Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

Morning all, just finished downloading some classical music onto my MP3 player to listen to on my headphones when I have my once a week bubble bath on Saturday evening, (unfortunately can’t get the same relaxed feeling when having a shower every morning,!!)
I’m looking forward to that, accompanied by a glass of Rose and scented candles, Sigh!

Anyway, back to the present, I’ve just finished reading a very interesting article by Libby Purves in the Femail Magazine section of the Daily Mail this morning. I thought it may interest posters who would either agree with her or take issue with her thinking. I just thought I would share it with you. The article is far too long to print, even for me, so will just take extracts from it for you to peruse. So, get your cup of tea or coffee ready and digest this lot…………………
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PARTIAL QUOTE

Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can’t women today stop splurging on credit cards?

Debt is a burden, a worry, fuel for depression. Too many of us owe far too much and some will never be able to pay it back.
Mortgages we can live with, because we need homes and after a while, at least we own a bit of them. The real poison is “unsecured” owings, maxed-out credit cards, overdrafts, the never-never. Household debt is at record levels, payday lenders flourish and loan sharks prowl the land.

This week we learned that more than three million people have credit card debts they may never clear, and for five million of us the debts will take a decade to repay. The startling news is that women are far deeper in debt than men, 64% are women!

So why are modern women spending like it is going out of fashion? They are not, as a rule, feather-headed little sweeties, tripping around spending hubby’s money because they don’t understand big scary things like banks. Rather, there are more subtle pressures driving today’s women to spend more than they have, pressures anathema to the generations of women before.

For most of us, the image of a careful mother eking out the housekeeping, budgeting, putting aside a little nest-egg, hiding shillings in a teapot for the rent man or the “lecky” bill is a familiar one. In working-class families, my mother used to tell me with relish, they took the man’s pay packet off him on Friday and issued him with beer money.

So what happened to careful woman? How did we move from that idea of sensible female frugality to the embarrassment of us chucking it around like sailors on shore leave?
We’re not stupid. Most of us are out earning for most of our lives, we are the main and careful defenders of young children, why do we let this happen?

Again, this is not just a problem of poverty and abandonment, crippling utility bills and food bank queues. Credit-card juggling is a middle-class problem. Educated women get sucked into a vortex of buying, often by click, in a who-cares mood after a day in responsible jobs. And before you know it you owe thousands. The cards are handy but can be the gate to hell.
Let’s face it, consumer debt is, as often as not, as much about mood as about actual need.
Most advertising is psychologically aimed at women. 95 percent of holiday ads and most home improvement pitches are geared towards the female consumer. Even the motor trade these days urges us to be that glamorous woman chucking away her fur coats and keeping the car keys. Clothes are obviously pitched to our dreams of beauty and love, as are cosmetics, loony health fads and tiny magic pots of jollop promising to keep our skin dewy forever.

Now we don’t even have to go to the shops and carry the stuff home! We can sit on the sofa, tired, brainless, nursing a glass of wine and clicking away online to guarantee that a lovely parcel will arrive and feel like a present, or a prize.
It is wonderful how you can remember all 16 digits on your credit card while forgetting all sense and reason. It’s the luxuries, new clothes, holidays, tickets and trips. It needn’t be selfish either, we are urged to splash out on gorgeous children’s clothes, toys, games, outings, novelties for their rooms, edgy trainers which they plead will make them popular at school.

The spending itself becomes a rush of power and pleasure, mounting in some cases, to addiction. Many of us in difficult times have felt the edge of this. But, ugh, once the card bill comes in, or the bank loses patience, you just feel helpless. Certainly if you were brought up, as I was, by frugal parents who thought debt was shameful, but again, there’s a cruel modern twist which neutralises that.
The worst side-effect of university tuition fees and student loans has been the normalisation of debt! For women in particular, this was a new experience. If you are taking on a massive debt to pay for your education, on the spurious promise that graduates always earn heaps of money later, it makes you feel more careless about other debts. After all, while owing £44,000 at the tender age of 21, it may make some anxious to repay, but it is more likely to make you think: “Oh, to hell with it. I worked hard, I got a 2:1, I deserve a holiday, a new holiday wardrobe, - and highlights!. And to hell with taking sandwiches to work, I’m going to buy some.

Compared with the £44,000 they owe, their feel-good spending is peanuts. But if, for instance, you owe £3,000 on a credit card and can make only the minimum repayment each month, it could take you 27 years to pay it back.
Which means that you will have paid double the original loan, made bankers richer and crippled yourself financially. Debt, never forget, is a mug’s game.

Ladies, it is time for our inner wartime housewives to wake up, remember our dignity, and draw in our horns.

PARTIAL UNQUOTE

Certainly thought-provoking! Now I know that most of us on OFF are of a generation that grew up with frugal parents, and there cannot be many who throughout the years to present day, didn’t accumulate debt in some form or another and learned the hard and costly way how it blighted their lives. But, as the saying goes, with age comes wisdom. .I know it did with me! I now have one credit card, which I need, but would never dream of using if I could not afford to pay it off interest free at the end of every month. No flippin bank is going to take extra money off me ever again if I can help it. And should the time ever come when we could not afford to do so, then the cards we have will be cut in two - pronto!.

