Past Recessions - what were your experiences?

mizzbiz

HenryWeston wrote: »

I used to like that :beer: can you still get it ?

You can buy it in Asda. Its where i get it for coffee milkshakes :-)

space_rider

geoffky wrote: »

16% of 25k in not a lot but 8% of 250k is one hell of a lot and a lot of people dont work that one out...you are paying far more now as the figures were so much smaller..in the olden days.

My mortgage was 21,000 then and we thought it was bad back then.

[Deleted User]

our mortgage was 36k and we could hardly eat....but we never got into any other debt besides mortgage because we had learnt so much from previous recessions and our parents. One salary and constant nagging worry, plus a reduced working week so that everyone in the company kept their jobs. Difference then was that most people wanted to work and second jobs were available if you looked hard enough. We certainly were not going to wait for the tide to sweep us away and we scrimped and scraped and got by.

WTF?_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

However fundamentally there is something all the recessions that I remember have in common. This is that life is like a giant game of 'Pass the Parcel' and when the music stops (ie recession starts), those that are left with the parcel, ie debt - especially neg eq but any debt that becomes burdensome - are the worst off. I've seen this every time, which is why I still don't understand the concept of stretching oneself financially.

This time around of course, there are more indebted people than ever before and to much greater amounts.

When it comes to personal debt, there's no easy way out. Monetary inflation isn't going to save their bacon as I doubt wages will rise much even if you have a job. It'll get the govt off the hook though with Sterling denominated debt. Though the price will be more expensive govt borrowing in the future.

That huge personal debt burden is going to severely hamper any chances of a consumer-lead recovery and the national debt will be passed on as taxes, further crippling recovery. The 'fun' will really begin when interest rates start to shoot back up again as they must.

Debt - that's the real story of this financial disaster. Normally the debt is incurred during the recession, this time around it has all happened at the start of it or even when times were good. Very worrying.

John_Pierpoint

In the past, the little recessions were the "fault" of the UK living in cloud cuckoo land relative to the rest of the world. If there is one country in the world that needs to realise it lives by its wits, it is the UK.
We cannot feed our 60 million population. Our natural resources are mainly mined out
(coal, gas and oil are all long past their peak). Our "workshop of the world" manufacturing industry is a shadow of its former self. Other countries are turning out well educated motivated graduates. There was one activity where our workers were world leading was finance, but this is looking bombed out by bad debt now.

We are in uncharted waters. 1973 gives some pointers as this was caused by a world wide oil shock, itself caused by USA's deficit financing of the Vietnam war.

1928 became world wide too, because the USA did exactly the wrong thing in response to the Wall Street crash (compare the global response to 1987: pump money like now and have a recession 3 years later when inflation gets out of hand).

As individuals all we can do is pay off debt and adjust our life styles to austerity living: Make do and mend, Self build & DIY, "Holiday" at home, reconsider life time choices (big home ? family ?) Get back to the traditional family, which acted as an economic unit (eg grand parents used to realise that their role was to look after the children so that their sons and daughters could work).

In the last 60 years the State has become everyones grandparent figure. So we have a nation of people who think they can stay in adolescence or be kept in their old age by the state. Politicians encourage this by buying votes using state money.
However the state has no money of its own, just what it can tax or print.

John.

BTW what are GHD's

Mind you, teen daughter feels her life is empty as she doesn't own a pair of GHD's

NewHouse_3

GHDs are a pair of fancy hair-straighteners John. And thank you for that excellent post. As I said before I am too young to have lived through the previous recessions and I am finding all the history I am learning about on this thread very interesting, and equally, very worrying.

John_Pierpoint

Thanks NewHouse for you reply.
As a pensioner I find it very worrying that a unique wonderful young person cannot face the world without the aid of some gadget to change her hair?
During a recession those that survive the best face up to life's real problems.
"Get a Saturday job and buy your own", would be my response to any teenage demands in excess of the basics of education, food, clothing and shelter.

John.

Afterthought: Personal grooming often improves during a recession. In part it is the need to compete for jobs/ hang onto the current one. In part it is an attempt to demonstrate that the individual is winning against the odds (even if they are not) so perhaps those GHD things could be seen as an investment:D

Pobby

I wonder if the following strange attitude prevails elsewhere? My wife was talking yesterday to a relative who is certainly not earning the £100k ish a year that as a family she is used to. My wife was telling her about Aldi and Lidl. Relative said that she couldn`t shop there.

My long suffering wife knows of my "conversion" money wise since taking mse on board and she suggested that I help to draw up a budget and look at ways of being more efficient with money.

The reply was that I would nag her and anyway she didn`t want to give anything up. That, I assume is the 3 holidays abroad a year, new car, bigger and bigger televisions and so on.

Now, what I dread is that some people will not be able to give up there" plasma" lifestyle and will resort to credit cards to subsidise their way of living. Horrible thought but possible !

mizzbiz

Pobby wrote: »

Now, what I dread is that some people will not be able to give up there" plasma" lifestyle and will resort to credit cards to subsidise their way of living. Horrible thought but possible !

I think this is what has caused the problems in the first place. The people you describe will no longer be able to rely on the old credit card to buy these luxuries anymore, as they maxed them out during the boom.

I used to go on DFW board regularly looking for ways to live more frugally. I'm not in debt, I just thought there would be some great ideas on cost cutting, which there certainly are.

The most horrific thing about this board is the sheer number of people who have credit card debt in the tens of thousands, personal loans for the same and huge mortgages. Most of them tell the story of some minor change in circumstances which brings the whole house of cards tumbling down. Methinks that rather than a rise in people turning to CC's for luxuries, there will be a lot more crumbling houses of cards. Scary.

drbeat

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

As individuals all we can do is pay off debt

But that is exactly what financial institutions don't want people to do! The monetary economic model is based on debt and interest. They stay in business by selling debt and collecting the interest! If everyone pays back their debt then they'll be another financial crisis.

Sounds stupid I know but that's the bottom line on how things tick in this crazy society!