Your Money or your wife - Channel 4 debt programme

lupogti

Can anyone who saw tonights show please give your thoughts on it.

It seems like the most unrealistic, pointless debt free wanna-be show I have ever seen! I almost emailed channel 4 to tell them so.

The guy was £48000,00 in debt, on apparently £21000 a year salary. He had 8credit cards, a 15k loan to buy an Audi TT and lived in a very decent looking house.

The show never broke down his debt i.e mony owing each month on loans and credit card. All they mentioned was that he spent a shed load on going out! How much rent or mortgage was he spending? They mntioned he was overspending at the rate he was going at £18000 a year!

But the so called professional who was helping them out said that they could be debt free in 55 months!

Are they just plucking these figures out of thin air! They need to do breakdowns ...it just seemed such a fad of a show, with just pretty peope living it up and not taking any real notice.... bring back bank of mum and dad!!

RantOver :-)

Pan_3

Yep, this show is totally gash and totally pointless. There is already a thread on here that pretty much slates the programme to death. The only reason it was worth watching once was that there was a rather attractive young lady on there....turns out she only did the show for publicity which basically sums uo this shows credibility.

Remember, if all else fails we can all sell our £25K cars.

FZwanab

I totally agree lupogti, what a waste of time. The presenter claimed to have brought down their debt by him not buying a birthday present for his girlfriend, that does not bring down the debt balance, it just reduces future debt. Money not spent does not get rid of debt, it just saves you getting deeper into it. The guy also didn't follow a bit of her advice, is he a total plonker, making a few sarnies is not the same as selling that Audi TT eating into their funds every month! my rant over too.

lupogti

I'm so glad you all agree , i was almost shouting at the TV, he was just driving around in that car, had the nice house - no mention of rent or mortgage - the monthly repayments and loans should have taken a bulk of his £1400 a month after tax salary ....oh god i cant stop talking about it ...forgive me!!

I think I need a good nights sleep!!!

tsharp

Ran his own company and only made £21k, I suspect that was his 'official' income.

olly300

He actually rented!! He said he wanted a mortgage in future.

I wasn't sure if he lived with his girlfriend but even so the house was very big for the two of them considering he had no money, and had a "sandwich business" to keep him busy.

I've been watching too much Spendaholics.

gallygirl

Methinks he lives with mummy & daddy....

I agree how pointless the show was - absolutely NO LBM - and quite frankly I don't care if he loses everything.... sort of vacuous 20 something I despise (sorry if any vacuous 20 somethings are reading ).

Would be interesting to known what his debt level stands at now......

reehsetin

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=290755

Batfink

I quite admired him actually - I wish I was as happy and care free about my debts as he was......

Having said that, it did make me worry a bit less as he was the same age as me but with debts more than double mine.

Batfink x

Eager_Elephant

The way I see it is that we need more programmes regarding debt on the television and if this is all we can have at the moment then so be it.

I think while debt issues are in the media it can only be a good thing, even if each programme only encourages one person to sort their debts either by themselves or with an adviser then that is a good thing.

The problem with these programmes are that 'normal joe bloggs' families don't make good entertainment so it is the people with the ridiculous stories that make it on to the tv.

I think at least the recommendation is there about things that people may not have thought of such as selling household goods, cars which aren't needed.
To me and you and the others who frequent MSE and other debt forums it is common sense but to people who don't have access to internet or computers they may never have thought of these ideas themselves.

I think we need to realise that a lot of people have not yet had their lightbulb moment and so to bring debt into the open will make it less of a taboo subject so hopefully less people will get into debt. (although I know that is not happening at the moment)

EE

Arthur22_2

I'm quite peeved that they didn't ask me to present the show - I could tell everyone that they need to live on £8 a day and sell their car week after week while looking stern. Pick me!

My favourite part was when they said the lad had saved £600 by not taking his girlfriend on holiday, and then added that to the money total on screen as if he had wiped that off his debt. I mean first, anyone who is in that much debt should not even be considering a £600 minibreak or whatever it was, and second, if we're all gonna work out our debt like that then I am very happy to report that I have wiped off £20 million off my total today by not flying to Neptune. And tomorrow I shall be selling my sportscar.