cashless

I'm still quite badly skint.

Things aren't quite as tight as they were.  I've been very stingy with my spending and my relatively higher salary has meant that it's started to come back into parity.  I've also not done too badly with selling things on e-bay (the Blu Rays in particular) so that's helped alleviate the situation more than I had feared.

All my cards are still pretty much maxed out.  Indeed, part of the issue is that some of them slipped over the credit limits and I got hit with various fees.  That meant I had to spend even more to bring them back into the limits.  Of course it also means I have no safety net in terms of spending.

It's quite surprising actually how bills turn up when you're skint that you don't normally think about when you're not skint.  A good example of this was the TV licence.  I'd actually been randomly thinking that I didn't seem to have paid this in a while and then the bill turned up last month and I was shocked by how much it was.

Well, I was shocked that I couldn't afford to pay it until payday came around.  This was a little stressful in that it gave me a very small window to actually pay it (payday is quite a variable concept where I work), but also I realised I'd never really thought about how much the license is.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's good value for money, but it's quite a bit to pay in a lump.  You can do various quarterly or monthly things to spread the cost, but some of these work out more expensive and others you still have to pay, like, half straight off and then the rest is spread out.

It was a bit like my car insurance a few months back - it wasn't an extortionate sum of money (in this case after I'd shopped around) but paying it as a single lump or spreading it out left me scratching my head.  the single lump was the cheapest, but it means paying a big wedge all at once.

I mentioned I'd curbed my spending - this has meant being a bit more careful with general shopping (I've talked extensively before about how I tend to hoard and so buy replacement things long before the old one has actually run out) but also killing off my spending online.

In particular I cancelled all my anime pre-orders (there are some "second halves" of series I should buy as I won't watch them until I do and they won't sell at all well as first half only, but I figure they won't sell out instantly and I can get them once I've gotten through the existing stuff, by which time I may have the money).  I also cancelled everything I'd pre-ordered on amazon.  In particular this meant loads of manga that I'd pre-ordered.

Something I did notice while I was doing this was that the price of a lot of manga has gone up significantly on amazon.  My guess is this is because of the ending of the tax-exempt Jersey thing for small items that allowed them to sell stuff cheap.   However, this does mean that amazon is now not the automatic choice and it's worth shopping round.

Again, with the manga there are some volumes I should buy in order to complete the series so I can sell it on e-bay.  The series tend to divide into those that are still on-going, where I try to sell on the most recent volumes as I read them, and those that have completed where I try to buy them all so I can sell them as a complete lot.  These seem to work quite well as they sort of match what those buying on e-bay want.