Aligning expectations

lazer-zxr

This is only my opinion, and is aimed at no one in particular, but there seems to be a huge difference between what I percieve as necessities, and others who are failing to get out of debt, percieve as necessities.

We see time and time again, forumites enjoying luxury items, whilst trying to get out of debt.

Ive seen many SOAs posted here in the last year, where people claim to be unable to afford their debts, though when posting their SOA, they include things such as Sky TV, Alcohol, Tobacco, expensive mobile phones, new cars on leases .....

I feel these people need educating in order to help them, to realise that getting out of debt is hard work, and not somewhere people should be living in luxury while struggling to repay debts.

Anyone else think the same? Or am I over stepping the mark here?

MallyGirl

Sky is the one that always gets me. Maybe I am just not interested enough in TV to pay more than a TV license for the pleasure. My brother is always claiming he is skint but he has full sky sports, his kids have TVs in their rooms to play their many computer games, they have xbox live, they all smoke.
Smoking is another one - but then I am not a smoker so it easy for me to say 'quit'.

iolanthe07

Sky is the one that always gets me.

Yes - I can never understand this. I can receive dozens of channels free to air with Freesat, and my Humax box does all the things a sky box will do (pause live TV, etc). I have absolutely no interest in any sport, so I suppose that helps.

MallyGirl

iolanthe07 wrote: »

I have absolutely no interest in any sport, so I suppose that helps.

same here. I could get a very good Sky deal through work and I still haven't taken it up.

enthusiasticsaver

Clearing debt and staying out of it is a long term thing so whatever budget choices people make they have to be sustainable. We do have sky (not sports or films) simply because there are a few sky channels we like not available on free view and I like the sky plus for recording. We are not in debt or on a tight budget though and yes if we were that would be the first to go. Neither of us ever smoked and only drink very occasionally so I really cannot understand people in heavy debt spending an absolute fortune on cigarettes or alcohol but it is an addiction and I think mentally when people are struggling they are reluctant to give up their pleasures.

I am not sure it is as simple as educating people to realise that giving these things up will help them. I would prefer that proper budgeting with every penny allocated to doing something happened more often and educating people that using a credit card or overdraft is not free money and the people who usually pay are the ones least able to afford it. Luxuries like sky, expensive mobile phones, alcohol etc can be afforded so long as they are budgeted according to means and ideally when no debt.

trailingspouse

I think we all draw 'lines in the sand'. Sky might be where you draw your particular line. Others might say you don't 'need' a TV at all.

Also nails and hair - if you can't afford to pay off your debts, you can't afford to have your nails and hair done professionally.

Money_maker

As an ex smoker, you don't realise exactly how much you're spending on them. You come up with a value which is probably half the real cost just because you don't want to admit how expensive it is. Sadly, fags were mostly to blame for our debt problems years ago but we just didn't realise it at the time.


Now we can do frivolous things like pay insurances in full instead of monthly, join the leisure centre, have lots of costa's and get Now TV (would never go back to sky, final months we were paying nigh on £90 monthly!).

EssexHebridean

If someone is not in debt, and is reliant on nobody else for their day to day expenses - then IMO where they choose to spend their money is their business.
If someone is in debt, but they feel it is manageable - for example a mortgage and a budgeted for car-loan plus a student loan being repaid from salary (ie "good debt") then I'm inclined to feel the same - albeit in that instance I'd suggest that any spare cash they DO have should be allocated to clearing the loan, and then overpaying the mortgage, rather than simply being spent because they have it.
If someone is in debt, and it's making them panic - they feel that they are over their heads, it's making them anxious, impacting on their mental health, and wellbeing, and thus the wellbeing of their families, if appropriate, then the situation becomes rather different.

I too feel a degree of frustration when I see people considering things as "essential" rather than luxury - but to a degree is your comment about education not hitting the nail right on the head? There is a huge amount of expectation in society today - if you do things differently you get looked at rather oddly. Those of us who have been active on here for a while, and are now debt free, have made certain choices to get ourselves to that position - and in many cases those have become habits that have become ingrained, and so we choose not to change them, or perhaps just to adjust them mildly. As an example, I was asked yesterday what a difference having no mortgage must have made to us - "you must notice it each month, with having more to spend?" errr...no. Because the money that was going to the mortgage, and to the account for paying OFF the mortgage, now simply goes to our long-term savings. Aside from a couple of small adjustments within our budget, we don't really see the difference at all - but of course behind the scenes, our money is working for us, not for a bank.

Making the decision to do things differently can be tremendously financially rewarding even if you're debt free - and when you start adding up the difference between paying debt off early (so saving interest) and letting it run to term, that can be a huge eye opener - and acts as a great incentive for so many people.

sadly we're now in a society where certain things are considered "essential" which would not have been the case even 20 years ago. The internet for example - used to be a luxury to have it at home, now you're seriously disadvantaged without it. Is it now an essential? I think so. Mobile phones are a trickier one, and mobile phones for kids, even more so. For 99% of the population, paid-for TV services are without question a luxury - however what about for the small number of folk who can't get a TV service any other way? Where I live NTL was gifted a monopoly over the entire area years ago - meaning that now your only options for TV are either to use the existing cable service that is in place (so Virgin Media, as it's nor effectively "their" cable) or to have an external dish mounted for satellite (which technically our lease precludes, however this is overlooked as the council have realised that they are on distinctly shaky ground if they make an issue of it!).

Things like alcohol, if they come from within a modest monthly personal spends/entertainment budget, then fair enough - so a quick drink after work with friends, of a £4 Aldi bottle of wine as a treat with the Mrs on a Friday night - some of the SOA's we see on here though seem to see nothing strange in accounting anything from £50 a month for routine spends on alcohol though, and to me, that seems a bit of an alarming one.

I'm aware this has turned into a novel... I guess what it comes down to is those three points at the top though - if you fall into that third category, for your own sake, and that of those close to you/dependant on you, cutting things back hard to facilitate a better standard of life in the longer term seems, to me, to be a no brainer.

enthusiasticsaver

Well said EH

Chandelier.

Morning!

This strikes a chord with me. One of the worse people I know for it is a close relative. They're always skint and can't afford things and previously got into lots of debt. However they still smoked, spent loads on food out, had to have a new car, holidays etc when in debt and no money. At the ripe age of 22 they were in 35k of debt. They were helped out by a family member. However they've still not had their lightbulb moment.

With me.. I've never really had debt debt. The only thing really was car PCP but for some reason I never saw it as bad debt. I had one which ran for three years then I traded in for another. However a few months back I took out a loan at a cheaper interest rate to pay this off and now I'm focusing on tackling it down. I could continue to see this as not bad debt and just car finance if you get what I mean but I'm more aware of it. I like to regularly overpay this.

I keep a check of my bank balance regularly. I have an emergency fund just incase. I never spend out of my budget and allocate every penny to a fund in my account.

I do have a few luxuries that maybe I shouldn't have. However I justify this to myself and I am able to afford payments and overpayments each month. If I wasn't able to I'd cut these out.

However for me it's getting a good balance in all aspects of my life and keeping my mental health on track. If I cut right down to bare minimum I'd be miserable. However some months I do spend close enough to zilch aside from bills. It's swings and round abouts.

sourcrates

I was a slave to sky for many years simply because of where we live.

We are approx 6 miles further out into the North Sea, than the rest of northern England, so very prone to bad weather and especially fog.

Freeview very hit and miss here, and we've only recently been able to switch to a cheaper service, as we had no other choice for years.