car – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: car

  • Bad Decisions

    This is a story about getting into debt…

    Bike

    I was desperate for a halfway-decent car when I was 17 years old. The car I had when I first passed my driving test was the most disgusting horrible thing you’ve ever seen in your life, and that was before my mum crashed it, and then a blind man was paid to repair it using household paint of the wrong colour, which was daubed thickly onto the crumpled bodywork, and left to drip and generally look worse than it would have done if somebody had simply lowered their trousers, curled out a shit onto the bonnet, and then smeared the excrement.

    The car, absolutely, was not a gift. In fact, the car was a curse. Firstly it was extortionate to repair, because nobody has a disgusting shit car like that for their first car, so no insurer would offer me an affordable policy. That wiped out every penny I had. Then, it was ruined: my mother crashed it, and it was shit in the first place. It was so old, that basically, it was mechanically fucked in every conceivable way. So, the insurance financially ruined me, then repairing it left me with a gigantic debt to the garage. Then, after all that, it was a hideously ugly shit unreliable horrible, horrible, horrible car.

    So, I was keen to have a car that was not shit.

    I got a bank loan. I got a bank loan to buy a car, which wasn’t a piece of shit, looked like shit, drove like shit… I took out a bank loan to buy a fucking OK-ish fucking car, alright?

    In actual fact, it was a good decision to get that bank loan, because I was happy with my not-shit car. In fact, I was fucking ecstatic to have a car which wasn’t a complete pile of shit, that was financially crippling me.

    Predictably, my OK-ish car was not a pile of fucking horrible ugly shit, and consequently cost me far less in garage repair bills. Predictably, my OK-ish car did wonders for my self-esteem, and I was quite proud of my OK-ish car. My OK-ish car was very enjoyable to drive, and I was very glad that I had taken out that bank loan.

    Of course, I hated being in debt, but I paid it off pretty quickly, especially as the garage bills were a fraction of what they were for the horrible ugly old piece of shit, which was good for nothing but the scrap yard.

    So, where am I going with this?

    Today is payday. Actually, I don’t really have payday, to to speak. I don’t have a salaried job, in any sense that you’d understand. I run my own company, so it’s not like payday is really a thing for me. But anyway, for the sake of simplicity: imagine that today is payday for me.

    I’ve been trying to buy a new bike for a little while. Pictured above is my city bike: designed for zooming through traffic in London. I love that bike. It’s great.

    I don’t live in London anymore. I live somewhere where there’s hills.

    The new bike I’ve been trying to buy is a mountain bike. I don’t live super close to any mountains – maybe 45 minutes away – but it’s pretty hilly where I live, so I need gears. As it happens, I already have a mountain bike, which I bought on motherfucking credit, OK, motherfucker not long after I got my OK-ish car. My 22 year old mountain bike is brilliant and I love it, but I want one which is better for going up and down hills. I mean, that’s what my old one is designed to do, but I want a better one.

    So, I’m buying something that I don’t need but I want and I can afford because it’s payday. I can pay cash. I don’t need to borrow money or otherwise get it on some kind of credit agreement. I can just walk into a fucking shop, hand over the cash, and walk out with the brand new mountain bike.

    I’m getting one.

    Actually, it looks like I’m getting one which is going to cost twice as much as I had budgeted for… but I don’t care. I want the one that I want, and I want it now… or rather, I want it tomorrow, because the shop needs to build it for me.

    It feels – having been relatively recently homeless, horrendously indebted, and almost bankrupt – to be an incredibly bad decision. Sure, it probably is, but I’ve got the money – surplus – and I’m going to spend it all on this thing that I want; this thing that I don’t need.

    For sure, I’m not spending money that I don’t have; I’m not spending money before I’ve earned it. For sure, this could be the beginning of a spiral back into debt, but I really don’t think it’s going to be. Even if it is, I don’t give a shit. I’ve put up with too much for too long, to fuck around any longer.

    Sorry for the stream of expletives. I’ve had to justify myself and my very real human needs, for far too long. If you ask my dad, you can get a bike that’s just as good as a £30,000 full-carbon Tour de France pro-rider bike, so cheaply that somebody will pay you to take it off your hands, and buy you a fucking house too for your trouble.

