Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

OK, so I was making chutney last night until around 10pm & it brought back memories of all the times I was doing the same back when I lived in my old house. I lived by myself back then. I expect some of the neighbours on what was a very conventional street thought I was bit eccentric......no husband, a witchy-looking cat, growing herbs, foraging, not to mention probably driving everyone mad with my piano!
Referring back to what I've been talking about, & as I stood stirring my cauldron of lovely fragrant hot chutney last night (not so fragrant waking up this morning with my hair smelling of vinegar!), I couldn't help but think again about the dissonance between the simple & old-style stuff I was into and my terrible attitude to money,
I found myself thinking about what brings people to their moment of LBM. I think there are two routes to it, actually:
1.I think the one we most often see on the MSE forums - people have lived through the era of damaging easy credit, have over borrowed, have no experience of budgeting, etc. The debt is juggled for a long time, years even, by swapping cards, consolidating, etc, then a time comes when it is hard to meet the minimum payments, there might be a crisis of some kind - a job loss, illness, etc, there is no emergency fund because the culture of saving our parents & grandparents had has evaporated in a fug of credit & BOOM........LBM. "We can't go on like this".
2. The other LBM route has pretty much all of the above factors but doesn't feel like a debt crisis at all. There is debt, there is no budgeting but it is manageable. Then something comes along which fundamentally changes the person's mindset.
My LBM falls very much into the 2nd category. We owed 35K at its worst, but while I'd have said we had a car loan each, credit cards, etc, etc, I wouldn't have said 'We're in debt' because it never felt as though we were. At this time, we each earned a reasonably decent full-time professional salary. My attitude to debt was that it was only 'borrowing' while it could easily be paid off. I think I regarded 'debt' as something which had become a problem. If we had continued as we were, I think we may well have ended up in the first category of LBM - aka 'We now have no choice'.
My LBM came about because a factual trigger actually penetrated my spendy mindset. I was upstairs at my desk & I was wondering why we said so often that 'We haven't got the money to do this, that & the other'. There & then, I added up all of our monthly outlay on debt repayment, not including the mortgage. I remember it being a shocking figure. HERE in black & white was why we'd never own a campervan or live in a little cottage on the coast! We hadn't yet reached a turning point where the need to change was driven by necessity, but this change in my mindset was simply huge. I look at the resistance to change of so many people just setting out on debt-busting & putting up SOAs with expensive TV packages, Prime & Netflix subscriptions, none of which can easily be cancelled, & I wonder if the difference is that my drive to change came from both my head & my heart. I so wanted to do it & live the simpler life I think I'd been seeking for years.
I can understand people being resistant to change. I'm old enough to remember when our TVs only had 3 channels......Channel 4 arriving was so massively new & cool - so I at least don't have that thing of thinking ownership of every gadget/package is the done thing. I'm grateful for having seen my Nan & Grandad budgeting, making do, mending, doing things the old way. Borrowing wasn't an option for them, so they lived on what they earned, making sure they 'spent half & saved half'.
But, I think I'm really just saying that life post SOA can be difficult.........I think I'd have been a lot more resistant had I not decided to change before my silly ways caught up with me. It must be very difficult to tackle debts when the head is saying 'I must do this or we're in trouble', but the heart is wishing for business as usual.
F x

wishingthemortgaheaway

Thank you for that post Foxgloves, lots of food for thought there, definitely around credit being 'acceptable.' Just a way to have what you want now.
I sometimes curse my attitude to debt &credit - it means I can't change my car because I've got a 'dodgy Friday afternoon where stuff just isn't quite right' one for a nice shiny new one. But, all the time, I remember - my future self thanks me.

Wish.

Blackcats

Great post. Wise words. I should have had my mindset change several times in the past but it never really stayed. Whilst I could borrow my way out of trouble by consolidating and moving debt around it didn't feel real or urgent. Indeed each time I took out a loan to pay off another debt I would skim off some money to go shopping for things I "needed" and/or deserved - you know those essentials like clothes, bags, perfume, meals out.
Eventually when a life event happened I had no further lines of credit available and was really in difficulty. So because of my ridiculous past spending I was in a situation when my hubby was off work for cancer treatment and we were completely and utterly skint. Whilst he had been an equally reckless spender he had no idea of the total horrific amount of debt and because of the situation I felt I couldn't tell him. Anyway we managed but I didn't have options available to me like taking unpaid leave from work to spend time with him, to go on holidays when he was between treatment etc. All totally of our own making and all totally avoidable because we earned good money. Ironically 3 years later when the cancer came back we were out of debt but we didn't get the time to enjoy ourselves as much as we could because he simply ran out of time.
If my spendy self knew the consequences of continuously spending more than I earned I'd like to think I would have done things differently but who knows. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but as you know I still have moments when I think a sparkly plastic cactus is a wonderful thing too.

