Welcome to Hades. Every trust fund baby’s worst nightmare, fucking up so badly that your seemingly endless stream of cash runs dry. Whether its because someone forwarded Daddy that picture of you flashing Tristan your tits outside Plastic People or because Consuela found your 8 Ball in the laundry, financially, you’re on your own. And if there’s a more horrifying prospect than life without an AmEx, I haven’t heard it. Being cut off is the gravest of punishments, but there is help available. Here is my guide to surviving life without the bank of Mum and Dad.

WORDS: AMY GREEN


Don’t feel like you have to get a job

In today’s unstable economic climate, why bother trying? Remember when you went after that internship at Dazed and they said that the ”3 black and white pictures of a gate on your flickr were not really indicative of any real talent”? That’s what its like everywhere. People are only going to hate on you because they’ve had to ‘pay their own way’ and ‘earn’ things and you haven’t, so you might as well just sit tight. You don’t really need a job and working is for immigrants and teenage fathers, anyway. But you should make vague illusions to finding a job in public, maybe ‘modelling’, the rich broke girl’s career of choice. You don’t want people to think you’re feckless, God forbid.

Mooch

There are so many people to mooch off, its unreal! Go to bars and flirt with the oldest, skeeziest guy there for drinks, hit up your friends for cigarettes and cab fare, steal from coats at parties, steal, bully and cheat people into getting what you want. As long as you ignore your moral compass, there’s no end to the amount of ways one can get money!

3 tips

Tip 1) Remember your economics. Coke is cheaper than food in the long run because it costs like £50 for a week’s worth of groceries and like £40 for a gram. You’ve literally saved money!

Tip 2) Find a rich boyfriend. Failing that, find a rich hook up who is willing to take you out to dinner and clubs a few times a week and call him your boyfriend. Preferably one who isn’t in danger of being cut off himself, so its best to leave your junkies and University failers at the door. An older man is preferable. The gauche factor of dating a banker can be ignored in this instance.

Tip 3) When confused about the best course of action to take whilst mooching, simply think to yourself, what would Lindsay do?

Don’t adjust your lifestyle in any way whatsoever

Duh, public transport and domestic cabs and Primark didn’t all stop being totally gross just because you got poor. Besides if you’ve been doing the aforementioned mooching properly, you should have plenty of money to buy clothes and drugs and everything else should be comped. It is permissible to experience a moment of doubt when purchasing your 12 pairs of Wolford tights because ‘you are channeling Edie this week’. It is also permissible to then feel charmingly bohemian for ‘worrying’ about money.

Remember education is expendable

If you are one of the unlucky few (though not as unlucky as those who were cut off completely) who are being punished for going to university by parents who think it might be ‘time to cut the umbilical cord’ by cutting up your credit cards and giving you (shudder) a…..monthly stipend, then you must do whatever it takes to see that they are returned to you. Hurl accusations of abandonment! Drop thinly veiled threats of self harm or mention that you ‘are kind of checking out the Escorts section of the paper’ because you are ’so desperate’. If this doesn’t work, drop out. You need to be willing to send a firm statement to your parents who are being totally unreasonable assholes because they secretly hate you.

And finally…

Lie

Even if all you’ve been doing since your dad issued his final, grim decision, is stealing, partying and giving lackluster handjobs to your ‘boyfriend’ while he screams at his analysts on speakerphone, when visiting home you should always project an air of competency and sobriety. Scan the news section of the London Lite and reel off story headlines bookmarked between the phrases ‘have you heard’ and ‘I think’, in a knowing and intellectual manner. Say you are persuing a worthwhile career goal, like working with children. Make up some random friend and point out what a calming influence she has been on you. These are the seeds that you must plant in the hopes of getting back into your parents’ good graces and subesquently, their bank accounts.

I cannot end this missive of hope whithout adding that early preventative measures are often the easiest way of avoiding this kind of disaster. Check in at home at least once a week. For the most part, be coherent. When attending their parties act like the perfect, well adjusted daughter of their malcontent friends’ dreams. Do whatever you want, but don’t get caught.

Good luck. Gods speed.