Currently my balance owing is $0.00.

This is not exactly accurate, but allow me to explain.

It’s been a huge year of change for me in so many ways. At this time last year I was receiving calls from the bank, being notified of my thousand dollars behind in payments, being threatened legal action, spending irrationally and impulsively; eating out, buying gourmet; shopping for clothes, music, movies. Last year at Christmas was my wake up call. Money is not abundant, especially when it comes from a rectangular piece of plastic, or from the vast invisible regions of cyberspace. Money is a tangible thing, paper, metal. If you can’t feel it, it’s not real, and therefore cannot be spent. Last year I took all my tangible Christmas money—hundreds, fifties, twenties, paper cheques—and put it straight onto what I was behind on, and caught up on my payments, and set limits for myself, and set up a blog to remind myself of those limits.

This past year I’ve reduced spending drastically. I’ve also faltered and fallen back into old ways at times. However, I never spent more than I had in cash. That is because my credit card was canceled and my line of credit locked. The bank that gave me all this fake money decided that I was not responsible enough to borrow so much and took it away. They were right.

There were days and weeks in this year when I ran out of money early and was forced to stay within the confines of my bedroom where entertainment is free. I’ve been writing more. I started a novel that is going very, very well; I wrote a web series that I’m filming with friends; I’ve continued to read novels even though I graduated in June. I’ve grown mentally and learned to stop caring about material things. I don’t need eight pairs of shoes. When I do buy shoes I must make do with cheaper brands, plainer styles. I learned how to find jeans that look good and only cost fifty dollars instead of three hundred. I’ve learned to layer and simplify and make several looks out of few items of clothing.

We’ve landed on hard times. The Golden Age of Excess that we were born into and grew up in is over, and may never be realized again. I’m trying to imagine life circa 1920, The Great Depression, people jobless, homeless, hungry. I’m none of these things, and while I no longer enjoy the whims of eating fancy food and traveling to fancy places, I still have a lot and am lucky. Things could be much, much worse.

You may notice the huge gap between my last two posts. What happened last year happened again this year. When November hit, things slowed at the bar I work at, even more so than last year. The bar itself is falling apart at an alarming rate and we’ve lost a lot of good clientele. Tips have plummeted. And so in November I didn’t make a payment, and got the calls again. I managed to make a big payment mid-December, but I didn’t write a post then because with holidays and birthdays and all the usual hectic chaos that is Christmas I didn’t have time.

I have an announcement: I am moving to Toronto.

Since June I’ve been job hunting. I have my degree. I no longer need to sling beer on the weekends to get by. I am ready to get plopped down into a cubicle and churn out emails and file things and gossip without offending, all the usual HR things associated with office work. I’m ready to sit, and be bored, and get stuck in a routine that includes knowing exactly how much money I will make. I’m ready for paid vacations, and sick days, and office parties once a year. But alas, Vancouver is not promising me these things.

Vancouver, my home, is unfortunately also a destination city. Ocean, mountains, greenery, it’s a mecca in our overpopulated, concrete world. It’s also just overpopulated. And with the recent economic crash, it’s also highly competitive. Me and my literature degree are no match for the people who have years of experience, were laid off, and now ready to get back into the swing of things. I held onto Vancouver for many legitimate reasons: family, friends, beauty. But these people/things cannot get me out of the debt pit. Only I can scratch and claw and climb my way out. I need to be somewhere less pretty, less competitive, more open to energy and creativity. And so I’ve set my eye on Toronto. I am moving there in February to find a job and become truly debt free.

As I said, my balance owing is not entirely accurate. According to the banks, I owe no more money. But I still do. I’ve humbly asked my father to lend me the money to pay off these debts entirely. I now owe my father money. But my father won’t gouge me in interest (some, but not as much as the banks), he will not call and harass me if I’m short a few on my payments (well, maybe a little), and he will give me the time I need to get on track. He loves me and wants me to succeed. And so he’s covered my debts so that I can spend the next couple of months focussing on a career, and not on how I’m going to come up with my next four hundred dollars in payments. He’s giving me a little piece of mind. For now.

