Cultured Views

Has the credit crunch lost it’s bite?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Personally I don’t know when the credit crunch never existed in some form or another - I have always had to live with my belt pulled pretty tight and, to be quite honest, nothing has really changed finance-wise for me in the past few months.

I rather like this old Yorkshire saying - “Only them as has it can lose it” - which to me makes sense. Beyond realising the need to save here and there for a rainy day I could never see the point in going in for an investment portfolio and breaking my neck in order to achieve that ‘first million’. Many people do - and good luck to them - but for me, I think it’s better to treat yourself to something nice while you can enjoy it and while you can afford it.

I have raised my kids to have the same attitude and it seems to be rubbing off; my eldest son is a ‘careful’ spender - when I first gave him pocket money naturally he blew it all at once and then it didn’t take long for him to realise that keeping just a little aside was preferrable to having nothing to spend at all. On the other hand my 15 year old son, Allan, will spend the last penny in his pocket rather than keep it. But he’s learning gradually.

And as I’ve never gone in for credit cards all this talk about ‘lenders slashing their interest rates’ means nothing to me…

Just recently when I was away on holiday we stuck to a budget which was rather tight - and you really know how much you don’t have to spend when you go to somewhere like Venice. Whilst window-shopping I noticed that people were still buying without a second thought - and none of the stuff there was cheap; handbags, clothing, even sunglasses and eyeglasses cost triple figured sums. But the plastic cards were kept busy all the same.

So I wonder if this ‘credit crunch’ thing is some kind of conspiracy - people are still spending, people are still taking holidays and the banks are still blaming everything on us. Nothing’s really changed when you think about it.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Is the bottled water you drink really all that pure…?

I was never really a coffee drinker until we bought this place. It goes without saying that you have to serve up a good cup of coffee to your guests with their breakfast each morning and I have learned just about everything there is to know about coffee in order to do that.

There was a time when 100% Arabica mean’t nothing to me - these days I would not let a sip of coffee that was anything less anywhere near my lips.

I also never knew just how different tap water was depending on where you lived; growing up in Sydney Australia I spent a good part of my life drinking the tap water and never thinking anything about it. Here, the tap water is what is called ‘hard’. An example: a day spent boiling the tap water here would result in the kettle being coated in a white, chalky substance that defies the harshest scrubbing. So we buy bottled water.

Here’s my gripe: the pricey bottled water leaves the same white deposits in the kettle that the darn tap water does ! which tells me one thing - bottled ’spa’ water cannot be exactly that…no matter what you pay for it.

The result is that we have gone through eight coffee makers in the past four years and are currently shopping for a ninth as the chalky deposits have bunged up yet another machine. I am convinced that the bottled water industry is a complete con.

Popularity: 5% [?]

On ‘yer bike!

The image of the ‘bikie’ has certainly changed over the years. My own Mum and her sisters were members of a motorcycle club back in the early fifties which was a long time before words like Hells Angels came into being.  

Even back then though the words Harley Davidson were synonymous with owning a motorbike; just about every bike enthusiast dreamed of owning one and you have to admit that they really are great looking pieces of machinery. One interesting aspect is that now there are shops which sell Harley Davidson accessories so even if you do not own a Harley you can still buy all the gear and stroll around looking as though you are a true Harley fanatic.

And the stuff looks great too; when my son graduated from school he wanted to wear something ‘different’ accessory-wise so I went to a local Harley store and bought him a cool looking chain to wear with his suit. He still wears it often and it has become something of a keepsake. But, I am afraid to say, that is as close as I will allow my son to get to owning a motorbike…

Popularity: 9% [?]