03 May 2012

credit

I should be attending an MM professional development workshop my colleague Viv is presenting not too far from here in Mount Evelyn. Instead I’m at home nursing a cold; resting. I swallow two tablets from the chemist but nothing happens and my nose drips. My throat rebels every fifteen minutes and needs serious work to shift the scum.

I log on to Netbank to perform my duties as chairperson of our owners corporation. I schedule payment of our one major bill, the insurance; a cheque needs writing and posting; all the bills and receipts need assembling in one box; I need to pay my annual fee now my bank balance can cope with it. I transfer the money, and go back to my Netbank home page. And there it is.

I’ve been in debt for 28 years. There’s been a small fluctuating amount in my cash account for food and petrol and daily expenses. My fixed account fluctuates on a broader scale as it deals with utility bills, rates, taxes, and payments for large or expensive items. My business account has paid for holidays and airfares and the credit card when the other accounts can’t bridge the gap.

The great constant for 28 years is the home loan, all $75k of it, such a small amount to most home owners, but a seemingly insurmountable lump to a man with no interest in money. There are no assets, no stocks, shares or other stuff that I don’t understand.

The bank kindly tots up my worth and indicates my financial status at the bottom of my home page; the figure is always suffixed with a DR. I don’t know how DR translates to debt; perhaps it means debtor—I owe.

Today, after 28 years of DR, my status is CR—creditor; the bank owes me. I still owe $4,627.09 on my home loan, and $361.76 on the credit card. But my other accounts hold a total of $5,124.27, leaving me $135.42 to the good, a CR. I don’t know how or what I should feel. Relief, gratitude, nothing?

I need to consider how to invest my CR status: capitalise the house (no); top up the super (probably); earn interest (how)? The business of money and its pursuit will always be a mystery.   

Rock on. 

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