To think that people don't budget carefully enough these days?

[daffodilrosedaisy]

I've come across several people recently who are living hand to mouth, and struggling to afford things... BUT spend out on what I would consider unnecessary luxuries. Examples:

• Struggling to pay rent for a large family each month, ended up in huge debt to their landowners and got kicked out... but have newest iPhones, iPads for all the kids, big TV etc.

• Unable to pay for boiler and car to be fixed at the same time in winter, so had to take out a big loan to buy new ones of both, but go on two week holidays abroad, and again own high-end electronics.

I'm not referring to people that are never able to save, because their living costs equate to what they earn. I mean people who seem to get their priorities wrong and spend lots on 'luxuries' but don't budget for the basics like rent, and having a contingency fund for when things go wrong (broken boiler/car etc.).

AIBU in thinking this is ridiculous? Especially when people have families to care for?

@adaline agreed. I get mine refurbished. As I done laptops for years and years. There are different grades. Massive saving and nothing wrong with it.

I get what you're saying. My husband's mate split from his wife and they sold their flat, splitting the equity, so he had about 35k, which he spent on fancy holidays, business class, whole penthouse suites to himself, the lot. He then left a steady NHS job to work for a friend who was starting up a company caring for people with learning disabilities at home. The friend is well known for scamming people....(she'd already scammed him for £500) and within 6 weeks he was let go for stupid reasons. He's been working in private care since, in jobs he hates with minimum sick pay. He's had to have time off work for bad back so ended up further and further in debt. If he'd stayed in the NHS he'd have got sick pay. He's continued smoking, drinking, eating takeaways and living in rented accommodation he can't afford. Because of all his bad decisions and lack of basic budgeting skills he's now under an IVA with 30k worth of debt.

People can be very entitled nowadays and don't consider it a luxury to maintain expensive phone contracts or go out and spend a fortune on cocktails or clothes. These are basic human rights.

God, I feel old.

Any post with 'these days' in the title is being unreasonable.

I agree. I know someone who always moans about being poor and eating beans for lunch, but spends all their salary on MDMA and clubbing in London.

I also know someone who said she can't afford to get Netflix for herself as she already pays for 3 accounts for her husband and 2 daughters. She was shocked when I said you have have 4 screens with 1 account...

I know someone exactly like this. Always complaining she’s skint yet recently bought 2 brand new top of the range iPhones. One of the contracts was £85pcm, not sure of the other 🤦‍♀️ I guess people just value things differently.

I had a friend who complained about barely getting by after rent and bills. Then decided to take out a 10k loan for a new car....

even though her current car was working fine. Then she complains every month that she can't afford the petrol for it.... but she is looking to get another car soon .... some people are blind to their situations.

I love all these disingenuous “how do you know OP....” posts, as if the OP is making shit up.

The OP knows because people like this bang on endlessly about their new “toy” on Facebook, along with posting about their new nails every week or two (£25) hairdo (£50 or so) outfit every weekend (more money) for likes and validation. They then bang on equally endlessly about having no money, needing to sell stuff quickly on selling groups, needing to borrow money for rent, wanting free school uniforms or stuff for kids’ parties. I’m on a few FB community groups and this plays out week in, week out so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s happening everywhere. The faux-naïveté is hilarious.

@VanGoghsDog But it is 'these days', as a PP mentioned it's now almost the norm to have expensive smartphones etc., and 10-ish years ago smartphones weren't even a thing!

I agree, we’re in a very selfish I want world now.

@gingersausage Thank you!

what’s the answer? If it isn’t being taught at home, perhaps teaching it in schools? There’s an argument for making maths less abstract, and teaching budgeting, how loans and mortgages work, interest rates, etc

I get where you're coming from, but is it really reasonable to expect schools to take on yet another thing which parents should be doing?