And so this will be my last post. This blog has been hugely cathartic for me. I’ve discovered new priorities, and new points of view. I’m far more responsible than I’ve ever been, and I’m ready for my next steps. Anyone who has read all of these posts, or even one, I thank you for paying attention. If I’ve helped others to rethink their actions surrounding their own spending/borrowing habits, then I’ve succeeded. I am not debt free and still have a long road ahead, but I’m ready for it.

I will blog again. Maybe not about debt. But I love it, and once I’m settled in Toronto, and think of something to blog about, I’ll be back. Perhaps I’ll blog about my sexual exploits in the big city, or I’ll cook my way through Julia Child. Or how about I post snarky comments about celebrities? Oh wait, that’s all been done, hasn’t it? Darn. Well, I’ll think of something.

So, for the final time, thanks for reading. M xox

Currently, my balance owing is $10,886.70.

First off, some exciting information. My line of credit is under ten thousand! And my Visa payments are under one thousand! Woo hoo! And another exclamation point for good measure!

This is big news because that means I’ve paid off everything from after my trip to Australia. All the dinners, the boozy nights, the trips I couldn’t afford, clothes, and a whole assortment of other things I can’t even remember. Now I can focus on paying off the actual trip to Australia. All the dinners, the boozy nights, the trip I couldn’t afford (to Melbourne), clothes, and a whole assortment of other things I can’t even remember. When I left Australia my debt was hovering around the ten grand mark, which is where it’s hovering now. Well, not hovering; it’s going down only.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I actually want to grumble a little about The Internet and credit cards. You can’t buy anything on The Internet without a credit card! As you all know, my credit card was revoked way back in January or February sometime (I can’t even remember), and for the most part I haven’t missed it. I spent the majority of this year trying not to spend. However, in recent months I have been missing the credit card. But not because I don’t have any spending money. But because I want to spend it on things I can only get online. I’ve been meaning to purchase a CD that is I suppose is rare, in the sense that it’s not popular and therefore not profitable to carry in retail stores. You may know it. It’s the Caroline, or Change soundtrack. I used to have it, and ever since I’ve been writing about that musical on this blog, I’ve been itching to listen to it again. But I’ve lost the CD, and can only find it online. Besides that, I can’t buy music from my phone. I can buy gift cards and use them directly on iTunes, but if I’m out and am looking for a song spur of the moment, I can’t purchase it. Not a huge deal, but frustrating. And, occasionally, when I’m looking for a little mature entertainment, I’m stuck. I realize there’s plenty of free content, but sometimes a guy just needs some quality erotica.

I know there are now “Vanilla” credit cards you can purchase to use online. I’ve bought one. It’s mediocre. Firstly, they only come in set amounts, and I think the cheapest one you can get is for seventy-five bucks, maybe fifty. Secondly, they are not good for all purchases. Some sites are not set up to accept prepaid cards, or else they don’t want to. So after spending more than I wanted to to get a card, I couldn’t use it online. I ended up using it for regular, daily purchases.

I’m not much of conspiracy theorist, but I am wondering what kind of intermingling goes on between credit card companies and The Internet. Besides looking stuff up online, The Internet is primarily a large shopping centre. Direct debit has never really been an option for online shopping, and I know they claim it’s to avoid fraud. But maybe what’s really going on is that credit card companies don’t want us buying things with the money we have, so maybe they have some kind of deal with online shops and whatnot to only offer credit. Is that a stretch? Probably. But maybe not.

I know that most people will use a credit card to make a purchase and then pay it off right away. But you know, and I know, and the credit card companies definitely know that it’s easier said than done. How many time have we wanted to buy something we didn’t have quite enough money for, and went ahead and still bought it, with the intention of paying it off when some money came along. Do that a few times and suddenly you’re in debt. Now take that scenario to The Internet, where we see something we really want that we can’t find where we live, and it’s potentially hard to find. We pull our cards out much quicker for online purchases, don’t we?

