some tongue-in-cheek survival tips.  The response was unexpectedly positive, so I’ve decided to expand on them and put them up here.  Think of it as a tasty little starter to the rather bland but filling main course that is Finance July.

How to be Broke

So, You Think You’re Broke

More than likely you’re not broke, you just think you’re broke because a paycheck or student loan is taking longer than expected to arrive (if this isn’t the case, and you have no savings of any kind, you should probably seek real financial advice rather than reading my blog).

This delusion of brokeness first sets in when an ATM refuses to give you any money.  Instead of panicking, take your bank card to student cash point (the kind that dispenses five pound notes) and make a withdrawal.  If you can’t find one  or you have less than a fiver in your account go to your nearest branch and make a withdrawal, it might also be worth asking for an overdraft extension while you’re there (the worst they can do is say no).

Now collect together all the change you have in your trouser pockets, coat pockets and change jar.  Have a look down the back of your sofa and under your bed.  Is there a place you hide money for emergencies?  Look there.  It’s also worth thoroughly examining your wallet, more often than not there’s a slot that you “never use” that turns out to be harbouring a fiver.  Also collect any foreign coins you have and take it all to a Coinstar machine.

Food

By now you should have almost £10, and it’s more than likely that the Coinstar machine you’re standing at is located in a supermarket, so it’s time to go food shopping.  Whatever you do, however, don’t do this when you’re hungry or else you’ll just end up buying yourself snacks that you’ll have consumed before you’re even halfway home.

Stick to the end of the aisles because this is where all the deals are located.  Try and purchase things that will turn the leftovers you have at home into edible meals, it is useful to remember the following universal laws;

anything + bread = a sandwich

anything + eggs = an omelette

Also it is inevitable that you have tonnes of dusty pasta and rice, buy some sauce so you can actually eat this stuff.  If you don’t already have it, purchase some granulated coffee.  When you run out of food start making very strong cups of coffee so thick they’re like paste, this will stave off hunger for a while.

Fun

The cheapest hobby you can ever take up is sleeping, try and do this as much as possible.  When you do find yourself conscious,  drinking will help you through this (understand that these tips are “tongue-in-cheek”, so if your mother or your liver start complaining you can’t hold me responsible).  Find an open bar or at least a bar that will serve you free drinks.  Free food and free drink should now be the criteria you use to decide which social events you attend.  If friends and family owe you money or dinner now is the time to collect those debts.

For numerous examples of what not to do, keep reading.

Continue reading ‘How to be Broke’

In March I made you a promise. I’d quit the overdrafts and cut back on my bank accounts.  We’re now in June and I only have two accounts and for a short time last month I was even in the black.  Once these two conditions were met I said that I’d make Finance Friday a less frequent event, so here are the last two weeks of May.  From now on I’ll update you on a monthly basis.

Week commencing 18th May (blogged three times)

According to my bank statements I didn’t acquire any pennies this week, nor did I spend any pounds.  This is contradicted by receipts, my memory and reality.  Presumably I was spending loose change found strewn across my room, more than likely the £16 I couldn’t account for the week previous and also £55 that Frosty lent me.

End of Week Total: -£2,820

Week commencing 25th May (blogged twice)

Incoming:

• £80 wages (from the traffic survey I mentioned in this post)
• £10 from my Gran

Total: £90

Outgoing:

• £57 food
• £14 drink
• £36 gifts
• £55 repaid to Frosty

Total: £162

End of Month Total: -£2,892

Since Finance Friday is now only a monthly ordeal I might even start redrawing the graph, for this month however you get one last photo from the phone.

This is a snap of the sticker that Gingell was giving away to anyone on Twitter who promoted her blog over the weekend.  If you didn’t follow the link yesterday, there’s no harm in taking a look today, especially as there’s a new post to read.  This piece of Running from Zombies merchandise now takes pride of place on my music box just above my Wu-Tang Clan sticker (yes, their new album Chamber Music is out on Tuesday, going to reign my excitement in for now because I haven’t met anyone that feels the same way.  If however you are hyped check out Fat Lace Magazine, a project Reg is involved with, to preview some of the tracks).

On the topic of merchandise, I’d like some input from you dearest reader.  Would you like to see some scribbleboy.co.uk freebies?  If so what kind of items and where can I buy them cheap?  This is unlike anything I’ve done before on this blog, the closest I ever got was offering a free drink to anyone who came up with a creative swear word that wasn’t on my list of banned words for Lent.  This was won by a man who works in bar and was therefore ultimately pointless.  His name is Nick, I’m going to leave you with his winning submission;

donkeyrapingassmaster possibly not something in you’re vocabulary but soon will be when you start thinking about it, plus it rolls of the tongue quite well i have found when delivered as one word…….. try it and add a quid to the jar.

Week commencing 11th May (blogged three times)

Incoming: £500 in Premium Bonds

I had expected last week’s bonds to be wiped out when my landlord cashed my rent cheque.  Only thing is he hasn’t cashed it yet.  He did however come and do a day late “house inspection” (although he didn’t actually look in any of the rooms).

His reason for being late was that when he was in Crimea his helicopter got shot down and he bashed his head.  Since then he randomly falls over with no warning and had to get a doctor to jab him up with something.  Best excuse ever, am tempted to start using it myself.

One good thing that did come from his visit though was the reminder that I will be getting my deposit back.  To be accurate the lead tenant (Gingell, who else?) will be getting all the deposits back and it is then her responsibility to distribute them.  So looking forward to what is going to feel like free money hitting my PayPal account in a couple of months time.

I thought it’d be amusing to create a PayPal donation button for this site but apparently they can’t decrypt their own encryption, amateurs.  I guess I could use an unencrypted button but then you’d see my email address (no offence, I’m sure you’re all lovely people, but I’d rather keep the rape and Bible spam on my WordPress dashboard rather than in my inbox).  If you really want to send me sweet nothings you can head on over to my contact page.

Outgoing:

• £28 food
• £15 drink
• £20 loan over calculation repayment
• £50 Vodafone (I had to buy a new phone because the speaker packed up on my Samsung SGH-U600.  People could hear me but I couldn’t hear them, this made conversation difficult).

Let’s pause here to review my new Samsung J700i (my fourth ever mobile), a phone that was described to me (apart from the camera) as an upgrade.

Pros

• I can hear my callers.
• No slide buttons.  Be a button or be a touchscreen, don’t try and be both.  I’m sorry I’m just prejudiced that way.
• The menu icons are prettier; their shapes and colours suggest the kind of marzipan covered cakes that would be served if you were ever invited for high tea with Mr Kipling.
• Menus are more intuitive in places.
• Standard issue backgrounds are marginally more inspirational.
• The phone has more of a physical presence to it, seems sturdier and makes a more satisfying sound when you close it.

Cons

• Camera seems to have lost 1.9 megapixels somewhere.
• On my old phone I could fit half of Outkast’s Stankonia, on my new phone I can only fit two songs from Wild Young Hearts by Noisettes (album is a lot more chilled than the single would have you believe, has something of a Fiona Bevan vibe to it).
• Vodafone won’t let you change what has to be the ugliest homepage I have ever seen.  Browser feels even more broken than the last one, although that’s a gut feeling rather than anything scientific.
• Menus are great until you want to send a text, then it messes you about by asking if you want to send the text to additional people and it doesn’t save your sent messages automatically you have to prompt it everytime (maybe this option is buried deep in the menus somewhere, in which case another menu fail).

Back to the numbers.

• £15 insurance monthly direct debit
• £15 toaster (don’t really have a category for this, sorry)
• £16 rounding error

• Total: £159

End of Week Total: -£2,820