2024-06-04 I just don't like to pay

The speaker expresses frustration and resentment towards having to pay for various expenses associated with living in a van, such as rent, road tax, and insurance. They compare it to their previous experience of not having to pay bills while living with others in America. Despite their dislike for these expenses, they acknowledge that they have no choice but to comply with the rules and regulations. They also mention considering alternative living arrangements, but ultimately accept that there is no perfect solution and that they need a place to live. The speaker concludes that while they begrudge the costs, they have no other option but to pay them. It feels like I shouldn't be paying for it. I had this feeling a lot when I was living in the box room in the shared house. I really begrudged having to pay the rent, but I had to pay the rent. I had no right to be there without paying rent. It was better to live in that box room than it was to live in the hostel, and living in the hostel was better than being on the street. And yeah, I begrudged paying for it. Part of it was I didn't have anything to show for it. I didn't own anything. I'm just giving this large amount of money away every month. It makes more sense for me to have a van and pay a much smaller amount once a year for the tax, less than the cost of a single month's rent. Now that I'm in the van, I actually begrudge paying that yearly road tax. It seems a lot. It is a lot. It's almost one pound a day in tax just to have a vehicle. It's not based on how much I use it, how many miles I do, just on what they decide is the emissions for a light goods vehicle. It's not even adjusted for the fact that it's no longer that. It's a camper van. So I begrudge it. I don't like having to pay for it, even though I have no choice but to do so, and today I did so. The next thing will be the insurance. Last year it was a palaver. I'm not looking forward to it. I'm hoping it would be simple, I can stay with the same insurance company this time, and that they don't try to make an extortionate amount of increase that they did last time. I had to play the market, compare the market, find somewhere else. Caused me a problem. I just want things to be simple, as you know. I begrudge it, almost as if I shouldn't be having to do this. Now, it could be that I've just been spoiled. When I was living in America, I had no expenses, no bills, no rent. I simply lived with others who paid for it anyway, because that's what they were doing before I came. I contributed, of course. I bought food, I contributed in the cannabis department, but I didn't have to pay bills. I really liked that, who wouldn't? And yet at the same time, I couldn't live in that environment. There's no comparison. And, to live in a van, parked in a public road, I have to pay certain things. I knew that from the beginning. It's not a surprise, yet I'm still struggling to just accept. Now, again, this year, like last year, it went up, the road tax. Last year, it went up 15%. This year, another 5%. And I'm already begrudging having to. Doesn't help. It's not easy to accept. I will. I've paid it. It's gone. It's done for another year. In a few weeks, I'll have to look at what's going on. The end of July is my insurance, but I start a month before, just to make sure what's going on, so that I'm on top of it, because I really do not like dealing with this thing. It's the one thing I do not like. I have a van. I love it, in the sense of what it gives me, the space, the solitude. But I hate having to pay for the things in order to do it, because last year, I drove 70 miles. So that road tax is approximately £5 a mile in tax, just to have a vehicle. I disagree profoundly with how it's determined that there is nothing I can do. There is nothing I would even try to do. The insurance, if I didn't have to have it, I wouldn't. I'm not afraid. Insurance is based on fear. When you only do 70 miles a year, the chances of having causing an accident are small, very small. And I'm living in a very small place that I still wouldn't have it. But I understand how it works, the system. Maybe in America, you can get away with not having insurance in some places in some states. And I could get away with it to some degree. But we have the most CCTV cameras here. If I started to drive anywhere, it would flag up very quickly on the number plate recognition. They know I wouldn't have insurance, it would cause me problems. Not that they could find me, but they probably would anyway. I don't want to live like that. I need to be free of all of that aggravation. So I pay what I have to pay. But I begrudge it. So I suppose in theory, I shouldn't be living in a van. Maybe I should be living in a caravan that doesn't require any of those things. And yet I would want to do it on the street, which would create its own issues. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can afford it. I have the money, it's not that I'm struggling. And I have budgeted for this process. I would have liked to have bought a cheaper van. And I could have, although at the time, it didn't seem appropriate to go for that kind of a van. As it turns out, perhaps I could have made that decision. But there were many decisions I made at the time of acquisition that I would have made differently. I wasn't thinking very straight. I wasn't very well. So fine that I can see things differently now. But at the time, I just had to do the best I could. I just needed to get into it and get out of the situation. And that's what happened. But I like, I just want to be left alone. Stop asking me for money. Stop making me feel like I have to constantly pay. I don't want to be a part of the system, but I don't have any way out of it. I thought one of the ways out of it was to share with somebody else. And yet that's not true. That didn't work. That wasn't a good thought. It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. But no, I'd have to give up, renounce, become a monk, perhaps, let go of material possessions, responsibility. I don't think I could do that either. Because they wouldn't leave me alone. I would have to follow the rules and be expected to do it the way they do it. It's more like a religion than it is a philosophy. Even though I'm talking about Buddhism, there isn't any other monkdom situation that I know enough about to feel like I could perhaps consider. And I can't really do the Buddhist thing. So monastic life is out of the question. So this seems to be the lesser of all the evils. There's no perfect solution. I have to be somewhere. I need a roof over my head. I need somewhere comfortable to sleep. And I need somewhere to store my few possessions. I have all that. And the price for that are these annual costs that, well, what would I do with the money if I didn't have to pay them? Nothing. It's not like I'm saying, oh, I would buy something, I would be able to buy more things. I don't buy things. The money would just sit there. So to figure out and find a way to have a life situation where I don't have to pay would be ridiculous. I might as well just accept it. And perhaps if it hadn't have gone up again, it might have been easier. I would have just paid it. But I had to have a little internal rant for the extra £15 it went up again this year. There's nothing I can do. The government has us by the bollocks because you have no choice. If you want to be on the public road, you have to have the road tax. If not, while it's not certain, I have seen a vehicle that has been recognised as not having tax and they clamp it. Not that that would be a massive problem for me. I don't go anywhere. But no, I can't have that. I can't have any resistance to the rules, even though I might not agree. I have to comply. That's just how it is.