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Post by violet on Mar 2, 2009 15:43:15 GMT 10
Dh rolls his eyes when I start on this path, but there are more important things than a squillion dollars, flash car and over-sized house. I agree 100% with the six dot points under the heading Earth Community Prosperity Story at this link: www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1834Hm, I've never seen this site before, but I notice on the front page there are some really great-looking articles. If I didn't have to cook dinner and grab the washing in asap, I'd sit and read for a while, but it will have to wait. www.yesmagazine.org/default.asp |
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Post by braided-rug on Mar 2, 2009 16:24:04 GMT 10
I think the corporate world is like that. I was the same when we were involved in it. I suppose you need to feel that to do all that is required perhaps? I'll go have a look.
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Post by violet on Mar 3, 2009 8:26:04 GMT 10
I don't ever feel I have to do what's expected of me, Br. That's why I'm considered a little 'different'.  |
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Post by braided-rug on Mar 3, 2009 9:33:16 GMT 10
I'm glad you are not caught up in it Elisa. I am embarassed I did that, because at the end of the day it is me that has to balance the books. In Australia I don't think the corporates get the benefits of their counterparts in the US? Not sure. Maybe it depends what level you are at.
I was reading blogs this week and some housewifes still want to upsize and have their houses on the market. I think that is what this particular person wanted to do. It made me think. I suppose life goes on despite the economic bad times.
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Post by violet on Mar 9, 2009 10:57:40 GMT 10
The thing that bothers me about the media's depiction of 'bad times' is that they're making generalizations. The people who lose their jobs are going to be having a difficult, maybe terrible, time. Self-funded retirees will be living on much less income as rates drop and shares plunge in value.
Plenty of people still have their jobs and don't have a high level of debt and for them life will go on as usual. It's probably a good time to buy a car or large household items, perhaps even houses, if the household financial situation has not been affected by the current economic problems.
It's individual, isn't it?
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Post by braided-rug on Mar 9, 2009 14:04:44 GMT 10
I'd probably have more trouble buying a house than usual, I guess more planning has to go into it, like being really ready for a valuation etc.
It will be easier to get money for some or they would like to because of the lower rates. I wonder if it was similar last time in the 30s? I know my Grandparents had life pretty normal.
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linda
Moderator 
~Exuberant Seachanger~
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Post by linda on Mar 9, 2009 22:24:59 GMT 10
Interesting topic/thread. I agree with those points too.......but it does seem to go against the thinking 'out there.' I too get tired of the media and the way they report things. Here in Canada....it seems to be all about Ontario...when there is trouble there....it gets reported as trouble in the whole country....when really it's not. There was a piece on our news the other night....about one of our western provinces...Saskatchewan. Apparently, things are booming there....they are crying for workers. It used to scare me when we were living in Ontario.....the housing prices kept increasing at a rapid rate...along with the property taxes that went with it. The economy was booming....but I kept thinking it can't keep going up like this for ever...what happens then? Best not get started down that road....I could go on and on ... Linda |
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Post by violet on Mar 12, 2009 15:00:43 GMT 10
Ah, Linda, don't you just love boom times? Because they will never end, of course. In 1996 a woman at school asked me if I remembered the 1980's when "everyone was awash with money". I did remember the 80's, and for us they weren't any different than any other decade. Dh has always been a salaried person so his income didn't fluctuate over the course of any given year. I always set our mortgage repayments above what they were supposed to be, and we always saved a bit of money. In later years, any spare cash went into school fees. If he got a bonus, it went into house repairs, or furniture/appliance replacement, or the mortgage til that was paid off. If he had lost his job, that would have been a whole different situation. Like anyone with a steady income, if we spent less than he earned, we were never awash with money, but we were always ok, no matter what 'the market' was doing. |
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Post by braided-rug on Mar 12, 2009 19:12:46 GMT 10
The 80s was hard I thought. It was like Elisa says. However, if you needed something like a new soaker hose it would cost heaps, whereas today you can pick up lots of things inexpensively. I think there were high interest rates too.
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linda
Moderator
~Exuberant Seachanger~
Posts: 425
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Post by linda on Mar 13, 2009 0:45:57 GMT 10
Yes, we've always lived 'below' our means too, exactly as you mentioned Elisa...putting some money away for a rainy day (even if it was only a little bit sometimes). The 'boom' times to us, never really seemed like it either.
I remember the 80s too...I wasn't married then, but had moved out and was living on my own. Interest rates *were* really high then. Like both of you, I never found myself at that time to be 'awash' with money, although I guess looking back that seems to be everyone's perception. I'm not sure about other places, but here in Canada, it was the 80s that saw housing prices go through the roof.
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Post by violet on Mar 13, 2009 8:31:46 GMT 10
Before I sound better than I am, I should add that before we married, in 1984, I lived at home and spent all of my money on me. As the wedding date approached, I knuckled down and bought a (sale priced) white Wedgewood dinner set for 6, a simple but gorgeous neutral blazer and paid off my previously well-used credit card. Don't ask me what my reasoning was for the first two purchases was, but it seemed important at the time. I still have the dinner set.
I went from a land of plenty (to spend decorating myself and buying gifts) to Miss Responsible in about 5 minutes flat. Whether it was the shock, my years in banking or my frugal upbringing (I suspect the latter), I set to work scheming our financial future.
House prices and interest rates also shot up here from the mid-1980's. I put those factors to use by selling each of our first two houses to upgrade. I did not flatter myself to be a canny real estate investor, as many did at the time, but realised it was just lucky timing that helped me along.
Like you, Linda, we never had a great surplus but worked at living below our means. We also had a weekend office cleaning job. That gave me some money to buy clothes (for the family, not high fashion for me!) and homewares without impacting on dh's salary.
Mind you I had friends who had the most fabulous things, and lives. They were out all the time and holidaying in wonderful places while we were the most boring people on earth, it seemed. I now realise that the banks were happy to lend to anyone who put their hand out, and many of those people ended up losing the lot as they'd borrowed to the maximum permissible.
I think we were lucky in that we'd both been brought up frugally but without a sense of deprivation, that dh had a steady job which didn't pay a fortune but did give us a slightly discounted home loan.
Those who thought themselves rich because their salary was padded out with things like sales bonuses, those who spent compulsively and those who lost jobs were the ones who ended up in a bad way. Of the people I knew anyway.
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