Debts and the era

“Never a borrower or a lender be” - my mother’s mantra !! Although I once loaned £5000 to a very, very dear friend who was starting a business. We had a written agreement regarding repayments and to be fair, she kept her word. Another of my wise mum’s words - “only lend an amount that you can afford to lose”

Sorry, I think I went slightly off topic - sorry ?

From my experience ( worked in banking ) it’s usually people who are reasonably well off who have all the loans & credit cards, because they’re the only ones who can afford the payments ( plus people are credit scored so need a regular income etc ) they get into debt to fund a certain lifestyle. Most of them don’t see it as a problem - until they lose their job.

The really poor can’t get credit so they either live on what they’ve got or rely on unscrupulous lenders / loan sharks.

Your mum sounds / sounded a wise lady.

It's a very complex problem but lets say you are in low paid work and live in a rented house on a short term lease. You are served a no fault section 21 at the end of your 6 months and need to put a deposit down on a new rental as you'll have to wait months for your previous deposit to be released. Then you'll have to hire a van to move your stuff. You move to your new short term rental home, your children's previous school is too far away so you enrol them in the new school, you need to buy new uniform, you still have bills to pay on your previous property, your deposit still hasn't been repaid. It might be another 4 weeks until your deposit is repaid as the previous landlord said the cooked is dirty and there is a mark on the wall and some on the carpet, the grass is overgrown. You'd forgotten to take photographs, you apply for credit to keep things going. It has been 6 months now and the new landlord also serves a section 21 as she wants to sell the house, you will have to move again. Your Mum is ill and you need time off work to look after her...the kids need new shoes again as you could only afford them from asda and they don't last very long, Simon needs a new coat as he never stops growing. It isn't called the poverty trap for nothing.

In the first half of the 1950s people were still living with post war austerity and food rationing. There were not the range of goods to buy but from the mid 1950s onwards, consumerism grew and people did start to get into debt. There were hire purchase agreements for large objects like furniture. TVs were rented. Provident loans gave quick cash. As a child growing up in the mid 1950s and 1960s, our mum bought our clothes fom the tally man, paying him weekly instalments at the door.

Poor people have long had to borrow and budget to meet basic needs. My mother worked full-time in a factory but after paying for rent and food there was little left for anything else. Our father had left when we were young and did not support us. I remember she had to cash in a life insurance policy to buy my secondary school uniform. That was the means by which we lived. We did not have a car or holidays. I don’t think any of this was unusual for poor working class families in that era, maybe a little easier if there was a man's wage coming in.

Janejudge gosh uniforms are expremely expensive I've just bought two of my grandchildrens. Their previous school had a second hand shop for uniforms so when they left my daughter donated all their uniforms to that. But oh my, the mental image you've just written reminds me when mine were little and I was a single mum and you do struggle. But I guess seeing it written like that, makes me think, I wonder how many go through that right now today .

My DD (40) talks of some of her contemporaries as being poor. However they all have mobile phones, TV and internet - considered necessities these days. My idea of poor is how we were in the 1950s - no mod cons, 2nd-hand clothes, no car, no snacks between meals, no holidays. I'm not suggesting we go back to that but, in my opinion, there are many ways to cut back if you are in dire straits. Whilst I feel sympathy for people who have genuinely fallen on hard times, I get a bit cross with others who seem to expect everything. In my day we "saved up" before we bought things.

Early you should write a book. That was a very interesting read.

That’s kind, Neen. JaneJudge has described well the contemporary case, how things can spiral for poor people.

There are many anecdotes I could tell. Many agencies are complicit in encouraging debt including employers.

One story. My late husband’s employers decide to relocate. Most staff were paid on commission for sales perfomance. Targets were high to start with. The employer deliberately chose a much more expensive location than the former, said to be more prestigious for the brand. Housing costs were much higher. There was help with moving costs and bigger mortgages for two years then staff were on their own.

I saw the strategy documents describing the rationale for the move - to make sales staff “hungry”. Not hungry for food but hungry to make more money so that they could service their increased mortgage debt which of course increased sales for the company. A white-collar treadmill.

JaneJudge that was very succinctly put.

The poor (you know, the ones with 50 inch TVs and false nails) should grow their own veg (in their non existent gardens) cook from scratch (in their non existent kitchens) and freeze it (in their non existent chest freezers)
Problem solved!

Skydancer
Are you aware that you’d have a job signing on these days without a smart phone. They aren’t all iPhone 12s

A very realistic scenario JaneJudge with many other potentail outgoings.

Skydancer any ideas for cutting back in that one?

Unfortunately this is real life for many families, there are many who have no idea of the sense of failure and utter despair some people feel, every day, while doing their level best.

I grew up with every tally man going so credit is/was no surprise to me.
I bought my first house in 1972 ( 100 % mortgage)
These were the days when you could literally go out in your lunch break and get another job ( printing trade)
Practically everything in my first house was on credit.
Later in life I’ve borrowed money but only if that money worked for me and not the bank.

It’s frighteningly easy to go from ‘doing OK’ to drowning in debt. I’m afraid for young families feeling the economic effects of this current pandemic,Brexit and government incompetence.

Blossoming

It’s frighteningly easy to go from ‘doing OK’ to drowning in debt. I’m afraid for young families feeling the economic effects of this current pandemic,Brexit and government incompetence.

so do I I suspect we really don't know the half of what is to come

A friend of a dd (single, no children) ran up over £30k of credit card debt. It wasn’t down to poverty - she just kept on spending on clothes, makeup, bags, etc. and ever since she’d been earning reasonable money had been continually bailed out by her parents. She’d never had to live within her perfectly adequate means.

Eventually it did mean a voluntary bankruptcy.
From all I gather, such cases are not unusual.

I have noticed a difference in attitude towards money between say, my age, and younger people (20s, 30s)

They seem much more relaxed about borrowing, getting a loan, and I've lost count of how many parents I've heard say "They've never got any money, but they've just booked a holiday/spent £££££ on a dog, or similar.

Skydancer
I agree, it’s all about expectations.
I was a single parent in the early seventies, I had no heating, no carpets, no washing machine, no car, no phone, and everything I did have was second hand, even all my baby clothes, and they had been passed around quite a lot.
An elderly neighbor gave me some saucepans, I bought a fridge for a fiver, I had a sofa someone was chucking out.
But I was proud, I never expected anything from anyone, and I accepted I could only have what I could afford.
I wouldn’t wish or expect anyone to live like that now, but I think perhaps, people need to realise a lot of things are not necessary.

I think there is a vast difference between being poor, and living in poverty.

The murderer, Couzens, was up to his eyes in debt it was stated in court and on his excellent salary too.

Did they say why?
A cocaine habit?

It wasn’t explained MissA just a list of his (extensive) credit card debts in Court and agreed smaller repayments to service some loans - just enough to cover them without action being taken. He was in a mess financially and he said he was stressed. His bank account showed him to be in credit for only a few days once his monthly salary had been paid in but most of the month he was living in an overdraft situation.