I have $107.15 to last me 10 days.

That’s less than $11 a day. Which, sure, is a good $8 more than those people who did the Live Below the Line challenge and a metric shitload more than the actual people living in poverty in developing countries live on. But that’s not a lot of dosh. Especially when you like avocados as much as I do.

Is it doable?

Yes.

Do I have a credit card I could put emergency discounted meat on?

Yes.

But this isn’t the way I want to live.

I want to have clothes that aren’t seven-years-old or lint-covered Cotton On numbers, but I also want to have money in my account at the end of the month. It’s a tough balance to strike, but apparently life is all about balance and while the word that often comes after balancing is “act” – which implies balance is all a charade – I want to at least have something resembling balance when it comes to my financial portfolio (an registered car in my parents’ front yard and a minor but daunting credit card debt).

It has suddenly become apparent how much I need to budget and how little discipline I have.

Sure, Sydney rent is so expensive I’ve considering a starting up a used-underwear-selling scheme (unfortunately, I have approximately zero friends here to build up a bank of crusty undies and there’s only so much discharge one healthy vagina can produce). And being paid in monthly instalments is a legal form of torture. And sure, a fair hunk of my paycheque seems to be going towards flights home so I don’t admit myself to hospital purely for the few minutes of personal attention I’d get from a human being not trying to sell me hand lotion.

But those things aside, I need to start being a little more strategic with my money. I like that, “strategic with my money”. It sounds like I’m playing a game chess instead living off baked beans and wearing holey knickers.

So I did what I always do when I need professional services: attempt to obtain them for free via the Internet.

This was the first option that turned up in my Google search, a simple step-by-step guide to financial freedom and stability.

1: Make a list of your values. Write down what matters to you and then put your values in order.

Myself

Being a fabulous friend

What people think of me

Non-greasy hair

Getting a two-seater to myself on my morning train ride

Fuelling my rig with nutritious eats so I look less like I live on a diet of bread and rice bubbles

A well-brewed cup of tea

Not living in filth

2: Set your goals.

– to one day be a fabulous, self-sufficient writer who works from a luxurious light-filled shabby chic home office and wears a lot of kaftans

– to go overseas and collect trinkets and photos of happy memories that I can fill my fabulous house with a luxurious light-filled shabby chic home office with

– owning a fabulous house with a luxurious light-filled shabby chic home office

– owning my own kaftans (I went to Camilla recently, and those bastards are upwards of 400 bucks – which is like three Akubras or eight emotionally fuelled take-away dinner orders)

3: Determine your income.

Apparently insufficient for my “flamboyant” needs. For example, I cannot pay for feed or cover lodgings for my own personal giraffe. Which I am certain I also cannot afford to ship in from Africa.

4: Determine your expenses

Look, I could list each individual item I purchase until the cows come home. So in the interest of saving time, because time is money and I don’t seem to have much of either, I’m going to group them into categories. And the dollar value changes from time to time so I’m just going to list them without attaching a cost to avoid the confronting realities of my irresponsible spending.

– emotional eating

– acai bowl lyf

– avocado dependency

– tuckshop Fridays

– appearing like a put together grown up

– rent

– necessary commuting

– ability to see memes and text Drop Dead Gorgeous quotes

– entirely necessary plane rides to sanity

– secret savings that will inevitably be spent on medical bills

From this information, I’m supposed to now be able to create a budget. But now I’m thinking I should go create a GoFundMe page to beg strangers for kaftan money.