Money in Perspective
MY SITUATION
A few years ago I was oddjobbing Gardening work in the area, something I continued to do in a small way after taking up the summer Cricket Club job.
One summer, it was particulary bad weather, which of course, was out of my control. I lost much work and was never able to catch up on the jobs which had unavoidably got stacked up.
I managed to do a few other bits, but never really made up for it. This caused debt and when winter came it was hard.
At some stage through that winter, I went into overdraft, I had an overdraft limit of zero, so accumulated bank charges which mounted up to the ridiculous.
I did something about it. I worked harder and longer, but it was a losing battle and up until last year, a period of about five years total, every winter I would be in the situation of ‘direct debit being paid Wednesday, pay going in Thursday (as it always does) and getting a £30 bank charge thrown in.
These could amount to two a week and I found myself losing around 75% of my hard fought for earnings simply paying for an automated Banking System which had no labour involved atall.
But again, I didn’t sit back and hope that the situation would go away. I saw them and as they were the one’s who proposed I put some of my Ill Health retirement money into a particular policy for five years, which duly lost money, I thought help would be forthcoming – it wasn’t ! The attitude was that it wasn’t their fault I was in trouble, it was mine, which to a degree I understood, but I was not giving up my quest of being self reliant.
I also went to the DHS, something I’d never done before. I joined the queue of those spending the whole time text messaging and discussing their social arrangements for the weekend and getting into their cars to go home whilst I at the time just had a pushbike. I explained I was supporting a son at School and finding it difficult. Yeap, I got nothing !
As I write, I have money in the Bank. This has been achieved through hard work and dare I say it, a bit of cleverness. But mainly by being frugal, cutting back, making do.
THE BANK SITUATION
The World banking system collapses. It’s no fault of my Bank they tell me, it’s out of their control. If I had savings, they’d be at risk, but again, it’s not their fault, they can’t do a thing to help it.
So they go to the Government , hanky in hand, with their stories of fear whilst crying “It’s not my fault Mr.Minister” and what do they get – 50 billion pounds of Tax Payers money !
Now I’ve paid my taxes religiously all my life, even through hardship. So in effect, I’m helping out the Bank who refused to help me because of an ‘act of God’ situation.
But, the thing which gets me most is that it’s not the ‘common’ Bank Clerk or Cleaners fault that we’re in this mess, it’s the Big Boys in Head Office and beyond who are to blame.
Sitting there earning huge amounts of money, it’s them who made the wrong decisions playing with our money like a game of Monopoly..
Will they have to downsize, get thrifty, sell the house? Will they suffer making ends hard to meet – I doubt it.
Oh well. In some ways it’s people such as myself who won’t be affected too much. Us downshifters are used to making do. I don’t have a mortgage, don’t have any savings and will probably only be affected by general price rises.
But we can duck and dive, it’s part of the ‘frugal build’ we have. I don’t need to look up, they have to look down.
I’m just awaiting the phone call ‘Mr Cannon XXXXX Bank here. I wonder if I may interest you in some of our latest financial opportunities’
I think you can imagine what my reply will be – and it will be spoken on behalf of a few million others as well. They owe us !
