Paying for it twice

I love the name of the blog I've Paid For This Twice Already because it reminds me of my weight watchers days where they always said "don't lose the same kilo twice". God, I hate paying interest! I hate that I pay over $3000 a month onto debt and only half goes to paying principal amounts... grrr! The strange part is, I've had this debt for a long time and whilst I've never enjoyed paying interest it's never bothered me as much as it does now. Maybe because I want a different quality of life? Maybe it's because I know for every year I hold onto this debt, it's another year before I can stop working and raise a family?

When I think about all the smallish purchases I've put on credit cards, like petrol, restaurants, cheap flights I feel sick to my stomach... those things have cost me a fortune in the long run, as I've paid for them over and over. Not just twice, but quite possible 5 or 6 times over. The last time we got cheapish flights they were about $80 each, each way, so we spent $320 on airfare plus a few hundy on hotels and another few hundy of spending money... I wonder how much that holiday to QLD really cost us! Really, I don't want to think about it. I'm just going to move on, and focus of paying it back.

I stopped carrying any form of credit card a few weeks ago, and had my everyday ATM card changed to a Mastercard Debit card, so I can use my own money but have the convenience of a credit card. I'm really really set in the fact that we will not accrue any more debt this year, and I\we will achieve my\our goal of reducing our debt by over $10k this year PLUS pay for a $25k+ wedding. I know it's a lot of money but there's no reason why we can't.

We were discussing redundancies the other day, as most people are discussing lately. The company that I used to work for, in the automotive industry has just let go almost 200 staff, and some of my old pals in my old department were in that group - I'm glad I wasn't still working there. But there's no more job security in my current industry (construction) than in automotive and I suspect my current department could very easily be disolved as we fall into a project management sector of the company, and what we do could be easily outsourced/contracted out.

But, to tell you the truth, I'm not worried about losing my job. Not because I think it's secure, but because I know my work ethic, and I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm not saying I'd WANT to look for another job, but I'm just saying I know I can find more work. I don't care if I have to wait tables or pull beers for a living, I'll always do what's in my power to earn a wage. There are still jobs in my field being advertised despite redundancies country wide, so it's not an entirely dry river of opportunity.

I often wonder about what the unemployment figures in Australia are in comparison to the number of jobs are being advertised on seek.com.au or mycareer.com.au - there are always stories on television about how Australians are slackers and would rather get the dole than work for money, soour unemployment rates are innaccurate. It should be a job-seekers rate, so instead it would say i.e. 4% of Australians are looking for work, as opposed to 6.5% of Australians are unemployed. Just something I often wonder about!