Working households - Living costs and lifestyles - what is essential?

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  • Owain_Moneysaver
    Owain_Moneysaver Posts: 11,357
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    RR4353 wrote: »
    QUESTION 2
    A) Why do you use Internet (and associated devices)?
    B) How do people tend to pay for mobiles/laptops/, etc. - monthly contracts or outright?......how does this affect your budgets?
    C) Do people feel the pressure financially because of increased use of technology, services online, etc.?
    D) Or feel free to add any other ways that the Internet has a positive or negative effect on finances

    A) Email - my life runs on email. VoIP phone services for all outgoing and incoming calls. Web browsing, a lot of online forums, some (free) streaming/catchup TV.
    B) Mobile PAYG, £10 a year. £15 if I need a new phone. VoIP £20 a year. New computers go on the credit card and paid off over a few months.
    C/D) Ebay / Awesomebooks for collectable tat and old books :-(. Getting much better interest rates and using comparison sites for utiities :-)
    A kind word lasts a minute, a skelped erse is sair for a day.
  • Owain_Moneysaver
    Owain_Moneysaver Posts: 11,357
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    RR4353 wrote: »
    Does credit help or hinder you (or family/friends) to improve your standard of living?....how?

    Almost everything goes on the credit card - more secure than debit card and makes it easier to budget. It's (almost always) paid off though. Insurance is on monthly credit.

    I assume you exclude mortgages from this.
    A kind word lasts a minute, a skelped erse is sair for a day.
  • Sapphire
    Sapphire Posts: 4,269
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    edited 4 July 2018 at 11:33PM
    So.....my next topic: personal credit (credit cards, store cards, catalogues, HP, paying monthly for things like insurance, car tax, etc. - anything where you pay monthly/defer payment, usually incurring interest, rather than outright for goods/services) -

    Does credit help or hinder you (or family/friends) to improve your standard of living?....how?

    Not sure I understand the question. By 'credit', do you mean 'debt'? I never put anything on credit and have no debts. If I can't afford to buy something I really want, I save up for it (or wait until I do have the money), then buy it. I bought my last mobile phone outright, as well as the computers I've owned. Being in debt would make me feel incredibly insecure, perhaps because I know what it is like to lose everything and have nothing (war experiences of elders in family and the way my siblings and I lived as a result).

    By not spending excessively on fripperies, I was able to pay off my mortgage early, and I often thought I wasn't going to make it since my salary was never great in my chosen profession.

    I do generally find it easiest to pay monthly by direct debit for things like insurance and utilities, but I don't look on these things as debts. They don't help or hinder me, particularly. They are just responsibilities I have.

    The elders in my family did sometimes buy essentials such as cookers and fridges and cookers on HP because they could not afford lump-sum payments, but I have enough in savings to pay for things like that if any of these items break down.
  • RR4353
    RR4353 Posts: 17 Forumite
    Thank you Sapphire, that answers my question. Credit - where a contract is made to pay for goods monthly or 'buy now pay later' which often does incur interest, some people will use it and not incur debt (e.g by paying the balance on a credit card in full each month) but others will
    accumulate debt and for some this will be manageable but others not, just depending on their circumstances....others will use savings as an alternative and prefer 'deferred gratification'. You seem as though you manage your money well - what advice would you give others who may be struggling?...how did you learn to manage your budget/live within your means?
    Sapphire wrote: »
    So.....my next topic: personal credit (credit cards, store cards, catalogues, HP, paying monthly for things like insurance, car tax, etc. - anything where you pay monthly/defer payment, usually incurring interest, rather than outright for goods/services) -

    Does credit help or hinder you (or family/friends) to improve your standard of living?....how?

    Not sure I understand the question. By 'credit', do you mean 'debt'? I never put anything on credit and have no debts. If I can't afford to buy something I really want, I save up for it (or wait until I do have the money), then buy it. I bought my last mobile phone outright, as well as the computers I've owned. Being in debt would make me feel incredibly insecure, perhaps because I know what it is like to lose everything and have nothing (war experiences of elders in family and the way my siblings and I lived as a result).

    By not spending excessively on fripperies, I was able to pay off my mortgage early, and I often thought I wasn't going to make it since my salary was never great in my chosen profession.

    I do generally find it easiest to pay monthly by direct debit for things like insurance and utilities, but I don't look on these things as debts. They don't help or hinder me, particularly. They are just responsibilities I have.

    The elders in my family did sometimes buy essentials such as cookers and fridges and cookers on HP because they could not afford lump-sum payments, but I have enough in savings to pay for things like that if any of these items break down.
  • Sapphire
    Sapphire Posts: 4,269
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    edited 5 July 2018 at 10:12PM
    RR4353 wrote: »
    Thank you Sapphire, that answers my question. Credit - where a contract is made to pay for goods monthly or 'buy now pay later' which often does incur interest, some people will use it and not incur debt (e.g by paying the balance on a credit card in full each month) but others will
    accumulate debt and for some this will be manageable but others not, just depending on their circumstances....others will use savings as an alternative and prefer 'deferred gratification'. You seem as though you manage your money well - what advice would you give others who may be struggling?...how did you learn to manage your budget/live within your means?

