Rick-Morgan.com

Merry Christmas to all! Its nearly that time again and I’ve got a few prezzies bought for those that are close to me. I’ve been spending my money very carefully this year due to being out of work and out of money. This year I’m placing value on having a good time with friends and family, not what they buy me, not that they buy me very much anyway lol! Most of the world media seems bent on single handedly crashing the world economy, reporting all bad news with glee. (more…)

Recently I’ve been trying to find out how to declare yourself bankrupt, as my debts are starting to bear a heavy weight on me. I have been unemployed now for some time, while my (wonderful) girlfriend has been supporting me. On the mental side it has been quite a strain - waking up in the night with palpitations, getting anxious during the day (every few minutes as I remember the trouble I’m in). It seems that I’m not the only one, as some of my friends are even fighting foreclosure the rest of the world, with America leading the way as usual. I’m stuck with student loan debt, credit card debt, and an overdraft that makes my bank manager’s eyes water. I fell into the trap of thinking that going to university and getting a degree would practically guarantee a successful career or a decent job at least!

Anyway, I’ve managed to keep transferring my debt around and get the best interest rates in order to try and keep it under control, but since I’ve been out of work my debt has gradually increased to the point where it’s keeping me up at night. Technically I am bankrupt as I don’t have the income required to meet my debt repayments every month, but what’s stopped me going the whole way and having myself declared bankrupt is because I’m optimistic enough to keep on believing that I’ll secure employment soon. This is just as the world economy goes down the pan. So I’m starting to feel more and more anxious.

A few of my friends have been made redundant, while one of them who is loaded has managed to take advantage of the downturn in the property market and buy a luxury flat at nearly a third of the price it was a year ago. The people with money going into a recession are the ones who can potentially get even richer by the time things start to improve.

I met another friend who I used to deliver pizzas with about 10 years ago, before I started college, who took great delight in telling me he owns a number of properties that he rents out. He wasn’t gloating and I genuinely was happy for him, but it once again left me regretting going to university.

Since we moved in there was an old electric shower embedded in the wall. There was no sign of life in it when it was switched on but I still didn’t trust it. Having disconnected the power lines I set about chipping away the concrete around the pipe that led into it from the ceiling. I then opened up the front casing and started to unscrew the the bolt that secured the water feeder pipe. I unscrewed it slowly checking to see if there was any sign of water.Nothing came out so I slowly continued to unscrew it then BAM! Mains pressured water  blew the shower casing out my hands and started spraying freezing water all over the place. Now the simple thing would have been to turn off the mains water supply and  take my time, instead of scrambling around to look for the shut off tap while the bathroom gets engulfed in a deluge of water,  but for some reason the risk taker in me decided to just get on with it..WHY? Cos I’m lazy…. (more…)

We’ve finally gotten round to fixing up our mouldy bathroom this weekend, and I think I’ve had a taste of purgatory if not hell. We’ve lived in our flat for about 3 years now and when we moved in we didn’t have enough money to redecorate the entire place, so just carried out some minor bits here and there around the place. In the bathroom we did the bare minimum, due to cost, which meant putting in a new bath,the previous owners had left a big crack in the old bath which they continued to shower in letting water leak onto the bare floor beneath. I don’t know how it didn’t cause any rot, but I’m thankful - that could have been a nightmare, and very expensive to fix. (more…)