Dirty Dinar

Another 3 month gap and I’m amazed at what happened with my finances! I was right not to give up on 2008! My finances are still a mess because I haven’t been keeping track of my expenses but I’ve bounced back somewhat. I quit my job after receiving a generous offer from another company and it’s helped me recover from my financial misteps, but I still have some months to go until I’m in the green again.

Here’s a run-down on my new earnings:

• I make KWD 1425 - KWD 1200 of which is my base salary and the rest are benefits granted by the company.
• I also get a supplementary allowance of KWD 310 from the government (Thank you to the last Parliament! Now let’s see if it keeps up with the inflation you’ve accelerated!).
• My deductions include my car loan and Social Insurance, which brings my total earnings for the month to  KWD 1411.867.

If I stick to my old budget I should be able to save KWD 1000 a month but I have to factor in my new financial state. I’ve accumulated debt since my old budget, with both a car loan and credit card debt. My car loan will take several years to pay off and in the months when I first took out my car loan I used my credit card a lot, but that should take a few months to pay off.

To counter the debt, I opened a trading account with KWD 560 and have invested in one stock which has gone up since I’ve bought the shares.

Life is a mixed bag of blessings. I’m glad my finances are back on track but I need to return to my weekly budget to better handle my money. I get paid by the end of this week and I’ll have to take stock of every fils I have to my name.