Anyhow, this is kind of a rant more than anything else. I miss my credit card. But then, North America has always lived in a bit of a fantasy world. The majority of the world lives without the majority of stuff we actually have. Instead, they make their own music, and they make their own adult entertainment. It’s no wonder the birthrate is so low here. It’s time for us to live without, and make things for ourselves.

So, thanks for letting me vent. And please, keep reading. . . M

My current balance owing is $11,569.41.

In the time that I’ve worked at the bar I work at, nearly three years, I’ve been on four vacations: Boston, San Francisco, San Francisco again, and Seattle. All these vacations I’ve paid for from my tips and cheques and various funds procured from various means. And this whole time I had a pile of vacation money right under my rump.

As you may have guessed, I received the three years of vacation pay I didn’t know I had. Now it isn’t as much as what I spent on four trips, but it is definitely a nice bonus. Five hundred bucks roughly. And since I spent my debt money on vacations, I suppose it’s only fair to spend my vacation money on debt. And that’s what I did.

That is all. Keep reading. . . M

My current balance owing is $11,959.97.

So there has been some reversal of fortune going on. A few posts ago I had mentioned how the summer is good for making money and that I was hoping to make it under the ten thousand mark. As it turns out the summer is also good for spending money. August was a debacle. And I became very worried because in a place like Vancouver, finances change as abruptly as the seasons. As soon as Labour Day weekend ends so does the sunshine and the desire to drink, well for some anyhow. School starts up as does the rain and suddenly people are staying in with hot soups and internet TV streaming.

It comes as no surprise that in September onward I can expect my earnings to reduce by a quarter to even a half, especially on weekday nights. And since it comes as no surprise I was surprised to find that this September looks to be a wealthy one. I’m coming into lots of surprise money (real surprise money). Not millions, but lots of money by my standards.

The big surprise is that I’ve unassumingly saved up three years of vacation pay. And before you mock me, yes I know about vacation pay. But for most of the jobs I’ve had, the vacation pay gets paid out with every paycheque, all one dollar and change of it. I figured it to be the same with this job. We don’t receive pay stubs (we’re very stupidly trusting), and so I never really thought about whether or not I was receiving vacation pay or if it was accumulating.

It was a complete fluke that I discovered this fact. I was relaying to a co-worker my mini trip to Seattle, and in doing so had unintentionally reminded him that he wanted to cash in his vacation pay for a trip that he will be going on soon. And that is how I discovered I had vacation pay saved up. Not an exciting story, but it is timely. I don’t know how much I’ll be receiving but I get paid on the 15th, and I promise you’ll read all about it.

The other bout of good fortune was also quite a fluke. I gambled and I won. Please please please know that I am not really a gambler, and I don’t have a mindset that considers gambling a good idea. I don’t play the lottery, and I don’t trust electronic gambling games (honestly who thinks that Keno is completely random?). But I played pulltabs over the weekend. For those that don’t know, pulltabs are just little paper cards that you open and if you get three in a row, you win. The prizes vary from a dollar to a few hundred depending on which game you play. They aren’t really a lucrative gambling venture because there’s a ratio of winners to non winners, and so it’s really just luck and timing.

In any case, me and a friend decided on a whim and just for fun to put some cash into the pulltab machine, twenty bucks each, no more, and split the winnings. And it was our lucky day because we ended up winning a couple of big ones and so I won a share of 150 bucks. Please note: I don’t condone gambling (hypocrite alert!), especially to anyone with any amount of debt, because steady gambling over a longer period of time will never be profitable and the money you spend on gambling would be better off going straight to your debt, and save you a lot of money. And, in case anyone is wondering, I put my winnings on my debt.

It appears that September will be a good month for paying off a good chunk of debt, and hopefully the rest of fall and winter will also be kind to me moneywise. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. So until then, keep reading. . . M

Currently my balance owing is $12,190.40.

The power of words hey?

