Ever since man kind decided to keep track of stuff using money there have always been the people with money and the people without money.  The people with money quickly learned that there wasn’t enough money to go around so they guarded it.  Throughout time there have been those exceptional people who started without money and ended with money.  This was terrifying to the people with money because it meant that any could get money, but there still wasn’t enough to go around.  These exceptional people were called Nouveau Riche, and this was not a compliment.  It meant
that even though you were worth just as much monetarily you were still low class because that’s where you started.  For these Nouveau Riche it was their goal to be as much like old money, because that was better.  This trend lasted until around the 1970’s.  By then the world had changed and it was some how better to be Nouveau Riche, and niche markets for shoes like this

and cars like this,

were able to thrive.  This lasted until the mid 1990’s when for a brief period being poor was strangely cooler than being rich.  Now in this new millennium, (I am going to have to wait 11 more years before being it gets a clever name), and all of this seems to be out of our system now and style has again moved back to the conservative old money look.  So much so that there is a thriving business for knockoff designer accessories.  Look like you have money without having to pay for it.

I think that is the longest I’ve ever taken to get to the point.  I’ll have to see if Mr. Topp is paying me by the word.  The topic I wanted to talk about is bourbon. 

Let’s be precise shall we.  Bourbon is an American whiskey made primarily from corn and named after Bourbon County, Kentucky. Bourbon does not have a proud heritage.  The Old Bushmills distillery has been in the business of making whiskey almost 200 years longer than the country bourbon is made in was has been in business.  And for a long time bourbon was enjoyed by people who slept outside and spent more times with cows than with girls.  That was why they were called cowboys.  So for generations bourbon has been the drink of choice for American rednecks who
were seeking to go blind.  Just think without bourbon Brittney Spears might still be a number 1 recording artist.  I should stop giving the Americans a hard time, especially since they aren’t the only guilty ones. For the Canadains who read this I was in one of the top steak houses in Calgary last summer and they had more bourbon than scotch.  For the
English who read this Bourbon made a few appearences in the James Bond series.  I have no facts to back this up but I seem to recal reading somewhere that Roger Moore’s Bond had more bourbon then his signature martini.  Even Dame Judi Dench as “M” said she prefered bourbon to cognac.

So in the world of whiskeys bourbon is a young low class upstart, but it wants to be classy and is well on it’s way.  Try one today.

One last little pieces of terrifying info before the end.  When looking for an image of the disco shoes I was talking about I learned that you can still buy those shoes today.  So I guess we haven’t moved as far away from low class as I would have thought.

My financial life has discernible patterns to it. Luckily for me, I feel that I’m learning from these patterns. Does this mean that I’m a learner? That I continue to grow as a person? That I’m lucky? Introspective? A role model for others?

Probably not, but I’ll tell you my story.

My financial life has a tendency to follow its own little boom/bust cycle: I gain a bit of financial stability, I become overconfident in my financial situation, I become overextended, and finally I give myself a financial correction.

It happened first in university, when I was first exposed to credit: I built up some credit card bills, couldn’t pay them, and eventually had to retire them. University ended with no credit card debt (though plenty of student loan debt), and me making enough money to cover all my non-tuition expenses.

Did I learn a lesson? Apparently not.

Once I had my first job (and a new, much larger credit limit) I pushed to the limit again, ending up with maxed out credit cards, et cetera. Again, I went on a behaviour-changing spree. And, a few years later, I once again owed nothing (other than the amount remaining on student loans). And this time I did learn my lesson.

Or so I thought. Everything was under control for a couple of years … and then I picked up and moved to London. In doing so, I knew that I could conceivably end up in a similar situation. It is, after all, a bit of a risk to move to a new country without a job. Still, I had saved, and I was sure that my savings could last long enough to get a new job.

I was wrong — London is expensive, and getting a job took three times as long as I had hoped. Despite being thrifty, I was pretty much at my limit (again) by the time I found work. So I went through the process yet again, and stabilised my situation shortly after getting an income. I thought everything was going well … and then inflation seemed to be outpacing my salary rises, and I got worried. My savings had been burned through, and the new debt only partly paid off.

Luck, coincidence or hard work, this is when my current job and flat came along. Expenses went down, income went up, and once again the credit card debts were evaporating and savings were appearing. All was right with the world.

But in retrospect, life in London seems to be a new pattern of booms and busts, in miniature. I suppose probably everybody gets them, but I was getting increasingly worried.

And today? Back to a mini-bust. For the second month running I have been slammed by a big credit card bill. Last month was Christmas. This month is post-Christmas furniture shopping. Two months in a row where I have missed my savings target in order to pay off my credit card bill. And February will be the first month since I started the new job where I’m ending the month with less in the bank than I started it with.

But I think I’ve learned my lesson. There is no debt building up. Instead of rationalising my decreased bank balance, or letting a credit card balance stick around for a month, I am tightening my belt.

I expect it will work. The last couple of months are a direct result of specific one-time (or, in the case of Christmas, annual) spending. And I’m not doing this to simply stabilise my financial situation like in crises past, or to pay down credit cards. I am doing it to put the extra money into my savings account which I would normally have expected to have put in (but didn’t) over the course of January and February.

In short, I think I might have grown up.