6 Reasons Why I Love My Overdraft (And Why It's Okay to Be in Debt All Time)

My friends were recently talking about our housing situation moving forward into our second year of uni, and as you do, we were discussing the future decor and frequent IKEA trips we'd be making to kit out our abodes in the lushest merch possible. We were shown pictures of pristine grey sofa chairs with Scandinavian rugs, with civilised looking women sitting around drinking hot chocolate. This was the epitome of everything hygge, aka. everything Pinterest worthy and thus infuriating (due to visceral aesthetic envy and unattainable beauty). She proclaimed that this is what next year's house would look like, and insisted that everyone will be using coasters so we could exist in a kind of neo-Swedish flushed-surfaced rug-coated wonderland where student grime would not exist. These pipe dreams were of course squashed (student dirt is notoriously stubborn), and one of them said something I think is widely applicable to most things student-related.

When, in our long lives ahead of us, will we be able to live in this kind of half-adult half-baby purgatory again? When will we be able to inhabit a 6 bedroom terraced house with bills to pay and work to do and yet simultaneously live in a world where it's acceptable to eat cereal at 16:40 on a Monday in only your socks? And better, to have everyone around you doing it too? Why have coasters now when we're going to spend the rest of our adult life with coasters?

After that very long preamble, this brings me to how I think of my bank account. When in my life will it be acceptable to live on my own, with small to moderate financial responsibility, and be -£600 overdrawn? Never. Therefore, instead of worrying about how I am going to be able to afford my lunch/pay for my wifi (that costs money now), I am going to embrace that tiny little minus sign in front of my balance. There will never be another time in my adult life that being in debt to the government, my parents, and myself will be fashionable. Because right now it definitely is. Here's why you should go fuck those coasters.

1) You can use it as an excuse for avoiding anything you don't want to do.

Don't want to attend a social engagement with people you don't like? You're in your overdraft remember, you have no money. Don't want to attend that lecture? You're in your overdraft, and you don't want to be tempted by the coffee shops on the way to uni. Don't want to go back home for Christmas and face your disappointed parents and an alcohol-induced-winter-flu? You're in your overdraft, cannot afford a train home and need to sit and think long and hard about your financial irresponsibility.

2) You seem cool.

I'm sorry that this sounds hopelessly vapid—but a lack of money demonstrates willful spontaneity and a carefree attitude to life that we all admire. Lack of money means you're someone who enjoys a night out. Being hundreds of pounds overdrawn means you're not stingy when it comes to shots of tequila, making new friends in the bathroom who you proceed mass drink-buying for. Lack of money also means you're a carefree young adult who is cool with being poor because you can still look effortlessly beautiful and don't lose your head even when you have literally 0p.

3) You won't be designated Delieveroo funder.

With no money in your account, how can you take everyone's order and use your account to pay? (Even though everyone does end up paying you back, this is still annoying.)

4) You have had fun.

Because the money had to have gone somewhere? It means you have had a great summer of seeing your friends and not slaving away at an awful job which just reminds you of the years to come of painstaking weeks at an office desk, even if you do leave minted. You now have that story of when you went to Italy on a whim with your cousin, ended up getting trashed and sleeping with a German rugby player. Still wish you'd done that catering job?

5) You don't feel guilty about spending more money.

Once you're in it, you're in it, am I right?

6) It means being an adult isn't quite real yet.

You still get to go home at Christmas (albeit after begging your parents to pay for that ticket—sitting alone and contemplating your financial recklessness wasn't as character-forming as it sounded), have a great roast, sleep comfortably in your childhood bed that has those glowy stars above it and not have to worry that your minus numbers are getting bigger and bigger. That's a problem for adulthood, and you smile as you remember you are still part baby.