Dear LPG, 

I have always been old fashioned and very suspicious of borrowing money to buy anything I don’t actually need unless I can really afford it, and I think that many more people of my age were happy to wait for what they wanted until they had saved up but that may be my naivety talking.  I remember the days when, if you needed a new washing machine you saved up for it and used the laundry down the road ( or took your washing down to your mums’ or aunts’ house) until you could do better.  I remember shops which would hold the item you wanted so that you could  pay off a little each week and then have what you needed delivered once you had paid for it.  In fact I can only ever remember borrowing money for two things in my whole life; my mortgage and my mobile phone contract.

But these days we live in a society where things don’t cost loads of money anymore, they are advertised as costing ‘just’ so much a week and when you hear the adverts we are so used to hearing the ‘per week’ aspect of the cost that it is easier not to think about the real price.  You just go to the shop pay the deposit and you continue to pay so that by the time you have actually paid for your purchase it is old and needs replacing.

I was talking to one of my granddaughters the other day who is in her early thirties.  She has a car that is less than two years old and tells me that most of her friends do too.  I mentioned that at her age I was happy with a really old car that had one saving grace, and that was that it worked.   She told me that all her friends have new cars and that she only pays £180.00 per month for hers. I did not tell her what I thought but I have to ask what aspect of £180.00 per month is a good deal.

I think that it is so sad that our children find it so important to buy things on the ‘never never’ rather than being happy with cheaper things that work just as well, and that they can afford. There appears to be no merit in owning anything outright anymore.

Nobody actually calls it the ‘never never’ any more but the way many youngsters shop for things these days is ‘never never’ going to stop worrying me. 

PB, Sydenham

PB is talking about an age old tool that retailers have been using in one guise or the other for years as LPG found out.  PG found a little information…

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