I'm not even convinced there'd be any point, since a brief lesson in whatever-it-is will hardly compensate for the constant examples they're absorbing at home

I wonder what the reaction of someone who overspends and then does "You are so lucky you can afford x. I wish I could" would be if I threw back "You are so lucky you can afford big night out in cocktail bar every week. I wish I could".😁

It is different priorities. I save on 7 things, but my food bill would be considered shamefully high by many. But! I don't go around moaning to them about not being able to afford other things🤷

I get where you're coming from, but is it really reasonable to expect schools to take on yet another thing which parents should be doing?

In, say, Maths, they could take out some obscure topic that only a tiny minority will ever need to make space for something that literally everyone would benefit from!

@KetoWithIF Really sorry to hear that, I hope you make it one day. At least we've had some lovely sunny weather this summer! Yes, I totally agree! I read an article studying what made people happy - some people were given money to spend on THINGS e.g. new clothes, other people days out, and the last group a cleaner/childcare help. The happiest group after the experiment was the third group as it freed up more time for them to go and do things together rather than worrying about cleaning/cooking etc.

You're right Kazzy, they could - but I'm still not sure how much difference a brief lesson would make, compared to the weight of experience at home?

I think it's what is wrong with society these days. When I was a child you got things at Christmas and birthdays and if there wasn't the money you saved or just didn't have it. You got sweets on a Friday after school and it was a limited amount and you got clothes when you needed them. Holidays were taken in this country at a caravan park or holiday ca and no one would have dreamt of taking you out of school to go abroad if you couldn't afford to go, you just didn't go and no one thought you had a right to.

Now it seems that everybody wants stuff now, no matter if they can afford it, they put it on credit and then can't afford the things they really need to pay for.

Saying that I really didn't know what other people had as there wasn't the social media or tv adverts, lifestyle programmes that there is now.

The OP knows because people like this bang on endlessly about their new “toy” on Facebook, along with posting about their new nails every week or two (£25) hairdo (£50 or so) outfit every weekend (more money) for likes and validation

You know my sister and her family then? That's her to a T. Every time I see her, she's whingeing about having no money, then when I look on Facebook, she's showing off her new eyebrows, her son's new tattoo, her daughter's car with its' new personalised number plates.

Facebook really should be banned.

I agree with you OP. I know someone who lost their house last year due to unpaid rent, then got a massive settlement from an employer for redundency but preceeded to blow through it going on holiday, rather than pay back the loans over their head.

FFS she lost her children's home and cared more about her fake tan/nails/holiday than their stability. They ended up in emergency shelter for weeks.

I do think a lot of it is down to long working hours stress at work and people overspend on takeways/ready meals or booze to tempoarily relieve the burden.

But a lot of people work long hours and don't do those things. They might be understandable choices but they're still choices at the end of the day.

Too many people are unwilling to take personal responsibility for their decisions, and seem more and more reluctant to do so. It's always someone/something else's fault.

I agree. We're awful. We are absolute pants with money. I swear, I'd be better off if I handed financial control over to our 16 year old - she's learned very well by watching us what not to do!

Oh, but we do take full personal responsibility for our decisions and choices - it's entirely down to us.

Firstly, I fully agree budgeting should be taught. My DDad was very organised with his finances and I am the same.
However, there is huge social pressure to have stuff and I think it is harder to resist when you have less strangely enough. I remember someone posting indignantly that their DC wouldn’t have second hand school uniform (state school). Quite a few of us with DC in private school said the schools regularly have used uniform sales and people are fine with second hand. I suspect part of the logic was private school parents are well off so there is no suggestion of struggling to manage / no perceived social downside when you buy second hand.

But that's what PSHE lessons are for in school. I think the problem lies as a pp mentioned, people feel society values them more when they have the latest phone, new clothes etc...
I feel on a lot of levels people know how to budget, they know where their money should be going but they CHOOSE to spend it on keeping up with the Joneses.

CTRL but do you prioritise your phone over paying your rent or other necessary bills? If so then clearly you too need a lesson in budgeting. But if not which I suspect is more likely the case, then what the op is saying is not comparable to your situation, as she has also stated numerous times.