A way forward

OMG what a terrible day it was yesterday.

I spent the night tossing and turning, aching muscles all over, and coughing up slime from my throat. I was awoken by the alarm cat at 5:40am, who appeared a bit confused at my haggard state. "Oh fuck" I thought. "I've got to go to fuckin work". I thought about having the day off sick, but we're really understaffed there this week and FFS surely I can turn up for only 3 days!

Sat up in bed and pulled the curtains. Bright sunny day, light already before 6. Noticed a group of bicyclists across the road on their morning ride. Then a running lady. "Fuck! Are these people all mad? How can they possibly do that at this bloody hour?" I said to the cat. I proceeded to get ready and go to work. Spent the day in the air conditioning there coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose. Pounding headache, Back just aching all day. Ran out of Panadol so just had to deal with it, as there's no shops near the place to buy any. Lucky I did go to work though as there was a lot that had to be done that day. Got home at 4pm and collapsed into bed. Didn't get up until about 8 this morning. Slept most of the time except to have something to eat.

I may go to the doctors down the road today, the one near here and they bulk bill everyone. Only thing is those places get packed as everyone goes there, and you can wait for over an hour to be seen. They don't do appts either, you just turn up and wait your turn. Dunno if the centre that my HIV GP is at is even open on the weekend, and it's such a way to go. So sick of seeing doctors though, will see how I go today with it out of that bloody air conditioning. I'm sure it makes me worse. Sitting here quite comfortably at home without a problem. Occasional cough and blowing of the nose is all. I may take some Panadol shortly though; the magic elixir. 

Got a lovely friendly letter from the nice bank yesterday (the one that wasn't calling me from India). I have been accepted for their financial hardship assistance. Oh how quaint. 

Maybe they've finally figured out there's actually a reason why people hate the banks? I know it took the gov to regulate them with these hardship measures, but the contrast between the niceness of one bank and the harassment from the other is stark. The nice bank obviously sees this as an opportunity to improve it's image, the other bank sees it as a bloody hassle and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to follow the legislation. 

Speaking of the other bank, the $guru rang them again about the calls from India. They apologised and said they should have been stopped. He told them if I get one more call he will make a formal complaint to the financial ombudsman. They have now completely stopped. I really don't know WTF was the point of them anyway. It was simple out and out harassment. I've decided to change banks after that. Nearly 30 years with them and they treat me like that. Harassment from an Indian call centre FFS. As if I haven't got enough problems already. The only thing it's accomplished is to drag their name into the dirt. 

With the negotiating the 80% debt whip-out thing, I've had to provide a "statement of financial position", sort of like a budget, along with assets and liabilities. Guru reckons it's looking favourable, but they need that from me within 2 weeks. I emailed it to the guru today. Looking at it I can guess where the guru is coming from in getting the debt reduced. Something like if they demand the whole $31,000 then it'd drive me into bankruptcy and they'd get nothing, so how about accepting something less? The whole lot is unsecured, two credit cards and a personal loan. That's why the interest rate on the loan was nearly 16% as it was unsecured. 

So far so good I guess. Going belly up isn't turning out to be quite the Armageddon I was expecting. I mean if you have bad luck you have bad luck. It's not my fault I can't pay. I got sick, simple as that. Not trying to rip anyone off. Been honest with them all and told them my situation. Even if it has taken gov legislation to do it, there does seem to be a way forward through it all.