What do you think about debt? Do you agree with Libby Purves and her view of today’s women getting into debt needlessly? Or do you believe it is just misfortune that we live in such an easy, I want, I will have and worry about it later expensive society that our parents and grandparents never had to experience? After all, they didn’t need to “keep up with the Jones’s”, The Jones’s never had much to start with!

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

The only people I know now have a lot of credit card debt are unemployed or only working part time due to child care issues. Most use them for food, fuel and rent.

Back in the day rent was a portion of a single wage, now it either takes one persons wage entirely or over half of each persons wage.

There wasn't half as much around years ago either, people lived very different lives.

Phone breaks or computer and not many will wait to save up for a new one, being cut off just isn't on.

Advertising again it's everywhere, years ago I never dreamed we'd have shopping channels on the tv !

Keeping in touch on forums etc we are bombarded by adverts for all sorts of things.


One worrying trend too is in app purchases, I've heard many are getting in debt for them.

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

Mum had 7 kids and 9 mouths to feed with her and dad . There was little money but mum cooked casseroles and stews made from cheap cuts of meat . One fire was lit at 5pm in the house the rest was very cold . Home had lino on the floors or some rooms , others wood floor with rugs . Nothing was new . We kids all got jobs when 13 yrs old and bought our own clothes . We didn't have birthday presants or parties . Dad worked full time . Mum and dad hardly went out , they didn't have money for drink or cigs , so sometimes we kids would treat mum to a miniature tiny bottle of gin or 10 ciggys . We didn't have lots of clothes and mum wore the same coat for years and years .

Today it's so materialistic , kids expect things more and are given too much . My friends were the same as me , we had little in the way of clothes or material things so no one was better than the other , but I can see how hard it would be for the young ones of today if mum and dad can't afford things for them , they would be the odd ones out.

Everyone expects more today , we are bombarded with adverts of beautiful homes , clothes , cars , and credit cards are easy to come by and use .

I don't remember people being rich and living in large houses with new cars , people were just ordinary and went to work to make a living

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

I think the Media and advertising has a lot to answer for.
They implore us to buy fashions and cosmentics daily or we will look like a frump. They have a column saying 'Must Haves' all very expensive.
Even children get upset if they can't have designer trainers like their friends have.
They do not understand that Mum and Dad can not afford them.

Also the Government was too generous to people with families who will never work , untill recently some were egetting £1000,per week and had expensive TV's and PC's as well as Holidays abroad ,also Cars and plenty of expensive toys for their children.
Which Civil Servant sat behing a desk thought this payment was just and fair to keep people who do not work in such a high standard?
That is more then a qualified professional person receives after years of training.
It had now been reduce but still £25.000 per annum more than many peoples wages.

Also lots of people do not wnt to cook and live of Take -Aways, and convenience food.

Does anyone sew and knit these days as we were all taught at school? Does any one mend clothes or are they just binned? Such a waste

There is great expectations of a good standard of living without working for it these days,









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Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

I suppose, having lived through the war, mothers had to be frugal! I think many didn't take chances with lashing out money, for fear, there may be another war! Rationing was in place and not much was being manufactured for them to buy! They were more 'safe'.
Today, it seems as if young people live for the day and take more chances. You don't have to pay there and then, so why not put it on your credit card and worry later! Yet in our mother's day, it was dreadful if you got anything 'on the knock'!
It's just another time and how it is!

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

save money-marry my father. Never had much and what he had he smoked away. Halcyon days

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

The problem now is money is easy to get hold of but a lot harder to pay back.

Debit/credit cards- payday loans- etc are pushing like mad to get you to take out- cash

We are bombarded with offers of loans via TV- fliers- newspapers in fact all sort of media you can think of.

Then retailers are offering buy now and x number of years free interest.

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

Yea gods what a life .
I remember our house was always cold we only had the fire in one room too. .
We were never comfortable never had a comfortable sofa even .we all did paper rounds and Saturday jobs and it was too much with a long journey to school afterward so .
I would not wish that on my grandchildren .
However most children today do have too much material stuff ..

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

I honestly don't know how these young Mum's afford the luxuries they have these days.

The girl who comes to do my hair is forever on about having been for a weekend to Centerparcs, to Greece, to a luxury holiday cabin etc. Her partner is on a low wage, she only works a few hours a week and has two kids and a third on the way yet she can do stuff that I could never have done when I was a young Mum.

The other week she was telling me a group of young Mums had all been to celebrate somebody's birthday at a posh hotel for afternoon tea. She said it was "only £25 a head"!!! Then another time they'd been for a night in a spa hotel and that was £150 each.

They're either paying on credit cards or doing some sort of benefit scam.

My own niece has two small kids. I am amazed at the things she is able to afford to do with her kids. So far in the school holidays they've been to a zoo, a circus, the cinema, a day at the seaside going on the funfair etc. All these things are expensive and mine were lucky if we managed ONE of these treats over the whole Easter holidays. She only works a few hours a week for minimum wage and her hubby is self employed and AFAIK doesnt earn a fortune. They also manage a two week foreign holiday every year whereas mine had to be content with a camping trip an hours drive away.

Re: Our mothers were frugal to a fault. So why can't women today stop splurging?

My Mum was a nightmare shopper.....a quick shop turned into a marathon.
She loved to spend.

I suppose I inherited it from her.