    By the way, I am not buying a £30,000 full-carbon pro-rider bike. I am buying a mid-range bike: not the cheapest, and not the most expensive. Mid-priced.

    Okay?

    Happy now?

     

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  • Lockdown Improvements

    This is a story about the Coronavirus pandemic…

    Lighthouse

    Many people planned to come out of lockdown with new hobbies, fitter, healthier, happier and myriad other unachievable unrealistic things. I think that we have mostly come out of lockdown fatter, more unfit, poorer, more insecure, lonely, isolated, bored and generally worse off.

    I started the lockdown drinking very heavily and eating McDonald’s breakfast every morning. I decided that if we were going to be suffering the misery of being under house arrest, then I would treat myself. Quickly I realised that I was going to end up with clogged arteries and morbidly obese. I was eating takeaway several nights a week and not doing any exercise.

    I started the lockdown physically dependent on sleeping pills to get to sleep, and using two different tranquillising sedatives to cope with unbearable anxiety. I decided it was too much hassle to try to keep stocked up with the medications I needed during the lockdown, and I calculated that I have enough left to be able to taper myself off. I didn’t want to run out of medication suddenly in the middle of a pandemic.

    I started the lockdown working on my sofa, fully reclined. I realised that my posture and back would be ruined by working in such a position for 8 hours a day, followed by many more hours on the sofa after finishing work.

    Things had to change.

    I thought the lockdown would last a month or two, but I must admit that I didn’t think it would drag on beyond a quarter of the year. I tried my best to psychologically prepare myself for the lockdown lasting for months, but I was hopeful it’d be all over after 6 to 8 weeks.

    I bought a desk and an office chair.

    I weaned myself off the sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

    I cut down my drinking, and even went teetotal for 6 or 7 weeks.

    I started exercising. Not, like, exercising exercising. Just going for a 10km walk every day. Enough to keep me a little bit active, but nothing crazy.

    I stopped getting takeaways. All those takeaways were costing quite a lot of money, when they were all added up. Sure, I felt like I could justify spending the money to enjoy some nice food, as compensation for the doom and gloom of the hundreds of thousands of people dying all over the world, and the restrictions to our freedom… but it wasn’t healthy and it was costing a packet.

    I paid off all my debt. This wasn’t so much a planned thing. It was something that just happened to co-incide with the lockdown. However, it feels pretty damn good to have some savings now. I have a net worth again, which feels good. I have some financial security, even if it is pretty negligible. It had been a very long time which I’d been struggling to get my finances sorted, and it’s a big relief to be back in the black.

    My life is extremely austere and simple. I have my house, my job, my cat, my car; that’s it. My health is probably OK. My weight is OK, although I am carrying some extra weight I’d like to shift, as a consequence of lockdown. My finances are OK. My job seems OK. My housing situation is sort of OK. My kitten is great, although my cat is lost… overall OK. My car has a big dent where an idiot crashed into it during lockdown, in a virtually empty car park, but there are more important things in life than having a shiny perfect car.

    All things considered, I think I’m one of the lockdown winners – I’m emerging in far better shape than I went into lockdown. Some people have lost their job, or are about to lose their job. Some people have struggled with alcohol and food. Some people have struggled with mental health. In almost every area of my life, things have improved; I look reasonably well positioned to weather a difficult autumn and winter.

    Although losing my cat was the worst thing that happened, it has forced me to connect with my neighbours and the wider community, so I have even managed to live a far less isolated and lonely existence under lockdown, than I was living before – I speak to far more people; I’m more connected and socially engaged.

    I thought that if I retreated inwards, living and communicating through my blog and social media, then I would find it impossible to get through the lockdown. It looks like a reasonably good decision, to have taken a break.

    It helps that it’s summer – of course – which lifts my mood and generally creates a more pleasant and favourable backdrop for life, but I feel hopeful that I’ve got a decent position of health and financial stability to fight through the autumn and winter. I just need to book some holidays now… I’ve worked non-stop since early January, when I was discharged from hospital.

     

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