Spendaholics last night

steve700

Did anyone see it?

DontDoDebtKids

No. How bad was it?

steve700

DontDoDebtKids wrote:

No. How bad was it?

It's a 22 year old with £17k of debt, mainly due to 'modifying cars'.

I've SKY+d it and only seen the first 5 minutes so far....

From what I've seen, I suspect that he MAY be successful;)

iceicebaby

Aww i missed it

I always watch holby instead.

I will be watching it when its repeated Suinday though, so ill not visit this thread again or ill know what its about before I watch it!

nickinoodle_2

When is it on on sunday please? and what channel?

Curlyz

7pm BBC 3 - saw it - am getting a bit bored with this programme now - cover the same stuff every week - never get into switching for better rates, snowballing etc. Seemed to concentrate more on psychological side of things

im69

I think that one was the last in the series.

GettingThingsDone

I agree, its too much about finding the psychological problems that must be the cause of their overspending, and then pushing them to their LBM. I'd prefer it if they did all that stuff off camera and then spend more time on the mechanics of getting out of debt.

It is suffering from the general dumbing down of TV whereby they get away with treating us all like idiots (e.g. just listen to the weather forecast these days). Give us facts and figures!!! I'll keep watching Martin's video blogs - the future of tv?

Anyway - rant over

steve700

Eating out and socialising REDUCED to £125 per month.

That's a kebab every day of the month, isn't it............. Hardly cutting back!

Pan_3

GettingThingsDone wrote:

I agree, its too much about finding the psychological problems that must be the cause of their overspending, and then pushing them to their LBM. I'd prefer it if they did all that stuff off camera and then spend more time on the mechanics of getting out of debt.

It is suffering from the general dumbing down of TV whereby they get away with treating us all like idiots (e.g. just listen to the weather forecast these days). Give us facts and figures!!! I'll keep watching Martin's video blogs - the future of tv?

Anyway - rant over

The aspect of Spendaholics I tend to like is the psychological exploration....agreed it can be a bit forced at times but IMO it is good to see a programme willing to delve into this aspect of spending. The title of the programme seems to infer that people are addicted to spending and therefore it is quite right that this is tackled.

I am in big debt and this was caused by attempting to buy a lifestyle that I thought would make me happy and more worthwhile and attractive to other people. Spending and addiction to spending is a complex issue and whilst telling people to be card tarts and to reclaim bank fees is all well and good, many people have to come face to face with their hidden demons and issues before they can truly tackle their debts and issues with spending.

I think it is a bit like eating healthy and dieting. Most people do tend to know what they need to eat to remain healthy and to stay a reasonable size...the problem is people often neglect this knowledge and carry out eating poorly regardless. In my darkness moments I knew that maxing out my credit cards was the wrong thing to do and I knew it was madness to literally buy a new £200 watch every week but the problem was I was ADDICTED to doing this...this addiction was as strong as any addiction to drugs or gambling etc and the psychological rush and the subsequent awful comedown of making a purchase was a classic sign of addiction.

My issues to spending only really began to make sense when I came to realise the psychological reasons why I kept repeating the same self destructive habit over and over....all this was tied up with intrinsic feelings of low self worth and self esteem. During my spending frenzies, many friends and colleagues commented on my habits but I just either refused to see these or buried my head in the sand.

I am not saying that everybody who spends more money than they have has a psychological problem. I do however believe that the addiction to spending is becoming a far more understood and recognised problem that is blighting the lives of more and more people from all walks of life.

Back to the issue of Spendaholics, yes it can be frustrating, simplistic, patronising and dumbed down but there are also times when it can highlight some little insightful nuggets of wisdom that may well make you look at your habits and behaviours in a different way. This can only be a good thing and when applied alongside advise found on sites such as this gives us another string to our bow when fighting to become DFW's!

GettingThingsDone

If only they could make the show longer, then I think we'd all be happier! I agree about the importance of the psychological aspects, its just that it takes so much time up and I'm not always convinced that they get to the root of the problem. Sometimes we are face to face with those inner demons and decide to carry on as 'normal' anyway doh!

Actually, what I would prefer would be the parallel view i.e. we see all of the 'patients' in the first episode and then follow their progress (or lack of?) over the series. A bit like people's diaries on here.

If MSE Martin is listening, can you make that show please?