The last dark days of January are possibly the leanest financial time of the year. EOIN BUTLERputs some penny-pinching strategies to the test
‘TODAY YOU MAY withdraw: nil.” When an ATM informs you that you have the price of a packet of crisps to subsist on for the next fortnight, it tends to inspire blind panic more often than rational reflection.
If you are in paid monthly employment, there is no doubt that the last week in January is one of the leanest in the calendar.
I speak from experience, having met my own (financial) Waterloo at an ATM just last week. Here’s how the ordeal plays out. Denial: It must be a mistake. Recrimination: The Christmas parties! The January sales! The 9.37am fuel purchase in a motorway service station outside Enfield! (Enfield? When was I in Enfield?) Despair: What was I thinking? Finally, acceptance: It’s done now. But what is to be done next? Well, that is the question.
How does a person survive a fortnight with a home but no money? I posed the question on Twitter late last week and was met with some constructive (and some not so constructive) suggestions. I decided to give some of them a try.
1 CONSOLIDATE EXISTING ASSETS
I conduct a thorough search of my jacket pockets, trouser pockets, shirts, couch and car. Rich Eoin is a sloppy customer. But Broke Eoin doesn’t miss a trick. In 10 minutes, I turn up €9.50 in coins. Next, I run a fine tooth comb through the contents of my wallet. Rich Eoin has a very vague understanding of which receipts should be kept and which are expendable. So his wallet is always packed with useless receipts.
I’m in luck. Tangled up in an old Spar receipt about half way through the pile is a crumpled five euro note.
2 VOUCHERS
Eileen Gallagher recommends hunting for gift vouchers I’ve forgotten about. She tells me she unearthed €30 in gift vouchers from old cards after a “mental spring clean” in her home. In response, I conduct what could loosely be described as a mental spring clean of my kitchen drawer. Lo and behold, a €20 Marks Spencer voucher appears.
It transpires M&S ready-made meals can be purchased using my voucher. That’s three dinners taken care of. Thank you, Eileen.
3 VISIT THE BANK
This is not a glorious moment in my life. I wonder if, when I leave, the cashiers will giggle among themselves about the latter-day Caligula who, just a fortnight ago, splashed out on an unscheduled skiing trip, and is reduced to withdrawing €7.14 so he can buy a sandwich. Yes, quite possibly they might.
4 SELL STUFF
Many of the suggestions I’m getting on Twitter are going into a pile marked “It hasn’t quite come to that yet, thanks”. These include: donating blood (“You get crisps, biscuits and sambos,” advises Rebecca Mills); donating sperm; volunteering for paid medical tests (“My brother did them in Belfast,” confides one user); and, perhaps inevitably, prostitution.
But I am intrigued by the idea of selling something to a second-hand store. An (apparently nameless) pop-up shop has appeared on Dublin’s College Green, with a sign outside declaring “We buys CDs/DVDs.” The staff won’t quote prices without seeing the merchandise offered, so I swing by with an assortment of items randomly selected from my apartment.
The best price I'm given is €3 (or €5 store credit) for a four-disc Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live DVD box set. In search of a second opinion, I take the same item to Chapters on Parnell Street. They offer zero. One of the discs is missing, they point out. Damn their vigilance. Neither are they interested in a pristine copy of David Vann's excellent novel Legend of a Suicide. ("We have lots of copies in stock at the moment, sorry.") But they will stump up €2 (or €3 store credit) for Martin Meredith's magisterial post-colonial opus The State of Africa. To be honest, these prices would make sense only if I actually wanted rid of my beloved books. But at the rates quoted, I could sell practically my entire shelf and still not have enough for a bag of shopping.
5 BORROW MONEY FROM A FRIEND
I hoped to avoid this. But needs must. The secret to borrowing money from a friend is convincing him you don’t really need it. That’s because your friend is likely to be influenced less by altruism and more by his assessment of when you can pay him back.
So, as usual, I tell him that a major international publishing house has snapped up my debut novel. That Miramax is optioning the film rights. That a secret Cayman Island slush fund I set up in the early 1990s is paying out like a fruit machine. I might even have a cameo for him in the film.
I’ll run it by Mr Weinstein, of course, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
That’s (more or less) what I tell him. It does the trick. I’m €50 to the better.
6 MOOCH
Years ago, as impoverished students, my friends and I would occasionally feign interest in joining some college society or other. It was really just an excuse to go over there, drink all of their wine, and eat all of their cheese. (Oh come on Peruvian Dancing Club, you must have had your suspicions.) Finding myself in similar penury, I wonder if there is an equivalent to the Peruvian Dancing Club in the non-academic world?
“Accept all invitations to launches,” suggests Peter Horgan. “That tactic got me through my Master’s.” I search the word “invitation” in my inbox and discover that my presence has been requested at the unveiling of a portrait of singer Eleanor McEvoy at the National Concert Hall the next day. I call the PR person and lay my cards on the table.
“There will be wine and cheese and canapés,” she promises.
When I get back to my laptop, Eleanor McEvoy herself has tweeted, promising “We’ll have a whip around for you.” Well, that settles it then. Because my funds are low. Yes, my funds are so low . . .