From the moment we learn to read (+/- age five) we don’t stop (I hope). And from that early age we begin mentally, and sometimes physically, collecting quotes that ultimately become an extension of ourselves and our life views. One of my personal favourites is from Caroline, or Change, an amazing musical written by Tony Kushner (of Angels in America fame) and Jeanine Tesori (she wrote the score): “Change come fast, and change come slow, but change come…”

The moon (yes, the moon) sings that. The musical is all about change. It takes place in the turbulent south of America at the height of the civil rights movement on the day that Kennedy is shot. Caroline is a black maid for a Jewish family. She can’t read, has four kids, no husband, and some big money troubles, that being she doesn’t have any. She hates her life but at the same time she is resisting any change that could help her move up in it. Needless to say, but I will say, money (in the form of change) is a central focus on the story.

I used to think I loved the musical for its creativity and its soulful sound, but maybe the reason I included part of it into my file of “quotations to live by” is because I relate to it more than I realized. I may not be black (or Jewish) and unable to read, but I definitely don’t have any money. I am a white male, and according to statistics, I should make/have more money than anyone else! But I don’t. Like Caroline, I live paycheque to paycheque, struggling to keep things afloat. Except that my four kids is a line of credit and a revoked credit card, we’re basically soul sisters.

I never thought about it, but the fact that Caroline couldn’t read meant she probably didn’t have her own archive of quotes to get her through tough times. It’s amazing how much we rely on other people’s words for comfort. Some people have told me that they find my blog inspiring. Thank you. But the ironic thing is that I am writing this—I need to write this—to inspire myself. In August I was a bad boy. I made the conscious choice to pass on my payments to go on a little vacation. I went down to Seattle for a few days with G—, a little rest and relaxation and relapsing. I spent about 250 on a hotel, and about a hundred on food and entertainment. I missed out on ten days of work (three days of vacation but with padding on either side to ease in and out of it) and when I came back I had no money for the eventual end of month series of payments I have: rent, debt, bills. In August, I also didn’t update my blog. Coincidence?

I managed to get rent in on time (to the scary landlady, my mom). Exactly at 9 in the morning on September 1 (they like to catch you when you’re still asleep and groggy) I got the call from the bank to remind me that I was behind in payments by 263 dollars. I told her that I’d have it paid off in the next few days. When, exactly (she wanted to know). Sunday, Sunday! And I did, I worked all weekend and made enough to catch up. Only thing left is my phone bill. I’ll get that this weekend.

I messed up my priorities. Vacations come last, bills come first. As with anything I do wrong, I try find a lesson in the consequences. I’ve discovered that the words I write here, that I spend time to make funny, entertaining (hopefully),  and accessible to anyone with an internet connection, are not for you (sorry), but truly for me. I didn’t write in August and I slipped back into bad habits. G— says when I’ve got extra money I get this look in my eye like I’m instantly trying to figure out how to spend it all. I’m an addict!

It turns out I’m that kid in math class who has to talk it out. Actually, I was that kid. Numbers weren’t my strong point, and during exams that slurred murmur everyone heard was me, whispering out the solutions: multiplying three by four, carrying the one, adding the remainder, replacing x with y etc cetera et cetera et cetera.

I have to talk it out: Matt, you need to make payments; you need to not go on vacation right now; you need to stay at home because if you go out you’ll spend money. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just a little noisier.

While I think it’s great that we all have quotes and mantras that we accumulate and share with the world, it’s equally important that we formulate our own as well. Yes, it’s harder to come up with something yourself, and it may not sound as amazing as quotes by brilliant minds, eccentric authors, or popular idiots, but they are your own words, and those will always trump someone else’s words. So write it all down. I am.

Keep reading. . . M

Currently, my balance owing is $12,463.91.

This will be a quick post. I’ve been very busy this month. Vancouver just becomes a bustle of activity at the end of July. But I did want to write something for the few of you that anxiously wait for new posts.

