Not a musing (read: rant) this time, you’ll be glad to see

I just scrolled down and saw my post Making a Mark. Posted on June 6th, it was borne out of a desire to do something with my life (a recurring theme of mine that ebbs and flows like a very sporadic tide) and a decision to make that something photography.

Since then I sold my Canon S3 IS, and purchased a Canon EOS 450D. The full bananas. I thought if I was going to do it, I may as well do it properly. Digital Photography, that is. Besides it’s not like I spend my money on having a life or anything (sorry, but it’s pretty much true) so I might as well splurge a bit from time to time (in monetary terms, that is).

It’s an amazing camera, and despite myself I have actually managed to get a few decent pictures here and there. I don’t have a decent macro lens though, and I remembered when I was just trying to take some pictures of a dragonfly that I actually really like macro photography. Something to go on the list I guess.

The money that I’m not spending or putting into a pension ISA (see, I do have sensible grown-up plans other than just buying shiny toys) is being saved for a new car. I like my current car, but it’s rapidly approaching 100,000 miles and is realistically too big for my needs. More often than not it’s just me in the car, so I have absolutely no requirements for a family hatchback …

Originally I was looking at the second-hand market, but the Fiat Grande Punto caught my eye, with Fiat’s 0% 3 Year Finance deal. It’s an attractive looking car, with hints of Maserati in the styling, and over the last few weeks I specified the exact model that I wanted (pretty much the top of the range with all the toys ) and there were only two sticking points.

Firstly, I hadn’t decided what colour I wanted and secondly (and more importantly) I hadn’t actually sat in one, let alone driven one. The reviews spoke of a great little car, but with a cheap interior and loose gearbox.

Now I like quality (which is why I tend to buy the more expensive of any option given) and I like a nice crisp gearchange in a car, or at least something positive. This morning I took a trip to Newport to take a look.

They had a GP model, the one below the model I would want (the Sporting) in the colour I would probably have it in (red), so I took a seat inside and had a look around. I thought that maybe the reviews were being overly harsh and, as a driver of a 10 year old car, I’d find the plastics and trim pretty damn good.

I was mistaken.

The steering wheel (leather stitched) was a joy to hold compared to the one in my car, and the instrument cluster was smart, but the rest of the interior really fell short. All the buttons felt incredibly cheap and almost soft, not in the ’soft touch plastics’ way but in the ‘this might fall apart when you need to use it’ way. The gearbox also felt really loose – I was sitting still, but I don’t imagine it would get much better on the road.

Overall I came away with a fairly negative impression. I could take a test drive and maybe should, but now I’m going back to the second-hand market.

I found that, instead of paying £15,000 over three years, I could get the Punto through Broadspeed.com for about £12,000. This didn’t involve a finance deal, but I can borrow that money at agreeable terms.

So, what can I get for that money on the second-hand market? A BMW 320 diesel coupe, that’s what. OK, so I don’t get any dealer perks, and the car will have mileage, but provided I do my research and buy a good example, I’ll be getting more car and – most importantly – a much higher level of quality for my money.

And in the end, I’m all about maximising my investment if I can maximise my enjoyment at the same time.

That’s what I want to call my album, which I’ll never make because I can’t make music. But if anyone comes up with something good enough and wants to call it that, let me know. Your people can talk to my people and we’ll come to some arrangement. It’s a good word.

Anyway, money matters. But before that – cold orange juice with ice cubes on a hot evening is WONDERFUL. This may be a post with a little asides all over the place. Just to warn you.

Yes, money matters. I’m not great with numbers. My brain struggles with numbers in the way that an over-steering terrier struggles with an icy lake whilst it chases ducks. As such, I don’t really budget in any real depth.
I work out vaguely how much I’ll spend on the major things – i.e. petrol, tolls, food, and the rest just seems to work itself out. Up to now this hasn’t really been a problem, because when I barely earned anything I barely spent anything, and the months before Christmas I was pretty much coming up even each month.

Mm-mm. Ice-cream & apple crumble. Delicious.

Anyway, at the start of the year, I bought myself a laptop, finished work, and then paid off a fairly sizeable loan, plus over a grand and a half for the OTHER courses I was going on. I still had plenty in reserve in my expenses account, which would comfortably pay for the first month of whatever next job I got (in terms of travelling, food, accommodation if necessary) and then I’d be getting paid so it wouldn’t matter.

Sounds good, right? Well it was, in theory, except I did everything in such a blasé way, that when I accepted a 1 month contract and said “Yeah, that’s fine” to a 30-day-payment clause, I wasn’t thinking of my finances.
By the end of that 1 month, I had a few hundred left in expenses, and precious little anywhere else. Then I accepted a job back at HP-CDS, a job which costs £180 a week just to commute to (and possibly even more if I stayed in a B&B). All of a sudden that “Yeah, that’s fine” seemed like a big mistake.

It’s all going to be fine – this Wednesday is 30 days on from my first invoice for that prior job, so I’ll be getting paid 2 weeks wages, then come the end of this month, there’ll be effectively 5 weeks worth of pay coming through. As long as nothing goes wrong (i.e. car breaking down) then it’s all good.

The moral of this whole story really is – budget properly, and keep an eye on your finances, no matter what you have going in and out. If you start properly when you’re not earning much, you’ll be much better placed once you’re earning serious money.

Whilst writing this, I reflected that I always feel a little guilty when writing/talking about work/money, because most people I know currently earn comparatively little or nothing at all (other than fellow contractors, who are milking the system more than I am probably). But then I think … fuck it, why should I feel that way?
Most of the time in school (when we are all at our most sensitive ) I pretty much lived each day with at least one person (who shall remain obvious) going on and on about how much money he made and how successful he or people in his life were.

I guess this is me getting my revenge on the world. Being successful, not a bad way of doing things I think

Of course, success is nothing if you have no-one to share it with, but that’s another story altogether …

It’s nice to get parental advice on something that’s really bothering you. As I’ve gotten older and branched out into the current career I’m in now, the way I go about it has pretty much precluded my parents from offering much advice, simply because it’s not something they’re familiar with.

Last weekend I got something off my chest though, which was good.

I’d been struggling with the idea of asking for what to most people my age is a ridiculous amount of money to go back to HP-CDS, simply because I know that, if I were to get it, I’d be working alongside people that I respected and who were good at their jobs, yet who would be on a much lower rate than I.

This bothered me greatly, and I talked it out with my Dad. We eventually decided that in my case as a contractor, I should just go for whatever I can get out of any deal offered – after all, the companies I deal with won’t hesitate to ditch me if they should need to, so I may as well take what I can get and run with it. I guess I felt that by doing so, it would compromise my integrity as a person and regardless of what people think of me, I ultimately have to answer to myself.

I’m happier now, knowing that should I ask for – and get – a much higher rate, that I will simply be taking what is offered and reaping the reward for taking that chance/opportunity. After all, I am good at what I do and if people want to pay me a lot of money for it, I’d be an idiot not to take it.

Just as long as I don’t let that sort of attitude encroach onto personal matters – and I don’t think it would – then things’ll be fine

Speaking of which, I got a not-unexpected phone call yesterday to inform me that my current contract will be finishing next week, so either way I need to find some more work!!