The world has gone from Location, Location, Location to Spendaholics

moanymoany

It is as though the world has gone from being participants in 'Location, Location, Location', with Phil and Kirsty getting us a neat pad in London and a super mansion in the country - to Benjamin Fry and Jay Hunt giving us all a 'cold turkey budget' as we have all become participants in 'Spendaholics'!

We should next go onto why we started this crazy life style as Benjamin leads us back through the angst of our lives. Cue Jay (who I love) to show us how to dress and party on a budget.

No more champagne, no more designer bags. Like the hapless contestants we have all been greedy. We wanted to live like celebrities, have the champagne lifestyle, we wanted the highest interest rates, and, when it all came tumbling down - as it had to - we all wanted someone to blame.

With the contestants it was usually their families who carried the psychological can - we are just the same. Over on Savings and Investments there are those trying to blame Martin - when they didn't read the articles thoroughly - they never got beyond the interest rate to the bit where the stuff was about the risk and compensation schemes! Just as the Spendaholics didn't read the bit about paying it back, the people blaming Martin didn't read the bit about keeping your money safe.

We now enter a new era of responsibility.

lostinrates

moany, I've been hand wringing on your other thread..mainly about responsibility, lol.

Thing about he hampagne lifestyle..surely, once the tough times have passed, it beomes about moderation? I like champagne really I do, I'd rather, theoretially, not drink beer* all month but put that money towards one bottle of champagne. What I realise one can't do is replace all the beer with the same volume of champagne.



*beer is a really bad metaphor. I really don't drink beer. I mainly drink water in fact. Thats almost free.

zippygeorgeandben

I know it doesn't show the best side of my personality, but if I could punch ten people in the world, just once, I have to say that BENJAMIN FRY would be one of them! Does he get paid more if he makes them cry? As soon as he hears that a parent of the participant died when they were young, BINGO!

Does anyone else find him really really creepy? Anyone called Ben who insists in being called Benjamin is a t**t.

Thanks for reading!
Ben (Benjamin at birth!)

olly300

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

I know it doesn't show the best side of my personality, but if I could punch ten people in the world, just once, I have to say that BENJAMIN FRY would be one of them! Does he get paid more if he makes them cry? As soon as he hears that a parent of the participant died when they were young, BINGO!

I would actually like to punch the editors not Benjamin. I bet all the people on the show cry at some point but they only choose to show the ones where death is involved.

You also have to remember he lost his own mother very young as well and according to his psychological teaching to spend money that badly without any control you have to have an emotional problem. He's had all sorts of problems on the show - racism, adoption, divorce, people brought up in step -families, a rich woman told what she did was worthless by husband than father.

I also know a few people who don't like nicknames. It's really easy to wind them up.

PasturesNew

I've not lived any of that lifestyle. And I have no idea who Benjamin Fry and Jay Hunt even are. I had to scroll up the page and copy/paste their names because I couldn't remember them by the time I got here.

Some people have gone wild, but there are still a lot of us that never had the income to do so. My life will therefore continue to be frugal.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

Some people have gone wild, but there are still a lot of us that never had the income to do so. My life will therefore continue to be frugal.

I think the problem is PN, that people who didn't have the inome to do so who did live that lifestyle.

Chez LIR, where ever I live, is a place of extremes. Weekdays, alone, (apart from recent excess of Hot Toddies) are a frugal place. Porridge and marigold stock drink and milk and apples are my staples. I have eggs from the chickens, but I'm not a big egg eater, If I fancy a wild night in I might poach an egg and have it on some spinach. Its very samey, rather meagre. I do cook for others out my pocket (and occasionally for some money). EGm this morning I made 3 steak and kidney puddings..one for my mother and guest, and two for a man I know who was recently widowed and not a cook..(its his favourite). Anyway, what Im trying to say is MY weektime bill, my budget for me, is small. But at weekends I doubt my marriage would be as great if I gave DH what I eat or don't eat through the week, more than double my food budget is for two days food. So, while I don't drink wine, for example, through the week, I'd pobably open a bottle at the weekend. My overall budget might be no different from another woman in my situation, but many would probably spend it more evenly than I. If I want to live on porridge five days a week and eat oysters at the weekend, and the budget works out right, who can say I am wrong?

ETA: I like both Ben and Benjamin. DH has a Ben in his name somewhere, but Ben as in son of someone else...he's not Ben-jamin. Wonder why it was Benjamin that caught on here..but not enough to go and read the Bible to find out.

GracieP

lostinrates wrote: »

Thing about he hampagne lifestyle..surely, once the tough times have passed, it beomes about moderation? I like champagne really I do, I'd rather, theoretially, not drink beer* all month but put that money towards one bottle of champagne. What I realise one can't do is replace all the beer with the same volume of champagne.

I think this is the thing most people don't understand. On the majority of budgets you can have some things, but not everything. You can eat out regularly, but you can't buy lots of new clothes. Or you can go on a foreign holiday but you can't have a car. But for the last 15 years or so people have insisted on having everything.

I buy most of clothes secondhand, I usually cut my own hair. I lower the tone of my neighbourhood by getting grocery deliveries from Asda and I make a monthly trip to Aldi. Because I economise on day to day things my husband and I can afford to eat out semi-regularly and take advantage of all the happy hours in the local cocktail bars.:D When we go on holiday or buy a new tv/computer we can do it for cash. I like some luxury things, but I can afford them because I sacrifice others.

A few years ago a friend of my husband got a new job with a significantly higher salary than he had previously. He told us it was great because he would now be out of debt in a year and a half. I just couldn't understand how he could owe so much. He had no house, no car, no particulary flash extravagances, no ostentatious designer clothing and third level education in Ireland is free. He had just racked it up by drip, drip spending more than he earned. And he is far from alone, so many people are even still living that way.

neverdespairgirl

lostinrates wrote: »

ETA: I like both Ben and Benjamin. DH has a Ben in his name somewhere, but Ben as in son of someone else...he's not Ben-jamin. Wonder why it was Benjamin that caught on here..but not enough to go and read the Bible to find out.

Ben means "son of". So if you are David, and your father is Isaac, your religious name is David Ben Yitzak. For example, David Ben Gurion.

Benjamin, on the other hand, is a name, one word. I think.

lilac_lady

Benjamin and Jay ? IMO Benjamin makes excuses for the debtors' greed. He should just play the Rolling stones song "You can't always get what you want". I wouldn't want to take advice about dressing from Jay who looks as if nothing fits and she's dressed in the dark. Having criticised them, I like the programme!

boyse7en

In a perverse kind of way, I find bits (certainly not all) of the current situation quite reassuring.
I've got a reasonably paid job, and could never work out why I couldn't afford a new car, skiing trips, weekends away, designer cloths and the like when everybody else could. Now I know that, whereas I bought my luxuries for cash, most people were borrowing to get theirs.
I'm still worried about the impact of the monetary crisis on my future lifestyle, but less so than i might have been had I been spending like some of the 'subjects' on TV did/do.

lostinrates

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Ben means "son of". So if you are David, and your father is Isaac, your religious name is David Ben Yitzak. For example, David Ben Gurion.

Benjamin, on the other hand, is a name, one word. I think.

Ta NDG!

We have been wondering, you see, what our son might be called if we had one, but there is some confusion over the names in my husband's family. Someone at one point suggested ason I had , if brought up Jewish (undecided) would be called Ben Ben. I'm not sure how keen on that I am,