It was in the summer that I slammed myself deep into debt, and it is in the summer that I’m hoping to celebrate a huge achievement: getting under ten thousand. It’s slowly creeping there and I’m getting excited. I haven’t been under ten thousand in debt for over five years. It’s only 2500 away, and there was a time that taking that amount of money off of my borrowings was an impossible task. Ever since I’ve had a credit card I’ve had a thousand dollars of debt or more. It’s baffling now to think that I couldn’t pay off just a thousand dollars. And now I’ve paid off over five in about half a year. I don’t know whether for the  average debt ower that is good progress, but for me it’s a big deal.

So while everyone around me is celebrating for various reasons this weekend, I’ll be taking the hard earned money they give me, put it on my debt, and privately pat myself on the back as I work my way to that ten thou goal. Wish me luck. And keep reading. . . M

My current balance owing is $13,149.06.

This will be two separate topics in the same post. Well, to a degree. They’re both about money (shocker!), respectively in their small and large forms.

After I graduated last week, I came into some surprise money; real surprise money this time. While I was expecting a little reward for my efforts, I was not expecting to receive cash from aunts and grandparents and the like. So after the celebratory lunch I was full as were my pockets. And, of course, I was thinking how nice it would be to take all this money and put it onto my debt. Unfortunately, there was a catch. All the money I received came with explicit instructions that forbid me to use it for lines of credit or credit cards. It was to be strictly enjoyed.

I was both thrilled and devastated. On the one hand, I now had an excuse to go on a shopping spree, guilt free, and I did. I bought a small summer wardrobe: shorts, some tanks, and shoes. And I have a few other purchases in mind. But on the other hand, I really wish I could just put another big dent in my debt. I know, I know, I could just forget my family’s wishes and put it all on there. But I have an “inquisitive” family who are very curious about my spending. I can’t blame them. All my life they’ve watched be spend and spend and spend on all sorts of things. If they didn’t see some new clothes or gadgets they’d start asking questions. And I’m not very good at lying.

After I’d bought everything I wanted, I still had a large chunk of cash leftover. I was getting into that dangerous mindset that urges me to spend! spend! spend! It’s always dangerous because you end up buying useless things. What you’re really after is that sated feeling of goods exchange: Take my money and fill me up with symbolic trinkets of my short term wealth.

But then something happened. . . The boy who had to spend everything he had all at once had a thought: what if I just put this money away and save it for a time when I really need it. That’s right! I had a rational thought. And I credit it to my recent vacation in May. I’ve only ever travelled in the early summer, the reason being that after my birthday in March I always have birthday money. Throw in a couple of long weekends (which, for a bartender, are good for tips), and one big tax return, and I’ve got myself a little extra cash. So before I inevitably spend it all, I take a little trip. But I’ve never travelled in the winter, because the winter is the exact opposite: work is slow so tips are miniscule; Christmas is expensive; and tax time is still a long ways away. So I’ve never shed the winter blues for someplace cheap and tropical. With that in mind, I decided to tuck five hundred dollars into an envelop and tuck the envelop away into a drawer, for use at a time when I was really wishing I had five hundred dollars.

That’s something, isn’t it? I mean, for a born spender it’s not easy to have five hundred dollars just laying around. What I’m really happy about is that the money isn’t calling me, making me itch to shop. I have no desire to use it right now. I’ve never had that feeling, and that’s what I need if I want to be able to save larger amounts of money in the future. So I’m happy with this little experiment. I’ll definitely have to reserve a post for the time that I do spend it, to see how long I held out, as well as what I eventually end up spending it on.

As for part 2 (small change), I also noticed this week that my change jar was full. Everyone has change jars. And everyone saves their change for different reasons. Some people save it for vacation money; some people save it for gambling money; some people just save it. As both a bartender and a cash spender, I tend to have a lot of change coming my way. I rarely use debit, so for most purchases I get anywhere between fifty cents to four dollars back for each item I buy. And I always go home, and put my change in my special tin specifically for my change. I’ve forgotten what the tin originally carried: chocolates or something.

