Hit by no change

As is my habit every morning I have been listening to the Radio, my program of choice is the Today Program on Radio 4, several items caught my ear,   Tonight's first same sex marriages (of which I expect to write more at some point the 50th anniversary of Radio Caroline, a very interesting piece on the Roma community in Sheffield and of course more on the missing airliner.   But maybe the piece on the Spare Bedroom Tax was the piece that hit me most.

I will not go through all the arguments here, enough to say that it is really tough on the people effected.   What hit me was the thought that here I am with a spare bedroom that is not being used.    When I heard about the changes to pension regulations in the Budget this month I was very hopeful that I would be one of the people who could take advantage of these changes, release some of the capital I have tied up in pension plans and clear my debts.   It is difficult to emphasis just how much debt hits you, or at least me.   I find I am preoccupied with thoughts of how to pay them all the time I have not had a holiday since a week October 2012, I do run a car, I have to consider ever single piece of expenditure.   It short it is a constant grinding worry, and just at the moment it is worse than ever because I have had so much trouble working with all the rain the last couple of months.

So the thought that I would be able to pay off all my non mortgage debt was like looking forward to the sun rising.   Yesterday I found out that I do not qualify until next year!   I am no worse off than I was at the beginning on the month but I feel as though I have been condemned to an extra year of struggle.

What has this got to do with the hated Spare Bedroom Tax, well just at the moment I can think of no other way of improving my situation than to take a lodger ~ but how do I find someone who I will get on OK with and who will accept my "alternative lifestyle".