INLSA

Esther Lewis

FOR the first time in my working history, I’ve had an anti-JanuWorry plan. And managed to stick to it.

It made for a very welcome change, not having to live day-to-day in the dreaded month of post-festive blues.

I didn’t have to buy the cheap chicken with stray feathers still attached. I didn’t have to switch to the nasty R3 a cup coffee to get through the day. I didn’t have to cut open the tube of toothpaste to get the last bits out. I didn’t even have to downgrade to one-ply toilet paper.

The month, surprisingly, has come and gone without a hitch. Everything went according to plan.

And don’t think it was an easy feat. It was extremely difficult. Last year I promised that I wasn’t going to be broke come January 4. That’s around the time we all go back to work after a festive season well celebrated with wallets empty after money was not so well spent.

Around this time, it’s advisable to draw whatever money you have and do cash transactions. Unless you really want to suffer the embarrassment of your card being rejected because of insufficient funds as you try to buy goods for R25.

It becomes increasingly difficult to remember just how much you have left in the bank as the balance dwindles to nothing.

I’m happy to report that by January 4 and 10, and even 24, I was not broke.

But it wasn’t easy. I allowed myself a small amount of indulgence. It was the first time I had to squeeze “indulgence” into my December budget – and actually stick to it. It was placed right after rent, insurance and petrol.

You see, I have big plans for this year. The type of plans that do not allow one to venture into the minus side of an overdraft. These plans have to unfold this year as the last instalment of “growing up”. It’s already a decade overdue.

I nearly collapsed when I realised that 2012 marked 10 years since I completed my studies. I know several years ago I planned to go back and further my education. It’s the adult thing to do.

Then life got in the way.

At first there was the mammoth task of trying to find a job to bankroll furthering my education. Once I found a job education was still on my mind, but it seemed there were more immediate needs. Anyway, I was still young. I had more than enough time.

Immediate needs included things like a brand new car. It made sense. This meant, however, that education would have to wait just a while. No problem, time was still on my side.

Of course, once I had adjusted to the weight of the car payment positioned like a shackle around my purse, there were more reasons to put off studying.

In your early twenties it is almost compulsory that for every eight hours worked, you match it hour for hour with party time, beach time and chill out time. Having my nose deeply embedded in books did not seem like an attractive option back then. I would eventually get to that. One day when I was grown up.

And when responsibility and its other boring adult sidekicks showed up, the thought of hitting the books resurfaced. But then, when I weighed up the cost of flying the coop into a nest of my own against registration fees, education lost out again.

Fast forward to present day.

Even for a procrastinator such as myself, a decade does seem too long to have put this off.

Maybe it’s a good thing. At this stage of my life, I’m not too worried about whether or not I’ll make friends. During registration the first time round, my parents made that decision for me. Their radar honed in on another girl and her parents. Our parents decided then and there that we’d be BFFs because we were from the same area. We were and still are.

Another advantage that comes with age is not being gripped in teen angst. At the time, everything signalled the end of the world. Not being able to get a lift to a party, the prospect of spending the next 40 years working, and whether the boy you’d seen around the campus but never spoke to saw you take that humiliating tumble near the admin block. These are the things that I lost sleep over. Back then we were all still finding ourselves, trying to establish an identity.

Well, I consider myself found. Hell, I’ve had 10 years to do so. It was bound to happen.

And along with that came fewer worries about things I couldn’t control and more forward planning.

And that, I believe, was the secret to conquering the dreaded JanuWorry.