Cutting Debts
I was listening yesterday to the BBC’s morning phone-in and they were talking about debts and especially how people have got into trouble over Christmas.
If I look at my finances over the last year, they have improved somewhat and I felt that although I’m living on my savings until my house is sold, I’ve probably got almost a year more before my avings run out, than when I moved here in December 2010.
So what major savings have I made.
The first is the the television, phones and broadband. I like Sky Sports, and the big saving is that I can’t have an obvious dish here, as it’s a Conservation Area. Although, I could probably hide one on the roof! I did try Virgin by cable to get Sky Sports 1 and 2. Now I’ve switched to BT Vision with of course Freeview. I now pay about £50 a month to get phone calls, broadband and Sky Sports 1 and 2.
I don’t seem to miss out on watching anything I want to, but the saving is a thousand on Virgin Media and a couple of thousand compared to Sky.
Note that I only rarely watch films on television and generally stick to the four BBC channels, the two Sky Sports channels and radio.
The biggest saving is not having a car. I don’t miss it one bit, although perhaps it would have helped on Christmas Day to get to my son’s. But with the amount of money I save, I can afford the occasional black cab or mini-cab.
Getting rid of the car has other benefits too in addition to the obvious financial and logistical ones.
You walk a lot more, which is obviously good for you. I always walk with my eyes open too and I see things in shop windows that I might like to buy to improve my lifestyle or things that are just interesting in the street.
Walking is a real joy in a city and in no way inferior to walking in the country. In fact, I think it is more thought-provoking.
So how many people with serious debt problems have still got the expensive television, the full Sky and an expensive car?
The Anonymous Widower 
I fear that a lot of younger people treat things that used to be considered as luxuries as necessities. this includes such things as the latest electronic devices (televisions, mobile phones, gaming machines, etc.), access to a large number of TV channels on subscription, a car and sometimes two cars, pre-prepared and/or pre-cooked meals, one or maybe two foreign holidays, a vast collection of clothes, expensive branded goods, and as many credit cards as they can get hold of to fund their appetite for consumer goods. Walking is good; it is healthy, it is free (well almost), and it reduces health costs.#
We will only sort out the UK economy when people learn to live within their means. In the meantime we have to recover from both the private and public profligate spending that has resulted in us to have tomorrow’s jam yesterday.
Comment by John Wright | December 30, 2011 |