Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

fifteen-quid-a-throw cocktails last week. What is this, anyway? An intervention? You two are ganging up on me now, are you? How did that happen? You don’t even like each other.’
    ‘Maybe we don’t always see eye to eye,’ Ali said evenly, ‘but Jude rang me when she saw your credit card bill and all those receipts because she wasworried about you. And I happen to think she’s right to be worried. If you let this get out of control you could find yourself in real trouble, Cass. We’re not ganging up on you, but we do feel like you’ve got to stop all this and start concentrating on what you’re going to do next.’
    ‘You are ganging up on me,’ I pouted. I started dragging my new table across the floor towards my bedroom. Jude grabbed the other side of it, tugging in the opposite direction. ‘Jude!’ I yelled. ‘Let go! They’re not going to take it back!’
    ‘Then you can sell it on eBay,’ she said, refusing to relinquish her grasp. A futile tug-of-war ensued, both of us grunting and swearing as we tried to manoeuvre the table in opposite directions.
    ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Ali snapped eventually. ‘Just let her keep the bloody thing. Compromise, OK? Jude, you let go of the sodding table and in return Cassie agrees to a sensible discussion about what she’s going to do about work.’
    With my new piece of furniture safely installed in my bedroom, I returned to the kitchen and slumped down at the counter, feeling a bit like a sulky teenager who’s been caught nicking vodka from her parents’ drinks cabinet.
    ‘I have been applying for jobs,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s not my fault I haven’t got anything yet.’
    ‘You haven’t registered with any temp agencies,’ Jude countered. ‘You’re not following the Recession Buster plan.’ I rolled my eyes at her. Ali tried tosuppress a smile. I pointed out that I now had three grand in redundancy pay. They shoved the credit card bill and receipts back at me.
    ‘Plus there’s rent due in a few days,’ Jude pointed out. ‘And don’t roll your eyes at me, Cassie. This is not just about you. We signed that rental agreement together. You default and they could come after me for the cash.’
    I was going to have to make cutbacks. I had to cancel the cleaner, the Sky subscription, and ‘make my own damn coffee’ instead of spending seven quid a day in Starbucks. There were to be rules. I was to be allowed to go out on weekends only and there was to be absolutely no shopping. No luxuries, no indulgences, no spa treatments. Thrift was to be the order of the day. We worked out that so long as I stuck to these rules, my redundancy package would cover the minimum repayment on my credit card for this month and next, as well as next month’s rent, bills and living expenses. Very basic living expenses. After that, I would be broke.
    ‘You’ve got a little over five weeks to find a job,’ Jude said.
    ‘I won’t need five weeks,’ I assured her, ‘you’ll see. I’ll find something in no time.’
    Well, maybe not no time. Every day for the following week I checked my emails for news from potential employers. None came. Each morning I descended the stairs to the entrance hall into which our mail was delivered, each morning I sifted throughbills and junk mail and letters for people who hadn’t lived in this building for months, and each morning there was nothing for me. No offers of interviews, no expressions of interest. Hell, I hadn’t even had a rejection letter! I was just being ignored. Even worse, the temp agencies I finally spoke to told me that they weren’t taking on any new people at the moment – they had more than enough temps to cover the jobs that were out there.
    I was going stir-crazy in the flat (I couldn’t risk going out in case I bought anything) and Jude was making things ten times worse. Every evening when she got home she bombarded me with questions: what had I done all day, how much had I spent, how many jobs had I applied for, had I had any responses yet? It was driving me insane. I’d heard nothing from Dan since the day of the credit card bill and Thursday’s date with the solicitor hadn’t helped take my mind off Dan at all.
    The date was, in fact, a total, unmitigated disaster. His name was Sean and he was, I have to admit, very attractive. He was also dull, pompous, completely without charm and told slightly racist jokes. Plus he turned up wearing too-tight jeans and a pink shirt with sweat patches