The musings of a madman

Just feeling a little restless, that all.   Work is pretty crap, business is down and the team is slowly falling apart and there's nothing that I can do.  People leaving and people bringing in their problems from home, etc…  Money is now a constant struggle.  Basically I don't have any.  My staff keep fucking up the mystery shop visit and that is costing me my bonus.  They don't care, they're leaving or don't have the financial commitment to actually need the money.

I always used to live my life on the rule that whatever my finical commitments, I wold never exceed my basic pay outgoings that I had to make.  It's now at the point where I' about to break that and I have no guarantee of anything further whilst the staff keep loosing me my bonus.  There isn't much I can do to deal with it.

The horrible truth is that I haven't had a pay rise in 5 years, My bonus has been eroded away by head office moving the goal posts and by the staff pissing away what I have earned, through their own laziness and incompetence.  I can't hold them to account without head office getting on the way, but they're costing me money month after month - with the exception of one staff member who actually wants to get involved and make progress.

I don't want to leave where I work but it is getting to the point where their choice not to give me a pay rise is making me finically unviable.  With my ratio of income to liabilities, if I was a company- I'd be in administration right now.  Now quite bankrupt, but needing special measures to see things through.

So the answer would seem to be to find either a second job or to find a different job with better pay.  Frankly the second job thing is not going to be a viable option - I've looked and I con't seem to find anything that will fit around the times I want to be down the gym.

So that leaves looking for a different job.  Not sure what that's likely to bring.  I'm sure there are things within retail that i could move to but I would really like to make a move outside of retail, maybe to something a little less volatile and certainly less target driven.  I keep thinking that there may be something that I can do with my ACSP qualification but there does't seem to be anything obvious.  In either case, it needs to be able to pay a basic that is substantially higher than what i am earning now, especially if there is any commuting involved.

But then again, where I am financially would not be so bad had I not bitten off more than I can chew in respect of financial investments and security that my IFA has pushed my way.  That seems to have crept up and been more expensive at every step and it has basically crossed the line between ending affordable and making my finical position unviable.  But all the different elements are so intertwined that I can't see a way of unpicking one from another and making life easier.  I'm stuck with a load of witty insurances that I don't see the value in, but then the commission that my IFA gets from those is paying the handling fees for my stocks and shares ISA which keeps that profitable.  I don't see a way of picking this lot apart and making it any more viable.

Don't get me wrong, compared with some people out there, I am still OK. At the moment the mortgage payments on the mortgage are safe and for that I am truly thankful.  At the same time, I feel that I am justified in wanting to progress and do better in life, earn more money to be stable again.

I guess I'm just feeling the pinch at the moment.  It's ironic really, all the time that the country was in the shit, I was blessed enough not to feel it.  NOw that the economy is allegedly on the up, I am finically squeezed to a level that i advent felt since I first moved out of home, back in Basingstoke just after I left uni.  Back then it was playing off the bank balance to pay day and making money go round twice.  Its not that bad now, but its getting closer.  I need and want a way out.

Lord, money may not be the everything in this world,
I may not be able to take it with me when I leave,
And I know there are many people with far less
Than I possess in this life.

Yet none-the-less I ask,
show me a way to be able to move forward,
To get back to a place of stability and prosperity
so that I may be able to provide for the partner and family 
that I aspire to have.
So that I may enjoy a positive outlook on life
day by day
And have a a stability that allows me to build for the future.