Biggest scam you didn’t know was a scam

[Sillysausage2]

Lighthearted 😂
I saw an Instagram post earlier about the biggest thing you don’t realise is a scam and we all accept as normal.
We all have stories about how our parents raised 7 kids etc in a 3 bed if they were lucky, my grandparents had 9 in a 2 bed 😂
the aim for everyone now is buying or building massive houses, 3 en suites at least, we spend the weekends in Ikea, home bargain etc buying shit we don’t need and cleaning the houses with the 4 bathrooms!
I swear I’ve spent more Time cleaning the legs of chairs than is reasonable and I seem to wash the walls of my bathroom far more than people ever mentioned.
I don’t remember my mother ever cleaning the panelling on the walls.
is it all a scam? Are we busy fools?
sometimes I got to centre Parcs like places and think how simple my life would be if we al only had one suitcase each

Remortgaging is a scam.

You pay the most amount of interest at the begging of any agreement till the mid point, where it flips and more of your payment goes towards the capital you borrowed.
Remortgaging every 3-5 years means the banks keep you stuck in constantly paying down interest and never getting to the point of actually paying down the capital.

What’s the alternative… well the system is setup so that you have no choice but constantly remortgage.
in many countries once you took out the mortgage, that’s that.

This is of course unless you make overpayments, but even then, you’re capped how much you can repay to usually 10%, which of course can be a large sum on large mortgages, but quite measly on smaller ones.

How many of us know that 10yr fixed rate mortgages exist? - Have ever heard any broker mention them?

If one were to calculate how much interest you pay by remortgaging every 3-5 years vs not I have a feeling we’d repay the cost of the initial purchase several times.

Leasehold is a scam.

You pay for a property and once the lease is done, the FH can just tell you to FO and unless you act fast, your property can be worthless near the end of the lease.

Similar for funerals. As soon as you mention the 'f' word, the price of flowers soars upwards.

Agree with how arduous and depressing housework must have been, you couldn’t even put on your headphones and listen to music or a podcast whilst doing it.

Nappies. Kids used to be toilet trained by 12 months-ish because the terry towelling nappies were uncomfortable to wear when wet so kids learned pretty quickly once pants/knickers were introduced that it was better not to be wet. Disposable nappies take all the wetness away and make peeing your pants not that big of a deal. Loads of kids are now starting nursery/reception still in nappies aged 3/4/5 and the idea of "wait until they can talk/understand before toilet training" must surely be backed by "Big Nappy"!

We burned coal for heating when I was a child, no running hot water, and there was no wall scrubbing.

Country borders are a scam.

The Earth does not give a flying f*ck where you draw your arbitrary lines on these cute misrepresentations (called maps) of what the Earth looks like for real or build cute little border crossings or a cute little fence.

"Here is an mud slide/earthquake for ye, biatches! Where is your border now?"

I am in my 70's and not from a rich background. We didn't scrub, redden or donkeystone steps. There were local bakers who sold cakes, buns and pies as well as bread, also a shop chain called Jolly's that sold cold cooked meat and meat products. Some washing was done by hand and mangled at home but local laundries also had a thing called a bag wash. Sheets, towels pillow cases and so on went away to a laundty in a huge cotton sack to be washed and was collected packed back in the bag still damp for drying and ironing. Cotton clothes could be sent too if the could be hot washed, but nothing delicate. Wasing woollens was a struggle but they weren't washed after every wear. Washing done at home was dried outside in the yard, the outside toilet was there too. Food could be stored in the larder on a stone slab. The four day joint would keep fine covered and stood on a plate on the stone slab. Milk and cheese kept well there too, slthough of course milk was delivered daily except sundays. There were also tins of course. Rugs were lifted and beaten but infrequently. Mostly floors were bare wood or lino covered which could be mopped. I mean yes life in the 50' s was much harder but lets keep it real!

In the way you're using the word OP, I would suggest Center Parcs is the biggest scam ever. I feel eternally grateful that I never got sucked in.

