I don’t understand money. I don’t understand really what it is, where it comes from, where it goes to, how it’s made, what it’s made of, what to do with it, how to keep it, or what to do to get it. All I know about money is that it’s got the queen on it, it’s represented by squiggly lines, and if I give some to a man, he gives me beer. So now that it’s come to organising myself financially, I’m a bit stuck.
For the past year and a bit, after Sixth Form, I’ve been working, because I understood that was the normal thing to do. So, I devised an idiot proof system that took all of the money mysteriously given to me by the people I went to do work for, and put it in one place, and I also took money from this place to give to people for stuff. Then I got another place that was for keeping money I wasn’t going to spend on beer or music. Every now and then I would move left over cash from the place the work people paid me, to the place I wasn’t allowed to take money from. Apparently that’s called ‘savings’?
There were all sorts of percentages attached with this, and the place I kept my money tried to explain what the percentages mean, and why it was great, but it was pretty futile. From what I understand, they gave me money for using them as a place to keep my money…
So anyway, in September I’m going to go off to university, which means I need to sort out accommodation finance and student fees and maintenance and, uh, stuff. So I go onto the direct.gov website because apparently thats the place where you get money for the … okay I am actually being serious, I have no idea what I am typing or how to explain. I literally don’t have a clue. They are going to give me money, I think that’s the idea, and that money gets split into different parts for different things it needs to be paid for. And … the, the money needs to be paid back, I think. Or some does.
Now, I’m not trying to shirk responsibility for my complete lack of understanding, but I whole heartedly blame my high school.
From years 7-11 we had this class called PSHE, which stood for ‘Personal Social Health Economic’, which was a once a week affair with our form tutor. In about year 9, it changed it’s title to ‘Life’, which was an equally shit name. It didn’t have any exams, or any homework – if there was we simply wouldn’t do it and no one seemed to care – and the teachers treated it with very little sincerity. PSHE, as the name suggests, taught us about personal issues, social issues, health issues, and economic issues to help us with the difficult task of growing up. ‘Life’ continued with this mission statement, so you would assume money management would be the topic of at least one lesson. However, the lessons basically consisted of one sex ed lesson in year 8, when an old lady came in and we laughed at her putting a condom on a wooden rod, and then the rest of the lessons consisted of teachers reading out print outs outlining each of the many and various drugs that are available and how they will indefinitely fuck up every aspect of our lives if we so much as mention their names. Then, in year 11, we were lucky enough to be visited 5 times by a fat woman with hair dyed purple who had come in from some charity with sealed clear plastic boxes of these drugs to show us what they looked like, and again told us all how dangerous they were (which, from the look of her, seemed to come as first hand experience, though she never admitted it, despite the amount of bullying she received from the back row students) while the entire class passed around the boxes and searched for a way to break into them. Not once did they ever explain what the hell money was!
Surprisingly, the school produced several pregnant teenagers and many druggies. So, really, a massive waste of time. And I still have no idea how to financially survive as an adult.
PnL.x
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