I want it all!

Tondella

Anyone catch this programme last night: BBC1, at around 19.30? I think it is part of a series. Basically the premise is to get people to stop and think before they buy into a consumer lifestyle. Last night it challenged the idea that you have to subscribe to a gym to get fit. They allowed the girl one week's free membership of a very expensive gym and she only went twice. Then they got her to experience different ways of exercising: a personal trainer session, walking to work and using a green gym (i.e. outdoors training). Although they didn't manage to convince her not to fork out for the gym that she hadn't used the program was really interesting in the way ir challenged common acceptance of spending.

Can't seem to find much about it on the BBC website - hope it is on next week.

amosworks

Sounds good

fivemice

She still paid for the gym membership?

LookingAhead

I saw that too! She didn't join the gym in the end, she did start out filling in forms but then didn't pay up. I think she was doing a combination of walking/free exercise and one or two personal trainer sessions but not sure.

It was ok that programme but didn't really do much to encourage you to do something constructive with the savings or challenge why people are so obsessed with spending money on stuff we don't need but have convinced themselves that they MUST have. (I used to be like that with clothes..!)

I will watch it again though next week if I am in....

LookingAhead

Oh I forgot to say...there was this one bit in that programme that made me want to hurl a shoe at the TV set!

She had been to the gym for the second time (on her free trial) and then said to the video diary something along the lines of:

"I'm not going to go to the gym tomorrow I am going to go out with the girls for a birthday party as a treat because I deserve it"

ARRRRGGHHHHH!!!

a) Two sessions at the gym does not a big expensive night out as a "treat" make lady!
b) I personally am sick of our consumer riddled society saying "Oh I deserve it" at the slightest hint of hard work or faintest tremble of lip.

If you've been saving your ar5e off for months, gone without or been through a major trauma or something then yes, by all means, have a treat. But keep it simple and keep it affordable (though I guess that is relative).

It's just the whole "Oh I deserve a treat" that gets banded about all the time - it does my head in!! Do you REALLY?

Sorry - that was a rant wasn't it!?

kar

lol looking ahead couldn't agree more.

Think i should get you on my OH. Why oh why will he just not accept no for an answer. Every time we walk past a supermarket he wants a bar of choclate and yes I know they are only 25p by we must spend at least £5 a month on something that's bad for him and eaten in 5 seconds flat. grrrrrrrrrrr

climbgirl

LookingAhead wrote:

b) I personally am sick of our consumer riddled society saying "Oh I deserve it" at the slightest hint of hard work or faintest tremble of lip.

Totally agree, it's a rather weak justification quite frankly! There was another interesting programme on tv last night called The Happiness Formula. They were basically looking at what makes us happy and last night they were exploring the whole buy-your-happiness-must-have-it-now culture that we've developed. The most interesting point they made was that as a society over the last 50 years, we've become far wealthier. Yet our happiness levels have decreased if anything.

So we're buying into a 'I deserve a treat' consumer culture to get our happiness and it clearly doesn't work.

I thought it pointed out what a lot of people on here are discovering (maybe the hard way?) - that it's the simple things in life that really count.

Scully's_Girl

LookingAhead wrote:

b) I personally am sick of our consumer riddled society saying "Oh I deserve it" at the slightest hint of hard work or faintest tremble of lip.

LookingAhead, I had to thank you for that last post. I nearly laughed out loud, at the office, when I read that, & had to forward it to the OH.

Your b) part is a perfect summation of how my OH & I feel about consumerism. We see it all the time & it drives us both batty. You are just the funniest thing, I loved your rant.

My OH & I have tried very hard to reward ourselves with non-monetary (or edible) things for awhile now. We tend to reward ourselves after a hard week with a hike, or attending a village fete, or some cool cultural goings-on up in London. On occasion the OH might end up with a Big Mac somehow, and I have been known on more than one occasion to inhale a piece of cake, but we keep those naughtisms on the down low.

nicola1982_2

I deserve a treat for my exam revision - a cup of my favourite Aldi brand coffee, milk with one sugar

loopyloulou_3

I didnt see it - but wish i had! I have joined my gym at work, and I see spending £58 a month on gym membership as the only "treat" that I can afford!! I dont think I can therefore justify any other treats!
And if I am paying for it, I sure as hell am going to make use of it as much as humanly possible!! have already been 4 times this week!!
It is someones birthday lunch here and I have blown them out to go to a class at lunch! I cant see the poiint in paying for the gym, then not using it and going out for lunch and wasting even more money!!

LookingAhead

lol I didn't realise so many people felt the same way (though that's pretty dumb of me considering the company I am keeping on here eh??).

Anyway I am glad some others appreciated my rant!

climbgirl you raise an interesting point about spending/wealth going up but happiness going down.

From a personal level I have felt soooooo much happier since having my lightbulb moment and knowing I had to reduce my debt, then setting about tackling it. I realised that doing (don't laugh) even the simplest things like...as an example...using up two bananas to make a banana & coconut teabread was really satisfying because I was doing something constructive and it tasted yummy too! My BF loved it and altogether it was ultimately more fun and rewarding than buying a new top that I would feel guilty over anyway and then probably never wear.

See what two bananas can do for a girl's happiness? :rotfl:

But that's just one example.

Actually working hard to reduce debt brings out the crafty, creative side of you I think and you also need to think outside of the box a bit more.

No longer do I just think "Just put it on the credit card"....I actually sit & think about how I am going to pay for something/make something/eke out a weeks worth of food on a reduced budget/have a good time on a shoestring budget.

You all know what I mean don't you?

I realise now that before, I was an unthinking, uncreative spending machine.

xx