Peer Pressure!

Warriorsith

I wouldn't be bothered by peer pressure and trying to keep up with the jones's, as mentioned who cares if you go against the norm if we we're all the norm the world would be far too boring.

What we all are hoping to achieve is a piece of mind that when your in debt can be lost as the anxiety and stress of repayments can give you each day, week or month. I look forward to the day I am debt free so I can reach and aim for other goals in my life and not be dragged back to how society wishes me to be, in debt and miserable.

We're all aiming for a much stronger financial future and if it means not spending irradictley in the present then so be it, I haven't spent much on clothes over the last 2/3 years I ask family to buy items for my birthday or christmas, I personally don't drive and I'm nearing 30 I find it expensive, polluting and you always hear how people are always stuck in jams etc, I'll walk, use my bicycle or catch the bus, I've never bowed to peer pressure on that point. I buy 2nd hand mobile phones on ebay every 18 months if I want a newish one and am always looking for a bargain on the web if I want a dvd or whatever am after.

So just forget about what other people have or what they may think, thats there little sad lives and if they want to talk about you then so be it. More the fools them when later in life there still repaying debts the got when they where much younger.

You keep doing your money saving tricks and help be an inspiration for the rest of us here on this site.

heybigspender2006

It's really annoying in my line of work, everyone's got the latest iPod and mobile phone where I'm stuck with my old rubbish phone and no MP3 player Then I think though, look at what keeping up with the Jones' got me in my signature :eek:

GreyPilgrim

It's liberating when it finally dawns on you that you don't have to give a flyng crap what anyone thinks about you, how you look, what you wear...you feel all that anxiety about what to wear come off your shoulders and fly out the window. I pretty much have an entire wardrobe full of t-shirts (£3 each or two for a fiver from the local primark-ish shop round the corner). Couple of shirts for work and a birthday / funeral / wedding suit.

I still can't work out the reason for paying £40 for a t-shirt just got it's got a crocodile or a shark about the left nipple.

GreyPilgrim

heybigspender2006 wrote:

It's really annoying in my line of work, everyone's got the latest iPod and mobile phone where I'm stuck with my old rubbish phone and no MP3 player Then I think though, look at what keeping up with the Jones' got me in my signature :eek:

Why bother? You can get an MP3 player for £20. Mightn't have the capcity of an iPod but I bet you can't tell the difference soundwise.

"latest" thing....great piece of brainwashing....a mate has just been banging on about '...needing to get a new HD tv', because the picture quality is just so much better than 'ordinary' TVs....strange how he was always banging on about the superb picture quality of his current TV until HD started to hit the news.

His perception of the quality of his current TV has flipped from "superb" to "rubbish" over the space of a couple of months.

Ironic thing is, he has terrible eyesight, so he probably can't see anything other than a glowng blur anyway

Gillby1

I completely understand your point of view, yummum. I don't have any kids to pay put for, and i don't feel the need to have the latest mobile phone/ipod/TV, but I have a huge weakness for clothes. I often feel like i have nothing to wear, although i'm always coming home with new things! Thankfully, i'm better at controlling my spending these days, and am gradually building up a decent wardrobe of outfits, but if it wasn't for MSE i'd be spedning a fortune on things i'd only ever wear a few times...

nearlyrich

GreyPilgrim wrote:

....a mate has just been banging on about '...needing to get a new HD tv', because the picture quality is just so much better than 'ordinary' TVs....strange how he was always banging on about the superb picture quality of his current TV until HD started to hit the news.

There is a massive difference in picture quality you can see it on such things as wildlife programmes but I am not sure it's necessary to have HD to watch football. All the production companies are not really geared up to producing HD content yet, many of them have only just signed up for the cameras and studio equipment recently. I wonder how many people have rushed out to sign up to Sky HD for the world cup when they haven't got a TV that can display it?

Thriftylady

I don't honestly feel much peer pressure regarding e.g. the contents of my house, but on the flip side I have a lot of the 'luxury items' people have mentioned but OH and I paid for them outright, so once they were bought they were paid for and thats that....

But where I really have felt the pressure over the years is the pressure to travel. We were in our late twenties the first time we went abroad together, and even then it was only for a few days. We have never been on a week or fortnights holidays because we have never been able to afford it. But its amazing how many people have said to me 'oh, I would never do without a holiday, I need it. I would find the money' - which I have always taken to mean 'I would borrow the money'.

I have a friend, hideously in debt, who firmly believes that travelling is her right, just because she enjoys it. When I hadn't known her very long, she once said to me 'don't be offended, but you're much more intelligent than I thought you would be, I've never met anyone intelligent before who chooses not to go abroad'.......er, like its 'intelligent' to run up uncontrollable debts by taking holidays you can't afford. Am I missing something ?!

Note: this makes my friend sound awful, she's not really, just a bit tactless!

GreyPilgrim

nearlyrich wrote:

There is a massive difference in picture quality you can see it on such things as wildlife programmes but I am not sure it's necessary to have HD to watch football. All the production companies are not really geared up to producing HD content yet, many of them have only just signed up for the cameras and studio equipment recently. I wonder how many people have rushed out to sign up to Sky HD for the world cup when they haven't got a TV that can display it?

You have to forgive my suspicous, cynical mind. For as long as I can remember, washing up powders have been "new and improved". Every month, there's a special new forumulae that revolutionises the way the fizzy molecules interact with the fibres...I'm 32 now and I've been seeing the same advert every month since I was born. Thats almost 400 revolutionary improvements.

Erm, except I don't believe it. I think maybe it's the marketing men playing with words. If it was true, I think we'd all only need to wash out clothes once and the soap powder would take care of the dirt for the rest of the life of the material. (and why are scientists spending so much time on bloody soap powder and not on ridding the world of disease anyway?)

Likewise with HD television. I've not met anyone who has bought non-HD television and then took it back to the shop saying "sorry mate, the picture definition is simply not high enough, I think I'll wait until they invent a higher definition set". It's all a con to keep you spending and borrowing and spending and borrowing.

Busybody

I buy a loy of clothes from charity shops and in the sales, in fact during this hot spell I have been wearing some very nice tops that I picked up at Tesco in January non were priced over £3.
People often comment that I always look nice, (and modern)

GreyPilgrim

Busybody wrote:

I buy a loy of clothes from charity shops and in the sales, in fact during this hot spell I have been wearing some very nice tops that I picked up at Tesco in January non were priced over £3.
People often comment that I always look nice, (and modern)

By the way, have I ever told you how nice and modern you look?