Today’s post doesn’t really look at how my job hunt is going, various aspects of searching for jobs that is annoying me or stressing me out, or anything to do with looking for employment, being on the job centre or seeing others around me getting interviews and jobs while I’m still say at home everyday twiddling my thumbs. No, today’s post is going to be me talking about living as an unemployed graduate. With money not coming in on a regular basis, other than from the job centre, which isn’t a great amount but it does help a little bit, life is currently being spent living on a budget. I obviously had to budget for food, bills, books and other things with my student loan during university, but never have I had to budget to the extreme that I am having to at the moment. With only a few scraps of my student loan left, and the small amount of money that comes into my bank account every two weeks, I truly am having to scrimp and save. Lets face it, no time is brilliant to have to budget every single aspect of your life, but it certainly doesn’t help when a certain holiday is fast approaching. The question I have been asking myself for the past couple of weeks is: how on earth am I going to be able to do Christmas on a budget?
Now I know that it may be a little bit early to be writing about the season of being jolly, it is after all only October 23rd, there are still a good eight weeks until the big day is finally here. That may seem like a long way away, but lets face it, with all the shops bringing out the decorations and their festive sections in full force, a number of adverts on television starting to advertise furniture that can be delivered to you in time for the festive period, and the start of all those offers on food and presents that shops are now making available to their customers, it cannot be denied that Christmas is on its way, and will be here before you know it. Is it any surprise that its come round so quickly? This year has flown by without us even realising. But anyway, I’m going off topic, back to the main point. So Christmas is well and truly on its way, and I’m on a strict budget in order for my money to not fly out of my account at a rapid rate with no mass amount coming back in. Not a great combination really, is it? Now I love Christmas, and I love buying presents for those that are closest to me. The best part of Christmas for me is going out and finding the perfect presents for those that mean a lot to me, although may I add that I do the majority of my Christmas shopping in November as the shops aren’t nearly as crazy as they are in December, and no one can be dealing with that, no matter how much they love the festive season. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t throw money away when it comes to buying presents, I am wise about my money and try and find good quality presents that the people I’m buying for will love, that doesn’t come with the biggest price tag in the world. But this year, things are really going to be tight. On such a low amount of money, buying for the people closest to me is going to be a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, the one plus I have is that myself and my friends have agreed that we have reached an age where we don’t need to buy birthday or Christmas presents for one another, so that gives me a bit of extra money that I can use for those people that I am still buying for. So this year only presents are being brought for my boyfriend, his family and my family. It’s not too many people, but it’s still going to be a strain on the budget that I do have.
I know that no one is expecting me to buy them something massively grand this Christmas, or anything for that matter, as everyone knows that I am not having brilliant money luck at the moment. But like I already said, I love buying presents for people, and although I am going to have to be super duper strict with myself when it comes to my Christmas shopping, I’m not going to let it stop me being good presents for those that I’m buying for this year. There are plenty of shops and online outlets that aren’t overly expensive and that have great offers on presents, that I can use and will able to purchase things from without completely breaking the bank. I’m hoping that this plan will work, I will keep you posted!
Life's Peachey 