Backlash?

Bismarck

I like the cahoots thing....you wonder what really gets discussed in the banking boardrooms or the Treasury.....

We've a generation that treats buying a luxury item as a necessity....books and DVDs used to be for birthdays and Christmas and appreciated because it had been either waited for or there had been some genuine sacrifice.....

Today? Want a big TV? OK...sign here....video camera? New mobile? New car? Have our lives become so empty that we need to consume to feel valued?

Didn't the marketers do a good job while the banks opened the credit floodgates and millions jumped on board....

humbug!

Gemmzie

lucielle wrote: »

I think this is an excellent thread. My oh and I have been talking and really want to teach our children good money habits (as you can see from my sig ours isn't great) and they don't get pocket money. Does anybody have any tips/books/ideas on how to teach them? We have 4 of the little ankle biters the oldest being 12 and youngest 7.

I was given my family allowance (child benefit as it now is) to use from about nine. I had to buy uniform, pe kit first, then essential clothes. Then the rest for other clothes. Plus £5 a week for saving or spending generally. Worked pretty well for me as I learnt to budget and prioritise early on.

(The debts in my sig are my parent's not mine incase that confuses matters. I'm good with money :rotfl: )

lilac_lady

This thread is a hopeful one. It's good to see so many young people logging on to this site and really getting to grips with their finances. I belong to the generation who think debt is debt, not credit but I realise that it's not easy for young people to resist peer pressure. I hope many more youngsters join MSE because it's a great motivational tool to help avoid keeping up with the herd. Debt does not bring happiness to a person's life.

dudleyboy

lucielle wrote: »

I think this is an excellent thread. My oh and I have been talking and really want to teach our children good money habits (as you can see from my sig ours isn't great) and they don't get pocket money. Does anybody have any tips/books/ideas on how to teach them? We have 4 of the little ankle biters the oldest being 12 and youngest 7.

I can't remember how old I was when I first got pocket money but there was an age - perhaps five or six, I don't really remember - when my parents stopped buying me things unless we went out for the day and I was bought something as a treat. Everything else I asked for, mostly expensive things like toys, was only given to me for my birthday or Christmas ("put it on your list", they used to say). That way I really appreciated it when I received it... or had forgotten about it completely by the time Christmas arrived and therefore probably wouldn't have played with it for long anyway (therefore saving them money). If there was anything else I wanted I was told "that's what your pocket money is for". And so it was... but the pocket money wasn't given to me - it was earned... for doing jobs like tidying my room, laying the table, doing the washing up or vacuuming. When I was 12, and wanted more money to go out, it was for ironing my own clothes. Yes - I was taught how to iron at the age of 12! Doesn't that border on child abuse??

The thing is, my parents gradually taught me how to do things and I learned essential life skills along the way without really realising it, including the value of money and the fact that it has to be earned, saved and budgeted. The dreaded phrases "once it's gone, it's gone" and "well if you've spent all your pocket money you'll have to wait til next week" (I couldn't just tidy my room whenever I was a bit short) rang in my ears often and as a result I learned about budgeting and the differences between needs and wants.

Of course, when I went to university I forgot all about these life skills - and my parents couldn't advise on how expensive it would be because I was first in my family to go - but they soon came back when I started working again and I'll be passing the same values on to my own kids... when the time comes...

I certainly feel like I've gone without during my 20s, repaying these bl**dy debts, but the thought of enjoying my 30s, debt free and with my own money is really keeping me going. All I need now is for house prices to come down to 3x my salary rather than 6 and to start a family... so I can raise my own army of domestic servants and put my feet up at the weekend... :D

donny-gal

I am also one of the older ones here, mid-late 50´s. Over the years we have taken out credit to assist furnish the house, extend, buy cars. etc. and maybe we should/could have saved for them and avoided paying interest, but the difference with us is it was one thing at once, and cleared one off, before taking out another, and always ensuring that the payments were payable. If that meant staying in with a bottle of wine rather than the pub, or a camping holiday rather than a 5* cruise that is what we did. I´m often classed as "tight" by my son, but in honestly he knows I am careful, and has seen the benefits of my "tightness". I handle the money and DH is happy for me to do so, but we have always discussed everything. My one pet hate is cars as I feel you can throw money down the drain with them more than anything.
As for shopping - means to an end and avoided if possible, I could not spend every weekend looking round shops, it would bore me rigid, and you only end up spending, even tight me!
Learning to live within your means is one of the hardest lessons in life.

DS left uni with just his Student Loan as a debt, and does talk to me about money though at almost 23 still hasn´t time to sit and talk for long, life is too busy, but he also knows that if you run out - you cut your cloth accordingly not just keep spending.
How to teach your kids - haven´t a clue, while he is pretty good, he good be better, but didn´t all our parents say that.
DG

neverdespairgirl

rog2 wrote: »

Of course everyone 'wanted' the finer things in life, but the ordinary 'man/woman in the street' accepted that they were unlikely to afford things like a new car every two years, or new shoes every month, and simply 'made the best' of what they had'.

I don't think I do want a new car every 2 years, imagine the hassle of sorting out tax / insurance / parking permits etc!

I agree, this site is excellent because it tries to make people question the new way of filling existential angst - spend, spend, spend. Too many magazines have replaced "cognito ergo sum" with "I consume, therefore I am".

neverdespairgirl

bathgatebuyer wrote: »

I think too many people see shopping and consumerism as a measure of their success in life and as a person.

We all want to measure ourself against our peers and what they want, we want.

Who isn't jealous when they see someone they went to Uni with driving around in a £20K BMW? Of course, I wanted to be like that.

That isn't necessarily true. I don't think I'd care less if I saw someone driving a BMW, it still just gets stuck in traffic jams etc! My best friend from school and her husband have, in the last couple of years, bought their first house and redone quite a lot of it (it was a wreck), and it doesn't make me think I want a new bathroom / kitchen etc, why would it?

bathgatebuyer wrote: »

It does astonish me that so many people get caught in this trap. Everytime an SOA is put on this board, inevitably there's £50 a month on Sky, or £50 a month on a haircut. My grandparents would have some sort of fit if they thought that people were spending that amount of money on TV and haircuts! Somewhere along the line, our generation (I'm 31) and the one before stopped listening to what our parents taught us about money and thought we could have it all.

We have the basic 4 channels only here, and it's never bothered me. I'm the same age as you - 30 - and I agree that I am also suprised how many people have expensive TV on this site.

neverdespairgirl

ZTD wrote: »

It's wrong to call it a backlash. This is just a cycle of history. There was a time - within living memory - when money was easy, life was good, and everything was unsustainable. That was the 1920's.

That was a rather different situation - remember that in the decade before, hundreds of thousands of young men had been killed and maimed for life, and people were trying to forget it. We don't have that excuse.

ZTD

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

That was a rather different situation - remember that in the decade before, hundreds of thousands of young men had been killed and maimed for life, and people were trying to forget it. We don't have that excuse.

So why didn't the 1940's/1950's roar? Even more people died in WWII?

And a further question - what was the "Great Depression", before 1929?

neverdespairgirl

ZTD wrote: »

So why didn't the 1940's/1950's roar? Even more people died in WWII?

And a further question - what was the "Great Depression", before 1929?

Different circumstances, I think. There was still rationing, a lot more houses and general infrastructure had been destroyed than in the 1st World War, and there was a focus on building the "New Jerusalem", AKA the Welfare State.

It happened in the 60s instead, "You've never had it so good".