Made it

The 25th of January - and the entire country (planet?) breathes a collective sigh of relief. Payday!

I'm not sure how it goes elsewhere, but here in South Africa there's a trend to pay folk their year-end salary around the 16th of December (in our case it was the 14th), and then expect them to survive until the end of January. Also in our case, there's no bonus involved to stretch the Rands over the festive season, so it can end up a pretty lean period no matter how carefully you juggle the bills.

Basically, the last 3 months have been financial hell for me. Knife-edge doesn't even come close - it's been survival mode all the way. Where some would drop R5 on a craving-chocolate, R500 on a few luxury groceries, R2,000 on Xmas gifts, I've been giving everything the twice-or-more-over before swapping my cash for it. Living on "orange lights" - the prepaid electricity meter, the fuel guage. Keeping them live, but often just barely. There's been a compounding of circumstances that have made things very "interesting", to say the least! :-)

January Payday has thus been seen as the Golden Day. The goal to aim for, the date I have to make it to. The final commute without the low-fuel light coming on, the final cup of morning coffee without the milk running out, the final contact lens rinse before the liquid runs dry.

And I've reached it. Payday's here. Can breathe again.

Though I'm breathing carefully. There's still some very careful manipulation of funds required for the next little while - still quite a few expenses to meet, and a little extra cash-inflow to confirm & secure. But this is the date I've been aiming for and have finally reached. From here on out I can make it.

Sjoe.