I always try to save my change because it really does add up. You can accumulate a hundred bucks in a couple of months easy. But in the past, something would always come up, and I’d be strapped for cash; and I’d go and count out my pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters; and I’d roll them up; and I’d take them to the bank and exchange them for bills; and then I would spend, spend, spend. But since I’ve been on my budget, instead of trying to do things I can’t afford, I’ve just stopped doing those things, and my change jar has slowly filled up.

With relish, I counted out my pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters; I rolled them up; and I took them to the bank. But I did not exchange them for bills. I threw them into my account and promptly put that money on my balance owing. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

I suppose there is a small connection between these two incidents: that I have some extra cash suggests that I’m finally living within my means. I’m still enjoying myself, my friends and family, and I’m still active and doing things, and I’m still keeping entertained, just on a smaller scale. This is what I was hoping for with my little experiment: to change my brain’s wiring regarding money so that I can live comfortably free of debt.

That’s all for today. I’m feeling good about this summer. Thanks, and keep reading. . . M

My current balance owing is $13,295.04.

So I graduated on Thursday. Well, technically I graduated in February; that’s what my diploma imparts. But because of the Olympics my original commencement ceremony was cancelled. But a graduation wouldn’t be official without the ever important gown wearing and stage crossing and hand shaking and hat tossing, which happened on June 17th at 9 in the bloody morning!

As far as ceremonies go, it went nicely. I was dreading hours of endless speeches and restless spectators. But Simon Fraser has had 45 years to tweak and fine tune, and in just over two hours they managed to herd over 400 grads across the platform. Congratulations SFU, for keeping the agony to a minimum.

Why, you ask, am I going on about my graduation, and what does it have to do with my debt? Well, as I sat among my fellow blue and red sashed graduates, I was contemplating how many of us had the same amount of debt facing us. As I’ve noted, my debt didn’t come from student loans, but I basically have the same amount of debt as the average Bachelor-holder. A very rough estimate would have me and the other students sitting on maybe three million dollars of debt; and that’s just the one session. Times that by seven ceremonies and we’re up to twenty-one million. And that’s just one small to medium sized university. Take those numbers and times them by the number of universities and colleges across Canada and, well, that’s an enormous amount of debt. . .

As I sat philosophizing, there were four speeches, all under five minutes, and of varying topics. But it was both the chancellor and soon-to-be retired president of the university, Michael Stevenson, that addressed the inevitable: that frightening thing called “The Future”; and they didn’t even sugar coat it. We are all aware of how terrible the economy has been, and that there is speculation that it hasn’t been this hard for post grads to find work since the end of World War II. So all of us were enjoying a bittersweet moment, a great accomplishment paired with a grave predicament: being sent into the world with a degree but no work.

I’m not worse off either. Many students give full attention to their studies, and now that they are both finished and jobless. At least I have a job that ultimately pays really well. I would make a career out of bartending if it weren’t so physically and emotionally draining. But it’s just not in me. Since I started this blog in January, I’ve also been job hunting, and discovering the cold reality of the workforce. For the most part, it seems I am not qualified for many of my ideal careers: advertising, editing, and the like. It may not be that I’m unqualified so much as the fact that there are several others that are currently unemployed and more experienced than I. So until they are all working, I probably won’t be finding anything in those fields. I’ve also been rejected from much more menial jobs, being classified as “over-qualified” for the work. They don’t really care that I just want to work daytime hours (something I’ve never experienced) and establish myself in something more stable than bar work. I’m floating in post grad limbo and it sucks.

And debt is the dark parenthesis hanging over my head. I have to keep a crappy job because I have minimum payments to meet. I can’t take a time out because if I do I’ll be getting calls at seven every  morning from the bank. I can’t enjoy life because I can’t afford to. Debt is a murderer. It takes away our leisure and kills our spirit. Yes, I realize life is hard and we need to work hard to get ahead, cliche, cliche, adage, mantra etc. . .