foxgloves

Dottles1 - I agree re clothes. I've currently got such a nice top.... it's got a black & pink quite stylised flowery bodice but the sleeves are sheer, see - through black. It looks great with jeans & it was a charity shop find. I like it better than a lot of the full price stuff I bought back when I was spendy! If I find something I like, I wear it till it drops!

foxgloves

Wish - I think that's the problem, isn't it? Credit did just become completely acceptable. It's a word which has positive connotations. "I'm in credit with this bill" or "My bank account's in credit" are good statements. So perhaps repeatedly seeing the word 'credit' in the other context, as in 'borrowing' makes it seem a whole lot more acceptable. Maybe if the big sign in the window at the sofa shop said '3 years worth of additional debt' instead of '36 months interest-free credit', a few people might have second thoughts?
Back in the 'Spendy Years', we shared bills, mortgage, household costs, etc, but otherwise kept our finances separate. If we were considering a major purchase. Mr F would often say, "Well, I've got £3000. But I soon cottoned on that he didn't actually mean money. He meant." I have a credit card which is £3000 under its limit". As his cards had quite high credit limits, he really did regard the 'space' on them as his (or our) money! So yes, credit really did boom.into a very normal & acceptable thing. And there will be so many people out there who wish they never got even one card, let alone 5 or 6.
F x

foxgloves

Blackcats - I'm sorry to read that you've had sad & difficult times. The truth is that we just can't know what the future will bring, & yes, with the benefits of hindsight, you might have tackled your spending habits earlier. The thing is..... that light bulbs ping on when they're ready. There are one or two aspects of my life which I think may have been different had the lightbulb pinged on a good bit earlier. We can't go back though, only learn from our mistakes & not keep repeating the same silly behaviours which got us there.
Re consolidation loans..... Yes, we've defo been there. The first one is the 'big idea' to pay it all off & have a new start..... the 2nd is kind of the same, only you really WILL do it this time, the 3rd will absolutely 100% be the final time. Each time you work out what you need to borrow, then add on a bit extra just so you can replace a few things, pay a holiday balance, etc, etc.
Only the 3rd time WAS our final consolidation because the LBM struck before we could start convincing ourselves to do a 4th one.
It was a long time coming, but at least it was a bright shiny one when it arrived!
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

Black cats........that was such a sad and poignant post. One that will stay with me. Hope you are doing ok Xx

wishingthemortgaheaway

Black cats - thank you for sharing your story.

foxgloves

Well, my frugal diary reading friends, short of going tech-free & partaking of my coffee among self-important peri-wigged chaps in an 18th century coffee house, I don't think I could have HAD a more 'old-style' day. Up before 6, as was wide awake & took the opportunity to jump in Mr f's bath as he was jumping out.... Why pay twice for all that hot water? Refused to switch towel rail on to dry soggy towels. Sunshine & breeze here, so pegged them out to dry for free.
Nobbled Mr F over breakfast & we knocked together a meal plan for next week, which I transferred to my diary.
Then time for some serious rhubarb. Pulled 3.5lbs of it yesterday. Made most of it into rhubarb & ginger jam. Not the cheapest recipe as uses crystallised ginger, but as I only had to buy this & lemons, & will gift two jars in festive hampers, I was fine with that. I love paying things forward with cooking, so I've put aside some leftover crystallised ginger for my Christmas cake. I also used every scrap of rhubarb, as had enough for a batch of muffins & I popped the last little dish of chunks into the oven at the same time & have added it to a rhubarb & apple crumble base I've already got in the freezer. Most of the muffins frozen in case I need extra 'nephews fodder' in a week or so. My goodness, those boys can eat... just like their Grandad!
Tomorrow's packed lunch made (Remember we used to spend around £2,000 a year on buying lunches on work days? ?!!!)
Tonight's meal from meal plans as usual. I'm. going to make a Chinese-style egg-fried rice, using chopped leftover peppers from the freezer, a bunch of homegrown spring onions, a few other bits from stores & one leftover frying steak. It will easily do two people when slivered up & used in this way.
And tonight, I'm determined to make progress on finishing the socks I'm currently knitting for the presents box.
It's been a very simple, but inwardly nourishing day. I haven't been anywhere near the News for once, so haven't got wound up about the state of the country & the ideologues running it.
I actually spent a whole 10 minutes just watching an amazing dragonfly sunbathing in our pear tree.
Simple pleasures.
They're important.
Let's all see if we can manage even just one or two each by the end of the coming weekend.
F x

wishingthemortgaheaway

What a day Foxgloves, sounds idyllic and not a thing like my incredibly unproductive day,

Keep inspiring us all.