That said, I do buy my cat a lot of toys. That is essential, in my book @TheFatCatsWhiskers1 !
(Edited to include quoted poster's name)

But this, and the majority of things mentioned here, subscriptions, massive look-at-me weddings etc exist because people are willing to buy into them. I think there must be people whose job is to think up new money spinners and they ask themselves 'Will they be daft enough to fall for this?', the comsumers are choosing to be their own worst enemies.

Streaming music. I’m not sure how this can ever be value for money unless you listen to an album once and then move straight onto the next. I had Spotify Student for £4.99 a month which felt just about justifiable, but I’m not paying £9.99 a month or whatever it is now. Digital downloads don’t seem to be much of a thing anymore, it took me ages to work out how to buy songs in Apple Music.

I used to have cassette tapes of most things I listen to but gave them all away when mp3s became a thing. Unfortunately over the years I lost a lot of them as it was the era before backups and cloud storage. I’m considering buying second hand CDs off eBay and a CD to FLAC convertor as it will be cheaper than digital downloads.

I really, really hate subscriptions.

this

Fair enough. I'll leave you to your bare essentials life and wish you joy of it. Goodnight.

My DH does this with CDs.

I hate subscriptions as well, and hate it even more that some are just unavoidable now.

This. A thousand times over.

What a load of utter rubbish. If we had no borders we would see a mass influx of people moving here to take advantage of our NHS and generous welfare system. Is it any wonder we have an issue with people willing to risk their lives to cross the channel on blow up boats from a safe country like France to the UK? The nativity of some people is astonishing.

Your father had the perk of good enough health to do that. For many, retiring in their 60's was a necessity. I'm in an area were there were mines, there's very few men whose bodies aren't damaged by the work they had to do. They aren't enjoying their 60's, many have died by 70. We had physically harsh industries around us. It might change in the future, but pollution and stress, will mean that it probably won't.

@Sillysausage2

I agree we have too much 'stuff' some people spend much, much more than they can afford on stuff they don't need.

All children don't need their own individual ensuite. Friend's sons all have ensuites and she said to me they're getting older 13, 14 and 16, they cannot be expected to share. They can afford it, but it was said as a right, and an expectation that everyone should aim for. Debt for many.

People spend theirs life buying things they don't really need though and working to pay for those things or debt building up.

Scams or unnecessary things people convince themselves they must have IMO are:

Sex reveal parties before baby is born (gender! Which of the 150 did the baby select).

Week long wedding celebrations, costing a mortgage and marriage starts to fail when the parties are over. Huge amount of TAT everywhere, from balloons, to tacky things around the room, yuck.

Numerous hen parties with everyone wearing same outfits, millions of social media posting. 🙄

Debt. Then wails of everything's so expensive

We have had 2 cars on PCP, both 0%. At the end of each term, we paid the lump sum and kept the car for a few more years. Our current car is 8 years old this year, still good. No major issues, but thinking of replacing it, but, the price of a modest car will be around £30k, £40 if we go electric, which we are considering, around £350+ a month on PCP. I worked out over the last 8 years our car has cost the equivalent of £150 a month. We will go and try to decide what to get, but if we can't get a good deal on a new car, we will go second hand, and an electric car can wait till the next time.

My computer has a dvd drive, if yours doesn't you can buy an external one that plugs into a usb port for about £20. You can then rip a cd using Windows media player, or download any of the dozens of free cd ripper programs. He copies the ripped mp3s to his phone, or to an SD card for the car. It's what DH does. We also use free Spotify, and put up with the ads. There are ways round most subscriptions. He has started to use Libraoffice instead of Microsoft Office now that has moved to a subscription format. Costs nothing, has all the functionality of MS and saves files on MS format so others can read them if shared.

The nativity in this one is strong.

This is why I'll NEVER 'buy' a new car. I understand why folk do it, but I just can't stand the thought of it personally. I spend a few K and buy a decent old one every time. A lot of folk ask me why, as if It's not the done thing and technically I can afford a new 'better' one but nope!

Driving my 2008 sports model is fine for me-until the wheels fall off and I get another similar one!

This x 100! Since when does ‘fresh’ mean permeated with artificial scents? Who on earth is buying all these frenziedly marketed ‘scent boosters’?