Coping when times get tough

lemonjelly

The CCCS has recently published another enlightening report about the impacts of the downturn. Sites such as this frequently espouse the wisdom of having an emergency fund/stash consisting of about 3 months salary (not sure that'd do you much good at the mo, but there you go).

Anyhow, the CCCS study has found that when household income drops, people are finding they have little/nothing to turn to. Indeed they argue that 1 in 3 are able to address their debt issues as a result of this.
I also think it is very interestingly significant that spending on essentials is outstripping income. To me this signals a few things, including:
National weakness with budgeting skills
Cost of essentials has ongoingly been creeping higher & higher
Potential for inflation to be higher in real terms (especially for those on benefits/low incomes)
Suggests that (as I have argued) for some time households have been subsiding their incomes via access to credit in the good times.

In its most recent 'debt dashboard', CCCS signals that there has been a significant decrease in the level of disposal income of its clients with an increasing number of those contacting the service spending more on household essentials than they have coming in.
Consequently, in quarter two 2009, 30 per cent of clients advised by the charity were unable to access any commercial or statutory debt remedies including individual voluntary arrangements, debt management plans, bankruptcy, and debt relief orders.

Full report is here http://www.cccs.co.uk/research/2009/pdf/DshQ209.pdf
I'm still of the opinion that the debt bubble has to impact us sooner or later.

StevieJ

lemonjelly wrote: »

Full report is here http://www.cccs.co.uk/research/2009/pdf/DshQ209.pdf
I'm still of the opinion that the debt bubble has to impact us sooner or later.

You must live in Australia because here in the UK we have had the worst financial crisis since the 30's :eek:

amcluesent

+1. Just recently my father was huffing in disbelief that a TV chav family couldn't find £50 in cash.

Are the pawn shops seeing business as peeps pawn their watches and DVD for the Xmas fund - "it's for the children!"

I fear the same problem is affecting Clown, so he's selling off what's left of the family silver (well, he sold all our gold!) are firesale prices.

StevieJ

amcluesent wrote: »

Are the pawn shops seeing business as peeps pawn their watches and DVD for the Xmas fund - "it's for the children!"

I fear the same problem is affecting Clown, so he's selling off what's left of the family silver (well, he sold all our gold!) are firesale prices.

You better get in there buying then

lemonjelly

StevieJ wrote: »

You must live in Australia because here in the UK we have had the worst financial crisis since the 30's :eek:

I'm in the UK.
It all seems a bit surreal to me. There's all this talk of recovery/green shoots/blah blah blah. The speed which the downturn arrived, and now appears (to many) have passed concerns me. Stuff hasn't had time to play out IMO, & I do think the debt/personal borrowing issue has yet to impact.

Other posters will & have disagreed with me on this...

I also think the downturn has passed many people by. Those who are employed have had a whinge about not getting pay rises, but other than that its been ok. Which is another reason I don't feel all has panned out yet.

amcluesent

>Which is another reason I don't feel all has panned out yet.<

Tories still have to see the state of the finances after Clown's 10 years of borrow'n'bungle. But even, so an austerity emergency budget in June 2010 is a certainty. The announcements at Conference were just the teasers. I'd expect public sector spending to be down 7.5% in 2010/11 and then the real cuts will start in the Comprehensive Spending Review for the 3 years starting 2011 (CSR11).

thriftybabe

My OH does not deal with any of the finances and stands in horror when we did the weekly shop recently! He now realises where our funds are going!

DiggerUK

lemonjelly wrote: »

I'm still of the opinion that the debt bubble has to impact us sooner or later.

It was not referred to as the "Post War Boom" because it was the post war bust.

QE, as it is now referred to, has been around since the end of WW2. Look at any countries increase in money supply and you will see the same picture. Massive increases year on year, getting exponentially higher with the passage of time.

It is very difficult to work out exactly how far this debasement of currencies has gone.
Depending on were you get the raw data from you find multipliers between 7 and 36. When you then try and calculate how this was expanded once it got fractionalized through the banking system you have figures that reveal for every pound in circulation in 1945, you have upwards of 360 in circulation today.

Never mind a debt bubble bursting, it's the currency bursting we may have to prepare for.
Spooky huh!

thriftybabe

lemonjelly wrote: »

I'm in the UK.
It all seems a bit surreal to me. There's all this talk of recovery/green shoots/blah blah blah. The speed which the downturn arrived, and now appears (to many) have passed concerns me. Stuff hasn't had time to play out IMO, & I do think the debt/personal borrowing issue has yet to impact.

Other posters will & have disagreed with me on this...

I also think the downturn has passed many people by. Those who are employed have had a whinge about not getting pay rises, but other than that its been ok. Which is another reason I don't feel all has panned out yet.

If I were told that I was not to get a wage rise for the next 10 years and still stay at my old levels I would love that! Unfortunately when it is affecting you personally whatever issue it is then most people only see their own situation. I know people who work in the Health Board and will be moaning as they will be getting told they are not going to get a pay rise.

SingleSue

As someone who has never relied on credit, I can tell you it is getting tougher each month that goes by to buy the things that only a few months ago, were normal items.

Mind you, I had to go through the change of a good salary to a crap income before the recession (our joint income was in excess of 60k a year), so a lot of my adjustment was done already but I am still finding it ever tougher.

StevieJ

lemonjelly wrote: »

I also think the downturn has passed many people by. Those who are employed have had a whinge about not getting pay rises, but other than that its been ok. Which is another reason I don't feel all has panned out yet.

You could always do the hairshirt pennance thing The again you may have a point if a Tory govt is elected:eek: