Why the intolerance of other people's views?

neverdespairgirl

I did answer it. OH was in a lot of debt, I was in some. We paid it all off, sharpish.

Studying with a small child would undoubtedly have been a very different experience.

SingleSue

My parents were not well off when I was young due to an accident at work my father had which meant that he was in hospital for almost a year and on crutches for 5 years...he was lucky not to have lost his life.

They did finally get compensation but all that did was pay off the bank the money which had been loaned to them in the meantime (as the bank knew he had a large compensation cheque coming), the outstanding mortgage and a holiday to Ireland.

Yes, my memories are filled with going to jumble sales and wearing second hand clothing and the ever present feeling of no money being around but they are also filled with lots of fun times too which cost no money at all, such as trips to the beach (we live in a seaside town) for a day of swimming, visiting relatives in London for holidays and taking cheap buses into the city for a walk around and also having our holidays at my paternal grandmothers house in East Sussex.

Our most elaborate holiday was that one to Ireland when I was 5 (first stage of compensation came through) and even that wasn't OTT. My best memories of our holidays are our camping ones which we took from 1977 right through to ...well now! (Apart from the fact we have traded up and stay in a static caravan). In fact in 1988 my parents gave me the tent we had been using for holidays since 1977 for my 18th birthday as they had traded upto a trailer tent and that tent is still in use today. These holidays were not expensive as my parents used to devour the camping site guide each year to find the cheapest one and our spending money was the same as my parents would have paid at home for food.

I don't think badly of my parents for not giving us what my friends had (holidays abroad, Disney World etc) because the happy holiday memories are the same for a child no matter where you go.

Fast forward to now me being the parent, my children have to go without just the same as I did when I was a child and they accept it almost without moaning (a child would not be a child without the odd moan!) and this is after experiencing the other side when I was married and we were comfortably off.

I have taken them to Disneyland but the Paris one not the American one and that too can be done on a budget although one year we did push the boat out and stayed in the best hotel...although none was paid for using a credit card, loans etc but good old cash from savings (plus the help of a very small inheritance on our first trip.)

You can give your children memories but they do not have to be wildly expensive ones...think I would go into terminal shock if I had to pay more than 1k (well actually even for half this) for a holday!

As for studying, well never been to uni (although I was bright enough) and nor had my parents but I am undergoing courses now which have to fit around my children and their needs and any fees have to be when I can afford it and without loans.

And apart from a small loan from my parents (£220, grrr blasted MOT), yes I can say I am debt free.

lostinrates

SingleSue wrote: »

You can give your children memories but they do not have to be wildly expensive ones...think I would go into terminal shock if I had to pay more than 1k (well actually even for half this) for a holday!

Too true.

I was very lucky to have travelled a lot as a child, living in various different countries and continants and very comfortable in more than one culture. My best childhood holidays? A holiday cottage on the North coast of Somerset and a caravan we hired somewhere, I was entranced with the caravan. Second best was a trip to France. I did go to Disneyworld when I was nine ...mainly because we were living near Florida, but I don't remember much and didn't much enjoy it truth be told.

Davesnave

What people are saying about kids & money on here is dead right.

As a young child, I was in a well-off family, but after the age of 8 our luck changed and at one stage I didn't even have a bed.

The change coincided with a move to the country, where I discovered wildlife, farm animals and simple pleasures of a rural nature that have stayed with me all my life. Of course it was no fun having little money as a teenager, but when I went back to the city and earned more than my mates, it was so rewarding that I threw the job up in under 18 months.

My kids have been brought up to know the value of things. Like me, they have never starved, but It's been hard for them sometimes. Now they are adults, they expect to stand on their own financial feet. When they think of the past, they still hark back to simple family holidays in Devon, or the washing machine box 'play-house' that gave more entertainment than a cupboard full of toys, that sort of thing.

It is so easy to give kids too much, wanting to 'do the best for them,' but having been in education, I've seen the law of diminishing returns operating in this context for decades. I have also witnessed first hand, wealthy little toe-rags using their money to manipulate others; a particularly nasty bit of learned behaviour.