Am I devious?

someone

Steel wrote: »

And not only have people tried to tap me for a loan, but they've also tried to tap me for my credit record to act as a guarantor for them or in one case be a company director so they could get the credit facilties for their business that the bank had turned them down for.

I hope they offered you a % of the company

VfM4meplse

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

£60K-70K is these days by no means enough to go splashing it about willy nilly. There may be a case for the few people who literally have more

I couldn't agree more, it''s just rainy-day money and no more than that. Don't get complacent.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

I am pretty upfront on this forum as nobody knows me but as for everyone else we dont tell a dicky bird what we've got.

Everyone knows we live a frugal lifestyle but I can tell they cant add up how me and OH can afford to work part time, run a car, go on holidays etc...

I come from Yorkshire and its common practice to keep shtum about money. Many a Yorkshireman has been seen walking down the street with a toggle off his duffle coat and a piece of string holding up his trousers off to the post office to deposit a massive rolled up wad of tenners tied up with an elastic band!

As for the charity thing, I love to buy homeless people something to eat and a hot drink even if its a macdonalds. Lovely feeling to help someone this way and you know your money is going straight to the spot. Salvation Army are very good too.

My advice...keep it on the down low

GeorgeHowell

Desperate_Housewife wrote: »

I am pretty upfront on this forum as nobody knows me but as for everyone else we dont tell a dicky bird what we've got.

Everyone knows we live a frugal lifestyle but I can tell they cant add up how me and OH can afford to work part time, run a car, go on holidays etc...

I come from Yorkshire and its common practice to keep shtum about money. Many a Yorkshireman has been seen walking down the street with a toggle off his duffle coat and a piece of string holding up his trousers off to the post office to deposit a massive rolled up wad of tenners tied up with an elastic band!

As for the charity thing, I love to buy homeless people something to eat and a hot drink even if its a macdonalds. Lovely feeling to help someone this way and you know your money is going straight to the spot. Salvation Army are very good too.

My advice...keep it on the down low

Ah yes, the Yorkshire factor, with it's familiar cry of ..... 'OW MUCH ???!!!! (although in my experience Warwickshire folks can give you more than a run for your money) (*)

Seriously though, I wonder whether those advising a schtum approach are mainly of the more mature generations. For them it's usually no problem to keep one's financial counsel to oneself. But for the younger generation it's a different culture, and the peer pressure and the temptation to flash it about "Loadsamoney" style is much greater. For many older people this might be a non-question -- why on earth would you flaunt it just because you've got it ? How vulgar, how unwise. But to many younger people it's no doubt an agonising dilemna between chasing the kudos, admiration, and envy resulting from apparently having 'done well' and mustered a few bob, and converesely suffering the unfortunate side effects of doing so, which are described at length in earlier posts.

(*) I hope that paragrapah will be treated as a light-hearted joke and that nobody will accuse me of discrimination

trixie4

Wise, not devious!! There are plenty of good people in the world but there are also the select few who are out to get whatever they can for nothing. You sound like you're strong enough to say no to any such people you may encounter but the route you're taking will avoid any hassle for sure!

gadgetmind

Desperate_Housewife wrote: »

As for the charity thing, I love to buy homeless people something to eat and a hot drink even if its a macdonalds.

I choose to put my spare change into those wall-mounted collection boxes for the homeless as giving them money/etc. directly just encourages them to hang around on street corners hassling people.

longleggedhair

Steel wrote: »

You're not devious.

But from my experience I wouldn't mention it.

I'm not as flush as you, but I earn a reasonable amount and live naturally frugally due to my upbringing. My husband is the same. We have no kids but lots of hobbies, of which one of his is restoring classic cars.

Lately we've had to spend a lot of money on our property fixing the heating system, installing some decent storage, getting the driveway done and also rebuilding a car on the side. I also like to give to charities and have helped out quite a bit at the work ones. All of this comes out of savings, which we routinely have gone without to build up to the necessary amounts we needed.

However, over the last few months I have taken to moaning about how much everything is and occassionally proclaiming "well, back to being skint again" when a big bill comes in even though it's not true.

Why?

Because people at work and in the family started noticing about a year ago we were improving things around the house, making charitable donations and started making comments about how 'deep' my pockets must be. Or when someone needs money for something they point to me and say "she's got loads." Or how about pointing out with all the money I have (they know how much I earn as the ad for my job was in the paper) why do I bring my lunch in when I could buy it from the M&S van. It just gets silly.

And not only have people tried to tap me for a loan, but they've also tried to tap me for my credit record to act as a guarantor for them or in one case be a company director so they could get the credit facilties for their business that the bank had turned them down for.

To be honest I'm sick of lying and want to shout at people "who's bloody fault is it you can't afford to pay your gas bill?" when I've seen them prance through the office the week before in £150 new boots. Or listen to the moaning about how they had to put their DVD shop on a credit card. Or be turned down for credit facilities because of how bad their credit, both perosnal and business, actually is!

Hell is other people sometimes. I won't be rid of this now until I leave for another job, where I will keep everyone at arms length and tell them nothing.

P.S. Agree about the Sally Army by the way.

Hi Steel, thanks for the wise words. Your quite right about how people quickly assume you have money, that is why I always moan "with" people when they moan about money.

It does annoy me when I see people as you have said wasting money, my brother being a point in question. He smokes, he will buy people expensive presents at Christmas, him and his partner spend money like its going out of fashon, but then he will tap me for a oan because he "can't!" pay his mortgage.

longleggedhair

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I couldn't agree more, it''s just rainy-day money and no more than that. Don't get complacent.

Well I suppose this is subjective, depending on thepart of the country you live in and your lifestyle.

I am on quite a low wage (£12k) p.a. and manage to save the majority of this. I am fortunate because I own my own property so have no rent/mortgage to pay.

It is my intention to build my savings to a sufficiant level so I can draw some of the income from them to subsidise my income and move to part time employment.

I accept living in London £70k probably would not last very long, but I live in the midlands and could quite easily strertch my money over several years, although I also accept that it is certainly not a huge amount of money by todays standards.

longleggedhair

Thanks to all for your replys, and I am glad most agree with me! It does seem to be a generational thing, and most people of my generation seem to be unemployed with no prospects and the idea of having savings would be quite an alien thing when there is the new blackberry curve to be brought (forgive the generialisation).

It does seem to come down to a generation of people who have been brought up who expect something for nothing. I was in a queue in the supermarket the other day when I was behind a lad who was moaning about the job center because they were late paying him "HIS" money-I felt like having a go at him, because its not HIS money its the TAXPAYERS money. They seem to think that the dole cheques arrive in those nice brown envelopes out of this air, the dont realise that someone has to actually pay for it.

I prefer to have my own security blanket, and it gives me a great sense of security knowing that if anything happens I have a few k in the bank I can get at.

FOX_HOUND

What is this thread really about.?

Is it to make you feel great about having 70k in disposable money which by the majority of peoples standards is a fortune.

Are you really asking as to whether you are actually tight and covet money more than what is healthy to a fulfilling life. If you portray yourself as being poor and benefit from that from other peoples generosity then I would have a problem with that and I do know a couple of individuals like that.