Not to sound so despondent. I am despondently optimistic. These were just some of my post graduate thoughts. In reality, I’m quite happy. My debt is coming down faster than I expected; my creativity is exploding and I’ve been writing more than ever; I’m healthy. That is all for today. Keep reading

M

Currently, my balance owing is $13,717.70.

I’m sure everyone is wondering, where did I go? The answer is: to the dark side. Alas! I’ve been a bad boy this last month in a number of ways. But this post should clear everything up and get all of you updated on my quest for a debt free existence.

First and foremost, I have to say that I haven’t been skipping posts, primarily because I’ve been skipping payments. Actually, let me rephrase this. Today I made my minimum payments, so I am not behind. But my balance owing could have easily read under twelve thousand today. But springtime got the best of me and I became all—what is the term they used in Bambi?—twitter bugged. Of course, when animals get all twitter bugged, they get busy. And humans, well, they get busy too, but they do it on vacation. Yes, I went on a little vacation,with G—, to S—F—.

The opportunity to vacation came up shortly after my last post, which, by the way, I felt was an utter disaster. The history of credit was not as interesting as I thought it was going to be. Note to self: never begin writing something until you’ve fully researched it for entertainment and informational value, or else you’ll bore everyone to tears. All I really wanted to bring up in that post was that the first plastic credit cards were Diner’s Club cards, exclusive to business men in New York who dined out often. I found it strangely ironic being that all of the restaurants and bars I’ve worked at over the years never accepted it. And here I was going on about and Sumer and Medieval Europe. I’m deeply, deeply sorry about all that.

So, back to vacation. I had just completed my taxes mid-April, and was receiving a whopping surprise of twelve hundred dollars. And I know I’ve said I was going to take all my “surprise” money and put straight onto my line of credit and Visa payments. But, at exactly this same time, G— was finishing up his semester at school, and he was itching to get away. It started out innocently enough (this sounds dirty, and it kind of is): we logged onto the Internet, typed in some dangerous letters, e, x, p, e, d, i, and a, and before we knew it were caught up in vacation deal debauchery. Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Germany, London, Montreal, we were surfing the virtual world for reality hotspots. Of course, many of the destinations we typed in were pipe dream curiosities, and way beyond our budget, but we just had to look.

From the beginning we had our eye set on San Fran. It’s close enough to Vancouver to be cheap to get to, but far enough away that it still feels like a different place. We had both been there before so it would equate to a rest and relaxation vacation. Plus, a good friend of mine, A—, lives there. After perusing the flight and hotel packages we were sold. We found a great boutique hotel for four nights and the whole thing including flight was only four hundred bucks! I’m still twitter bugging about it.

I would love to tell you more about the trip, but I’m sticking to the subject of my bad habits. In short, the trip was at the beginning of May and my tax return got spent. The roughest part about coming back from vacation is the small paycheque. I missed a full weekend of work and tips, and so by mid-May I didn’t really have any cash to put down on my debt. And this is when the dark side reared its ugly head once again. My parents went on vacation!

What does my parents’ camping have to do with my spending? Two words: hot tub. Or is it one word, hottub? Spell check appears to be supporting it as two words . . . As I was saying, my parents went camping, which meant the house and hot tub were mine. So over the course of the next week I had a couple of hot tub parties. Well, they weren’t really parties; it was a party of two, me and G—.

What goes well with hot tubs? A full belly and a lot of booze. There were two significant food and drink evenings. The first involved stuffed eggplant and mint juleps. The second was devoted to lamb stew and white wine sangria. As I’ve explained, I’m into food, big time. And I’ve cut back on my dining out to date, but am sad to say that home cooking sometimes still gets me. And while I could easily argue that cooking at home is beneficial in so many ways, it can still be expensive if you’re cooking something extravagant or unusual. But the true culprit here is liquor. Making something like sangria—if you’re a stickler to following recipes like I am—can be a fifty, sixty dollar affair. Sure, the wine is cheap, but it’s the addition of liqueurs that make it pricey. The sangria I made required both apple and apricot liqueurs. And though the recipe calls for just a few ounces of each, I still needed to shell out twenty dollars per bottle. And I can guarantee you the apricot liqueur is going to become the bottle that gets cracked when everything else has been drunk and we’re desperate. So likely the next time I want sangria, I’ll have to buy another bottle of the apricot.

