To be irritated by people on C4 news taking out payday loans

[SilverSixpence]

I am at people taking out loans to buy brand new fridge freezers and playstations from Bright House instead of buying secondhand/doing without if they can't afford it. 8 year olds are old enough to understand they cant have the latest thing if their parents can't afford it. If your kids are influenced by ads just turn them off! Isn't this basic common sense?

TBH I would say it is better than people do express the opinion that buying from the likes of BrightHouse is pretty bloody stupid so that the people with 'no guidance' pick up on the idea. Better that than trying to win the non-judgementalism contest and saying nothing so that the only message these people hear is the company's marketing telling them they can have a new 50 inch telly for a tenner a week.

A large part of the reason that so many people, low and high income are in daft levels of debt is because the idea that debt is something to avoid has become lost over the last few decades.

Regarding freecycle, some people are weird about people asking for anything above a jam jar. Someone once started an outraged thread about entitled requests. Among the predictable iPhone ones, she mentioned that someone had asked for a "working washing machine". Oh noes. How terrible she wants something that works?

My husbands parents were poor, mine were well off. The ones in debt are mine. I think the ambulance chaser, foxy bingo and payday loan adverts should be banned from brainwashing people who find themselves in a situation where they are stuck watching daytime tv, whether through illness, bad luck or laziness. Who cares. People are still being exploited whether on Jeremy Kyle or responding to the adverts

There have been plenty of practical alternatives suggested, perhaps if you were not so busy posting emotionally loaded straw man arguments you would have seen them.

Can I have the practical alternatives for my situation then please? You know, where I literally couldn't save for a fridge freezer? Only got one because Mum lent me the money.

Please provide some patronising suggestions for us cheeky paupers.

Totally agree with MrsD about the fear that never goes. We're lucky enough to be comfortable off now but our house is stocked with food like we're expecting the apocalypse soon. I have a room in the cellar which is just for storing food. All because I'm still haunted by the years as a single mum when the cupboards were bare and I was reliant on the kindness of others for the next meal.

It wasn't mrsmoss who said a fridge wasn't a necessity - it was FraidyCat - "...I don't agree that a fridge or a washing machine are a necessity..."

My fridge freezer broke down two years aho and needed replacing.
Freecycle came up negative
A second hand one was £100.....which I didnt have.
Bright House woukd have offered me one. ..brand new....no up front payments but massive interest rate.

Thankfully my sister runs a catalogue and I got an interest free terms one via them.

Its easy to judge when you have the cash up front for second hand or enough cash to go into Currys.

As a cash poor single parent I do what I have to do....and it has little to do with "wanting the latest".

Ah silly me....how entitled I am to want the ease of a fridge freezer or washing machine.

Back when I was a single parent I had my application for a crisis loan turned down because a cooker wasn't an essential item as I could buy salads and precooked foods

A mini-fridge for a family with three kids!?

You need a fridge freezer, which is at least £200 - for all the reasons already explained such as not being able to afford going shopping daily, not being able to take advantage of buying in bulk etc.

So, it's either buy one on credit or spend more on your weekly shop; poverty really is a trap, isn't it?

Rodney

When I initially sorted out my benefits and asked about a crisis loan for a fridge and washing machine (I couldn't take the ones from the old house as they were built in) I got told the only option available these days are food banks

Washing machine is not essential.
If you have money for dry cleaners and for service laudrette. Oh and a car. And petrol in the car.

Ditto the fridge and freezer. You can have take aways, fresh food from the local deli and eat out on weekend. Easy. Yes?

For the poor though it will be one step forward and two steps backwards. Thats the problem with poverty. Laudrette will cost more than washing at home and food shopping will be higher with no fridge. Which means you will never save for a second hand one. And you will need a car to collect it.

But if it makes you feeling better to think that they cant do maths and they dont have your brainpower.... ok then.

good post laquitar

I have to disagree with MrsDeVere about what it's like being poor as a child.

If her rosy picture is correct, I must have hallucinated my school shoes with holes in them and my mum raiding my piggy bank to buy fags because she had no money left over after paying for the unnecessary three piece suite etc. I must also be imagining the fact that she only started to get her finances onto an even keel once her children were old enough (maybe 10-12) to realise how she was pissing her money away and talk her out of it.

Being poor when you are a child and thus have no control over what is spent is really, really bad.

This is the reason I get annoyed about payday loans and Brighthouse - because I remember our household income being so reduced that we couldn't afford more than the basics, despite our lovely fucking sofa.

I agree that it would be really helpful to teach budgeting and planning in schools; I know a lot of professional people on pretty good salaries who are constantly broke, and it's usually due to credit cards etc.

I hate threads like this.

Well, I guess that's one of the few benefits of private renting. Landlord has to replace the fridge when it breaks.

I don't blame people for using companies like Brighthouse, but in my opinion they should be very much a last resort. I have actually been without a fridge/washing machine for weeks at a time, and it was utterly miserable- however, there were other options available than getting one on tick.

Brighthouse
Providence
They are a disgrace and should be banned.

Catalogues, electricy & gas keys, when i was a single parent with 1 child studying i paid three times as much on my bills as my now dh who had a large house.
Exploitation of people with limited options is a moral disgrace but pays well.

Marmalade - that only works if you have white goods/furniture included in your rent though.

The only thing included in my rent was my cooker. Otherwise the house was unfurnished.