Seriously – friends – sometimes, who’d have them?
Grrrrrrr.
I’ve spent a chunk of this evening on the phone to Jo, catching up on the last few weeks of our lives, and celebrating a minor victory in my journey to get myself out of debt. With the aid of my windfall from changing cars, and some very careful spending restraint and juggling the last couple of months which has meant not adding anything to the credit cards, I have managed to pay quite a nice little chunk off my cards. It’s not even 10% of the total balance on them, but it’s put me to a really critical point on my repayment plan.
Up until now, I’ve been stretched to just make the minimum repayments and not put anything new on, and I’ve been very resigned to it being a long while before I managed to chip away enough of the balance to start making extra repayments over and above the minimum. I know that repaying this debt will be a snowball – it will start small, and with a lot of effort not giving much of return, but as I go along, more and more of my money will go to repaying the balance and the interest payments will get smaller. Well, with these latest repayments, I think I’ve got to the position where my payments should reduce either this month or next to a point where I can start making an extra little payment out of my budget to help things along. Even £20 extra a month will help – my little snowball is growing!!!
Having been so stressed about money the last couple of months, this is such a victory for me, as I finally feel like my perseverance ,and giving up things like holidays, is paying off.
Anyhoo, that’s great, and there I was celebrating this little fact with Jo on the phone, and I was feeling happy. I’ve also managed to finish a little creative project I’ve been working on for a friend this evening, a photo collage, and when I went to pay for it online, there was a half-price offer. Even better!
So what with one thing and another, I was feeling quite chirpy this evening. But I just got a text that ruined it all. And it’s from the usual culprit for these things – I sometimes wonder why I bother. It’s her 30th next weekend, and they’re all going away to some cottage or something for the weekend. When it was first suggested, months ago, I thought I’d be working this weekend, so said I couldn’t go, and after her questioning whether I’d really be working on Easter weekend, I heard nothing more about it. About 10 days ago, it started to become obvious that we wouldn’t actually be needed this weekend after all. After a discussion last weekend at the house party, I’ve decided to go away for a couple of days camping in South Wales over the weekend with some of the Malvern crowd. It’s cheap, which in my current situation is vital, and also allows me to stay home on Friday and completely relax before I go on Saturday, which is also a bonus considering how damn tired I am after the hours I’ve been working recently. This has obviously just got back through the grapevine to the birthday girl, who has just sent me a snotty text saying, and I quote “Gutted u decided to go camping rather than come away for my big bday by the way.” Nothing else. At all.
Yep – I’m sure she’s totally gutted, considering she hasn’t spoken to me since Jo’s big birthday last month, when she disappeared half way through the night because she didn’t want to go to the bar Jo wanted to go to. Actually – I lie – she texted to remind me I owe her for the hotel room, which she booked but didn’t stay in so I stayed at the last minute instead. She hardly ever speaks to me, and gets annoyed when we don’t do what she wants to do, but does exactly what she wants to do without consideration for others. She also knows full well that I’m really short on money at the money, and wasn’t going to go to most of Jo’s celebrations (who I’m much closer to) because of the cost (but proceeded to have a go at me anyway, despite being one of my biggest critics when it comes to my spending). So I’m afraid there’s no way I’m stumping up to go stay in a cottage somewhere for her birthday, and trashing my budget for another month. But her text just really wound me up.
And now my rant is over (and no, I haven’t replied and won’t be – she doesn’t get to make my choices for me and guilt me over them).
I was very good this morning, and went to another session of Brutal Circuits …. which ironically turned out to be not so brutal this morning. The exercises were much simpler, so I was better able to have a go at them all with good technique, and there was no racing against ridiculously uber-fit men that I can’t keep up with this week. Win!
On the subject of fitness, I’ve been trying to suss out my training diary, and think I’ve finally figured it out. I want to do more running for the impending 10k in 3 and a bit weeks. I’ve been sadly non-committal about it this time, probably because I know I can run the distance from my current fitness, but that’s not good enough. I’ve been running a 5km once or twice a week, but there’s been very little in the way of longer runs in the diary. The main problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to get in more runs / follow a training plan without dropping classes that I really enjoy and don’t want to give up. But I think I’ve figured it out now. I’m going to borrow the last 4 weeks from the official Run Bristol training plan, but I’ve adapted it to fit round my current timetable at the gym.
I really don’t want to drop Body Balance and circuits, now I’ve finally got into them, but I’ve figured out that by shuffling the middle part of the week one day to the right, it all fits in. This just means that I have my back to back runs on slightly different days than in the original plan. Tuesday’s run this week was already fulfilled by my run round the harbour on Tuesday lunchtime – 30-40 mins easy run – done.
That leaves me with tomorrow’s delight to contend with: 10 mins easy run, 5 x 5 mins running at fast pace and 2 mins recover, 5-8 mins easy run. Mmmmmm – intervally goodness! The training plan calls for 2 mins easy jog on the recovery, but I’m not actually sure my fitness is up to that at the moment, so I might walk instead – we’ll see how it goes. I’m planning on busting it out straight after work tomorrow, since it’s a 50 min session which is too long to do on my lunch break.
My eating at the moment? Not too bad, but not quite perfect either. Still things to to work on (mostly that there’s too many cakes in the office at the moment, and I should stop having one a day. Oh, and icecream because it’s hot).
More anon, clingers on to sanity!
4 comments:
I have a friend like that - so not worth the hassle I can tell you. Some people are utterly selfish and feel the need to stick their beaks in where not wanted, ignore her and enjoy your weekend. Like you say, it's not up to her what you do so bugger her!
Good work on the debt management too - I really should make some sort of plan myself, but there is always something else I 'need'.
Have a fab Easter x
You did precisely the right thing by not engaging with her sniping. Enjoy the camping trip.
Px
I used to have a friend like that and life is so much easier since we're no longer friends. She made it easy for me though, she moved away and I cut all contact. However even before then I had distanced myself for the last year and would only socialise with her in large groups to minimise the sniping. It's hard but at this age we need to leave those kind of distructive relationships in the playground. Easier said than done though I'm sure. x
Yep maybe you need to redefine the term friend in relation to this person - real friends understand and try to help don't take a stand like a diva. You're doing fantastically well with the running - hope the camping trip was fun and congratulations on your debt free plan - I know it's hard but it will be so worth it Zxx
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