So May was a month when both my exterior and interior regulators on spending fizzled. G— and my family generally keeps me in check and not spending, but when he’s in a extravagant mood and my folks are away, there’s nothing stopping me. As for the last week of May, all the money I made went straight to rent. So this morning, I sullenly logged into my online account, took the few hundred dollars that was in there, and doled it out to my various balances owing. Minimum payments met; good. Unable to pay off a larger portion; bad.

But, but, but . . . I didn’t spend more than I had, as I would have in the past. That’s the always and ever important bottom line. So while May was not a success, it was not a complete failure. And I am well and rested for the summer, which will motivate me to pay off as much as I can. I promise, more payments and more posts in the month of June. So keep reading . . . M

My current balance owing is $14,003.63.

We live in a time when technology is rapidly increasing at a rate that is almost physically disorienting; a time when once we actually figure out how to use our new gadget, a newer and better one has been released. And in these great leaps and strides it’s easy for us to forget the past exists as it does. Because we often associate technological progression with our daily lives, we have trouble believing that the generations before us did and do many of the things we do. Our grandparents (or great grandparents for some of you, gee I’m getting old) didn’t have a social life. How could they when their daily lives were filled with ten children to raise, three meals to cook by scratch, and tasks that took three times as long as they do now? They didn’t have LeapFrog for the kids, Instant Everything, and Roombas. They didn’t have the convenience of cell phones so that they could be absolutely anywhere to be able to call up a friend just to see if they were free to meet for coffee. They were under house arrest if they wanted to speak to someone on the phone. Socializing for our grandparents took meticulous, careful planning.

The reason I say this is because if you were to ask me about the history of credit, I would have told you that it was probably invented in the 50s or 60s, around the same time they invented plastic. That’s because in the current age plastic is symbolic of credit, and money in general. I realize that borrowing has been around much longer than that, but history in the modern mind has one degree of separation only. So I’m going to use technology to find out some basic credit history. Ironically, technology allows us to investigate history far more quickly than we have been to historically. No libraries for me. Of course, what’s written on the Internet isn’t necessarily accurate, as we are incessantly warned, but this isn’t an academic paper, so I won’t expect anyone to take what I uncover for unprecedented fact.

First, I have to amend an earlier statement. It turns out plastic was invented much earlier than the 1950s. It appears that the first man made plastic was demonstrated in 1862 (http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/plastics.htm). Feel free to peruse that site on plastic, since I’m moving straight on to credit.

Second, I have to note that Googling the history of credit is a little more difficult than I first anticipated. That is because “credit history” now generally refers to personal finances, so I’ve been scrolling page after page of sites directing me to discovering my personal credit history, or the credit history of a people and nation.

Some of the tidbits of information I could find show that money, obviously, is as old as civilization. It’s generally agreed that the Sumerians (think social studies grade six) developed a system of goods exchange, metals and similar items that were not perishable, and could be exchanged for various fruits, grains, and produce as they came into season. But credit, and the idea of borrowing started with the Babylonians. As the Babylonians began formalizing laws and rules (Code of Hammurabi) around their culture, they incorporated monetary rules including things such as fines, standard interest on borrowed money, and penalties for late payments etc. Debt collectors are scary enough as it is today, I can only imagine the terrible things that may have happened if you didn’t pay your debts thousands of years ago.

Before plastic, there have been various mediums on which credit was documented. In the middle ages, when paper was scarce and expensive, lenders kept track of debts by placing notches in a stick. One side would contain the amount lent, while the other side would keep track of how much was paid back. These lenders were referred to as tallymen, as they were constantly keeping tallies on money given and received.

Ak! I’ve run out of time. I have to leave but will finish this post very soon…