Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

joedenise

I think you're right @foxgloves that both these programmes would be a good idea to air again.  I particularly liked the Alvin Hall show; more so than the Shopaholics one.

foxgloves

I think money management has become very centred around changing service providers to procure better deals, shopping around, downshifting brands, etc, & all these strands of expenditure reduction are valuable & play their part. However, I think the actual mechanics of budgeting remain an arcane mystery to many. Back in the day, I had no idea how to establish a budget, which is ridiculous as I am an intelligent woman with 2 degrees, one of which included quite a detailed strand in handling statistics. A friend showed me how she did her own budget to try & help me through one of my many abandoned 'lightbulb flickers' & I still use the basics of that today. I've tweaked & refined it & the process is definitely more complex now, but the basics are still there.
The ease of borrowing money has unfortunately blurred the line between 'our money' & borrowed money, which is of course 'someone else's money' & I'm sure this has contributed to people 'getting by' without a functional budget until they hit either a problem, an LBM or both.
So I think a TV programme featuring different people each week, in which the content focuses on solving the problem by drawing up a budget from scratch to meet their circumstances, could be of real practical benefit. My problem for over 2 decades was regarding budgeting as a rather horrid thing for dull people & squares, which would curtail all the stuff I liked to do. As a complete convert, I now know it is actually a tool which enables, rather than prevents.
F

EssexHebridean

I don't remember Shopaholics but the Alvin Hall programmes were a great watch weren't they! The main thing that often stands out in my mind when considering other people's trollies in the supermarkets is usually how much pre-made stuff some folk buy. I do get that time-poorness is an issue for a lot of people - and indeed I'll always buy a bag of oven chips rather than cutting my own potatoes as the results are generally far tastier, but I wouldn't buy pre-cut and seasoned wedges for example. Batter mixes too - mostly it seems you still have to add an egg and some milk - so surely that means what people are buying is a bag of flour with a pinch of salt in it?!  The other thing that that properly sparks my fuse in the supermarket is watching a parent shopping with children when the children are being allowed to throw stuff into the trolley (or come to that, when the adult is doing it!)  - fruit, veg, meat, you name it - if we don't teach children to treat their food with respect from the start, how do we make the point that it's expensive and should be treated well and carefully? 

I would LOVE to see a programme dealing with teaching and budgeting properly - I think there is still a general perception that this is something which people know how to do, but certainly from what we see on the main DFW board that is a long way from being the case! 

As for your shortening of your posts - for goodness sake, the last thing those of us of a chatty nature need is one of our number deciding to go all brief and concise on us! 

themadvix

Couldn't agree more EH - it's the plastic-wrapped, 'industrially produced edible substance' (unashamedly taken from Ultra-Processed People) that fills so many trolleys. There's no relationship with real food, the farm, the farmer, the nutrients we need to survive... It makes me so sad (fortunately, I rarely go into a supermarket - much like the dump, I find it a very depressing experience).

Also agree that shortening your posts would put pressure on the rest of us chatty types Foxgloves! Please don't! This is such a great corner of the forum for thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion and inspiration - and if you stuck to the bare necessities much of that might disappear.

Suffolk_lass

I LOVE Alvin Hall. I have four of his books and I loved all the series he did for the BBC (and Channel 4 where he even did a lesson for Jamie's Dream School). 

foxgloves

Well, I think we are all agreed we would like Alvin Hall back with a new programme about the nuts & bolts of budgeting. It really does seem like the ideal time for this sort of TV show, doesn't it? 
It's a quick one from me this afternoon. I forgot I needed to trot out to the post box & visit the compost bins before dark (oooh, the unstoppable glamour of my life......) & I am a bit behind now. Pleasant enough day, not overly focused on financial stuff, but have kept the faith & the budget helping bits are as follows:
*Selected next week's meals from January's master meal plan.
*Wrote shopping list.
*Grocery shopping would usually be tomorrow night but need to consider Mr F's offer of £7 off a £70 spend at a rival supermarket. That is around our target spend for this week so it could work well for us, depending on availability of delivery slots when we have not planned to be elsewhere. Will investigate tonight & place the order if it looks doable.
*Knitted a bit more of my cardi while watching the rest of the drama about the post office scandal. At one point I was so outraged, I found I had knitted 2 rows of utter cr*pola & had to frog them afterwards. Just dreadful. I did know about it, am a bit of a news junkie & have followed the story, but there was something about getting the whole narrative that crystallized in my mind just what a huge miscarriage of justice this has been. Shame it has taken a TV programme to galvanise a few powers that be into action. In that case, I think next TV drama should be about no-fault evictions & how many families are living in B&Bs, friends' sofas or the streets. 
*Make a pasta bake for dinner - still to do, but have defrosted half a green pepper, some l/o Christmas bacon, a portion of the pasta sauce I batch-cooked back when we had our tomato glut & have rounded up a stray half a red onion. With a cheesy top, that should make a decent use-it-up meal.
NOT money saving - receiving car tax reminder & finding the bloody thing has gone up by £15.....for a small car, barely 2 years old & a hybrid at that, bah! Then I started wondering if it actually went up last year & I failed to amend it on my bills spreadsheet. Will check that tomorrow.
Right, I must hie me away to do things with pasta twists.
Cheers for now,
F x

Four_Seasons

Tom the postmaster who was on the news this morning was our postmaster and his little shop the heart of our village, when it closed overnight we were so shocked. If anyone had thought to ask village folk they would have been put right, a lovely genuine man very much missed xx

badmemory

Four_Seasons said:

Tom the postmaster who was on the news this morning was our postmaster and his little shop the heart of our village, when it closed overnight we were so shocked. If anyone had thought to ask village folk they would have been put right, a lovely genuine man very much missed xx

I just hope that those sorting this remember that perjury is a criminal offence punishable by time in jail. So is blackmail which was used so their victims could avoid jail, it would also stop them PO from needing to give any real evidence.

ladyholly

I did watch the series already knowing about the awful time the sub postmasters have had. What astonshes me is that no-one has asked the obvious (to me) questions. Is it feasible that so many sub postmasters have been stealing from the post office without it being noticed before and why was a major new system installed across the whole network with no prior testing rather than in a limited number of branches. Every new system throws up glitches as far as I can see.
The whole thing was and is disgusting and for it not be sorted after 20 years is a disgrace and a stain on the post office, the government, Fujitsu and, if the Telegraph is correct, the CPS under Keir Strarmer who prosecuted some cases rather than the PO.

badmemory

I didn't think the CPS was involved that is why they have changed the rules so that only the CPS can prosecute in future.