Cultured Views

Staying sane while in debt

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I was reading a rather sad article just this morning; sad in that the situation is just so common these days and affecting families everywhere who otherwise should be reaping the rewards of having worked and saved hard to offer their kids a decent standard of living.

This lady, a widow with three young kids, documented her heartbreaking quest to sell her family home and just how impossible it was becoming due to the world wide credit crunch. She was heavily in debt, almost unmanageably so, and had made the decision to sell the home and move elsewhere - with even the kids having to change schools. It is not easy and her story is not uncommon. When ordinary folk have to sell their beloved family home just to secure some debt relief they find themselves in a desperate situation and many are also finding themselves being held over a barrel by greedy property buyers and real estate agents aiming to take advantage of their plight.

I think it is very sad and makes you extremely angry that this is the situation today; the fact is that it is the hard working folk who are feeling the pinch most of all. We all need to borrow and use credit at some stage and perhaps it has been too easily obtained in the past. Maybe the lenders need to accept some responsibility for their part in cases like this lady’s; too much borrowing in the past has now seen a huge growth in those seeking other forms of finance in the form of debt consolidation. And the result…? borrowing from Peter to pay Paul…

It also makes me angry that there are always other’s out there to capitalise on these people’s unfortunate situation. Property buyers know that a person is desperate to sell their house so they gradually tighten the screws on them, asking for the price to be dropped again and again…and again. The lady I mentioned above was so in need of getting a sale that she agreed to successive demands to drop the price of her home until she was selling at a price 25% lower than the original asking price.

Then the buyer pulled out at the ‘eleventh hour’. Makes you want to scream eh?

But this is just one story in what must be hundreds of thousands of similar cases - it is happening everywhere. And that people have to sell up and move in order to consolidate debt - knowing they will come out of the transaction with very little equity in the end - is a very sad sign of our times.

We are all told to ‘tighten our belts’ until the economy gets better - but how much tighter can most of us go…?

Popularity: 13% [?]

Is credit becoming as hard to get as cash?

The United Kingdom has seen it’s fair share of economic hardships in the past but I wonder if the current situation rates as the worst ever? you’ve got people facing negative equity from vastly over-valued homes resulting from the housing boom, banks drastically cutting their mortgage lending and even more you have credit card providers slashing the credit limits on the cards of people who have been long term and reliable repayers.

As for ready cash…anyone remember what that is…? we have all become so reliant on credit that it is not so much the lack of a cash flow which makes things so hard, but the credit card companies pulling rug out from under account holders which is causing the popular rush on solutions such as payday loans. And it’s no wonder; one day you have a credit card with a decent and manageable limit of say, £5000 - you’re thinking ‘Ok, that’s enough to get us through till Xmas’, next thing you have a letter from the bank informing you they have slashed that limit from £5000 down to £1500 and you are pressing the panic buttons.

When you consider that these payday loans don’t carry an interest charge (should you pay the loan off before payday) it is logical that folk are going for these rather than feeding more money to the bank by way of doing cash advances on their already over-stretched credit cards.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Fancy being a Knight or Damsel ?

Don’t you just love those fashions from the Renaissance period ?

I saw Cate Blanchett in  ‘Elizabeth’ and thought the costumes were absolutely sumptuous. Okay, they may not have been all that practical - I would assume that in the summer months those ladies in those flowing gowns and boned corsets would have perspired heavily…and they never had anti-perspirants back then.

A crowded room at a banquet in mid summer must have provided a pretty ‘ripe’ atmosphere…

Nowadays renaissance clothing is enjoying a rebirth (which is what ‘renaissance’ means) and surprisingly even brides are choosing this fashion as a theme for their weddings.  A huge number of couples are going ‘medieval’ for their big day by adding a touch of romance and something olde just for a more different experience.

Popularity: 23% [?]