Slice of Chaotic Life

The daily life of a celibate middle-aged man.

Archive for January, 2012

Enough money for now

Posted by Itlandm on January 24, 2012

After the months of renting two houses, after the expenses of moving, the large deposit, the furniture and curtains etc, I had debt both on my credit card and my day-to-day account. (The literal translation would be wage account, but I think it is common in English to call them checking accounts or some such. I haven’t seen checks for a couple decades here in Norway, we are more advanced when it comes to economics, but it is a form of transactional account.) In Norway, this type of account usually has a symbolic positive interest on deposits, and a much higher negative interest on loans, if available at all (as it frequently is, within limits). The interest on loan / overdraft is comparable to a credit card.

I use Skandiabanken, which is a pure Net bank and offers more favorable conditions than other banks, but a somewhat narrower spectrum of services. Probably not available outside of Scandinavia.

Anyway, I decided to accept some degree of debt and just go on with my life, not making any big lifestyle changes, just paying a quite modest amount to my credit card account each month regardless of whether and how much I had actually used the credit card. In the months with less tax deduction, I would pay off significantly more. Being single and with only small debt, I pay a noticeable amount of tax. Of course, in Norway taxes also include various mandatory insurances, both health insurance and pensions savings, so the actual tax part is not horrifying, not at my income level at least. The sales tax is somewhat horrifying, but you don’t pay that on rent. Don’t let the government know I said that! They will probably start wondering why they didn’t think of that.

Anyway, I decided to just enlist time in my service, and go on with my life. And so I did. Last month I realized that even after paying off the rest of my credit card debt, I still had more money than I needed to pay my bills. It’s been a while since last time. That’s when I bought the Galaxy Note, a dubious thing to do but pretty typical of me. I tend to buy things I don’t need if I want there to be more of them in the world of the future. Kind of voting with my wallet, if you will. But the wallet has not been exactly fit for voting in this way for a while.

Well, evidently this month again there is money sloshing around, despite the Note and the unexpected dentist visit. So that is nice. It is a shame I can’t continue to pay that same amount into my credit card account when I don’t have debt there. I really should find some way to continue to push it out of my transaction account. Seeing money there is likely to confuse me and may cause purchases. We don’t really want too much of that. What we really want is to save up for the next moving expenses. With the asylum seeker upstairs now talking very loudly and dragging things around after midnight, moving may become an increasingly tempting option.

 

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Just to have mentioned it

Posted by Itlandm on January 12, 2012

For the last three days, my heartbeat has been a bit strange. I am not sure it is actually irregular, it is more like it is beating harder than usual, but no faster, and kind of “hollow” as if it doesn’t quite get the usual traction. I have this or a very similar feeling when my blood pressure is falling, but I can’t say I notice any of that.

I am feeling fine generally. But maybe I can find a pattern in it later, if there is an opportunity later. I have learned quite a bit from my health whines over the past 12 years, although I don’t think anyone else has benefited from them!

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Asylum-seeker moves in

Posted by Itlandm on January 2, 2012

Actually I did not ask him if he was an asylum-seeker, but his physical features and accent place him deep in the Middle East, and we don’t have much work immigration from there. Besides, I saw the car of the asylum-seeker agency outside here a few weeks ago, so I was waiting for this.

He seemed genuinely surprised that I was Norwegian; he probably believes the agency owns this place. And why not, it is in the middle of the city so it is an ideal place for people who want to be around others from their homeland. It is not easy to be the only brown-skinned person for miles and miles, as could easily happen in the countryside. Here they can hang together with friends and mortal enemies day after day.

I am still looking for a cheaper place, but most don’t have a long duration. If I can only live in a place for half a year, the cost of moving will more than eat up any savings in rent. I need at least a year or two. Of course, it is anybody’s guess whether I can live here for that long. It depends largely on the sanity of my new upstairs neighbor. He seemed intelligent enough, so I don’t expect him to set fire to the furniture as long as his sanity holds up, far from home in a godless country where no one respects him. Wish him luck, I certainly do, if nothing else then for my own sake.

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Falling+ill

Posted by Itlandm on January 1, 2012

For the third day in a row, it did not rain, although a light snow was falling this time. As usual when it is not raining, I went for a walk of at least an hour. I have found a circuit that goes over a hill and down on the other side, then around it and back; it is about an hour and a quarter if I don’t make any detours.

On my way home, I slid on the slippery ground and fell backward. I slightly bruised my hands, but only the thick part between the wrist and the palm. I am not sure what it is called (in fact, I don’t even remember its Norwegian name, if it has one.) I believe my head did not actually hit the ground, but it hurt slightly, probably from the jolt to the spine. Apart from these things I seem completely unhurt, which is somewhat of a pleasant surprise. I am no youth anymore and out of practice with falling, and the ground was stone hard.

In the late evening, another health challenge has developed. My chest feels like pneumonia. I mean, it probably isn’t, but it feels the same way. It is not the feeling of lacking oxygen and having an iron band around my chest, which is more of a neurotic thing I think. This is simply the feeling you have right before a deep chest cough, as if phlegm has gathered in the lower bronchi. Which it may possibly have, since my nose has been stuffy for a couple days now. Still, it hasn’t been a real cold so I don’t see why it would settle in my lungs or bronchi. It is highly unpleasant, mainly because of my childhood history with asthma and the memories that evokes. Incidentally, I have taken asthma medicine and cough medicine (the latter being placebo, according to one popular science magazine, but I need any placebo I can get). There is no noticeable effect from either. Right now it is neither worsening nor bettering.

 

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