    I never earned a high salary, working in publishing. I think managing my money well and not incurring debt was instilled in me by my mother, who always drummed it into me that I had to save. Also, seeing how elders in my family lost everything material (and family members) during the war made me realise how easy it was to lose everything, and how difficult it was to 'climb back up again', hence my sense of insecurity about incurring debt. (For years, the elders and their children lived in what would certainly be classified as poverty today, though not unhappily.) The worrying thing is that many people in this society are living as though there's no tomorrow, and when a crash of some kind comes (as it inevitably will, judging by past history), they will be left very vulnerable, which could have repercussions on the whole of society. Perhaps both the education system and parents should be teaching children to live more frugally, and why, though such advice would obviously be too late for those in the full throes of the consumer 'culture' (who will beget offspring that will presumably follow their lead).

    In general, I've never been into the 'consumer culture', involving people buying generic 'must-have' products, which they have been persuaded by advertising that they have to have (to 'keep up' with others, mainly). You only need to look at the ads for things like kitchens, say, and to see how generic everything is (they all look much the same, with little character). Also, I prefer quite unusual, older, lived in things, since they were often made much better than they are now, look far better (to me) and last longer. Obviously, some things, such as cookers and fridges, need to be up to date to function in the best way possible, but in the case of, say, sofas, older, hand-made ones are often better designed than new ones and can be re-covered if necessary. My sofa is from the 1920s, and had already belonged to at least two people before it reached me. I've just had it re-covered twice because the cat got to the first two covers. My dining table is Georgian (a simple oak country thing, not one of the upper-level ones), and the chairs are from a similar period and were hand-made by 'bodgers' in woods. I much prefer such well-made items created by hand, with history attached to them, than the modern junk (some of it far more expensive than the things I prefer), and also am aware of the harm human mass consumption is doing to the natural environment.

    Another thing I was thinking about earlier, sparked by your project: it is interesting that words such as 'debt' and 'loans' are now often replaced by the positive-sounding 'credit', the subtle suggestion being that having debts was to one's credit and somehow admirable. Presumably coming up with such a connotation was a deliberate tactic by the money-lenders. Also, the word 'usury' is now rarely used and is somewhat archaic, whereas usurers used to be despised. Moreover, being in debt was until recently considered to be a matter of shame. All food for thought.
  • Uxb
    Uxb Posts: 1,340 Forumite
    Another item not yet covered

    Living in a very rural area so no services.
    If access to functional transport is essential then it is equally essential you have two cars:- in effect one is a backup
    I do.
    Depending on cirucmstances one of those might be a 4WD vehicle, because one thing is for certain your local roads will not be gritted.
  • scaredofdebt
    scaredofdebt Posts: 1,637
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    I actually earn money online so that more than covers the cost if you want to look at it that way, my online income is around £400 a month on top of my salary, broadband and phone contracts etc are under £100 so I am in profit here.
    Make £2018 in 2018 Challenge - Total to date £2,108
  • elsien
    elsien Posts: 32,522
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    Credit neither helps nor hinders my standard of living as such it just makes life easier.
    I pay my cards off in full every month. I use them for the S75 protection and when booking events online, for convenience.
    You're probably not getting a representative sample on here because it's a site targeted at a certain demographic. Those who don't care about spending till they get in strife aren't likely to loitering in these parts,
    All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

    Pedant alert - it's could have, not could of.
  • RR4353
    RR4353 Posts: 17 Forumite
    Almost everything goes on the credit card - more secure than debit card and makes it easier to budget. It's (almost always) paid off though. Insurance is on monthly credit.

    I assume you exclude mortgages from this.

    Thank you
    Yes, excluding mortgages just because there's quite a lot already being done on housing costs (and fuel and food) - so I'm looking mainly at other living costs more to do with
    the way technology/services have changed so rapidly + social/leisure costs
  • RR4353
    RR4353 Posts: 17 Forumite
    elsien wrote: »
    Credit neither helps nor hinders my standard of living as such it just makes life easier.
    I pay my cards off in full every month. I use them for the S75 protection and when booking events online, for convenience.
    You're probably not getting a representative sample on here because it's a site targeted at a certain demographic. Those who don't care about spending till they get in strife aren't likely to loitering in these parts,

    Thank you

    This is just part of my sample - I'm also doing face-to-face interviews, which have been mainly with people who are in debt/not managing too well - so hoping to get a balance of views/experiences between the two approaches :-)
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