Bank of Mum and Dad - BBC2 8pm Tuesdays

deemy2004

If the dollar falls (whcih it is doing) then it will take the british economy down with it !

paulcdb

I will be  ;D when I see people getting repossessed.

Bring it on... i'd love to see the day i can afford to buy a house, istead of looking and only finding houses which require 4x and more of what i earn to pay the morgage.

And maybe it'd teach people a few hard learned lessons... as the program shows, people have no idea of money these days.

deemy2004

The pair from location, location, location signing on the dole will be the time to buy !

dag_2

I didn't see it - it clashes with an evening class - but Jo's analysis ...

Definitely easy-viewing rather than a serious attempt to address these people's spending problems/addictions.

But it's true. If someone is so lacking in confidence that they need to buy expensive junk that they don't actually need, then all of the money-saving advice in the world isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference.

Telling them that they'll end up on the street, or in a hostel, or in prison, or in mental hospital, or in a soup line, or bankrupt, or have their kids taken into care won't help either. It'll just make them anxious, which will erode their confidence even further, which will make them spend even more money on junk.

This is particularly true for alcoholics and drug addicts - including those addicted to nicotine and prescription drugs - but it's also true of those who just like to have posh new threads now and then.

I hate to pathologise people's behaviour - but psychologists tell us that compulsive shopping and kleptomania have a lot in common. The only difference is that compulsive shoppers try to pay for it - but they're both very real problems.

There was a time when people thought the word "kleptomania" was just a bourgeoisie attempt to pathologise the naturally occuring coping behaviour of people in poverty - and sure, sometimes it is just about poverty - but it isn't always. Sometimes there's more to it than that.

Making sure they're not paying over the odds on interest and utilities certainly helps - but it's not the whole solution. But laughing at them certainly doesn't help.

I think a little more care, support and understanding wouldn't go amiss. But then again, I've always been a bleeding-heart nanny-state advocate.

That said, BBA ...

Some people will laugh when I say we need a recession.

We've had the good times, too good in fact. It all leads to a very big problem when the economy turns the other way, which one day it will.

Yeah, when the civil war between tenants and homeowners erupts, I'll probably be on the tenants' side too. But do we really need to be divided against ourselves? The circumstances of tenants in rent arrears, and no-equity owners in mortgage arrears, isn't that much different. We both face eviction. We will be evicted if property prices go up - but they will be evicted if property prices go down.

To those who don't believe that property price rises directly cause tenant evictions, think about how Nicholas Van Hoogstraten made his millions. If it was just old Nick, it wouldn't be a problem. Irony is, first-time buyers wouldn't be so keen to overstretch financially, if the rising property prices of the late 20th century weren't accompanied by a worsening of tenancy rights in the same period.

savvy

New series later in 2005!!

daveboy

Talk about raising something from the dead!

lipidicman

The programme or the thread?

This show is great, and it makes my girlfriend realise how bad people are (and appreciate me!)

daveboy

I meant the thread. I remembered the thread was around from when the programme was on last time, which I watched - because of this thread

I have a laugh when I see all of the clothes and makeup young women waste most of their money on.

If you really want to see how bad some people are, wait for the next series of Life Of Grime, then you will see just how bad some people are.

There's being bad dealing with money and therefore struggling because you have no money and there's being a scumbag.

lipidicman

Life or Grime NY is great - the bloke who cleans up people hoarded junk, and those rat catchers getting outwitted by the rats!

savvy

daveboy wrote:

I meant the thread. I remembered the thread was around from when the programme was on last time, which I watched - because of this thread

Well Daveboy being the busy person I am, I unfortunately missed the whole series, but heard many people talking about how good it was. I noticed they are bringing a new series out and wanted to let others know in case they too had never caught the first series. SO intead of making another thread about the same subject I decided to recycle this one and keep everything together all nicely neat and tidy;)