Question Everything

The papers are still filled with stories of people who are doing it really tough, and how wages are too low and the standard of living is poor and yarda, but it strikes me: not enough attention is focussed on how these imbalances came to be. We are so quick to blame a lack of public spending, or an uncaring government, or, I don't know, our vast national debt. I don't like to be that person who points at the human in question to apportion blame. So instead, I am going to ask, not for the first time, why are we not taught money management in school?

I might be lacking in compassion today, but I am getting tired of seeing middle-income people who can't manage to make income cover expenses. Not because I don't empathise (right now, sooo many people are finding their income cut without warning). But because I can see that they built up their lifestyle and their spending level, and there was nothing in the tank to spare. The aspirationals are "locked" into their pay tv packages and mobile phone contracts and paying off clothing and the car finance. And and and. All things that they would argue are normal. And yet they chose to get into all these financial agreements, one contract at a time, spending right up to the hilt of their finances. Which is just fine until paying it off becomes a problem, after which they moan that wages are too low to cover bills these days. It's somehow the wages' fault that humans spent the money.

People are very fast to bite when told that our grandparents "went without" in order to achieve what they wanted. They point out, rightly, that back in nineteen yickety-two people could buy a house for the cost of their annual income and in 2020 you need about ten times as much. Yes, yes; we can all do basic mathematics and see that housing is far less affordable. Big deal. They've all missed the point. You're supposed to spend according to what you earn, not select the appropriate "normal" lifestyle and spend away and then howl that nothing is left over.

This means - the horror - that if your income can only cover freeview tv and a Netflix subscription, then don't sign up for the awesome sports package so that you can watch Scunthorpe United in your living room. And if you do the maths and see that you'll have £50 left each week even if you do sign up, then you should still stop right there and leave it alone. £50 is not a comfy safety net. £50 would not cover your bills for a month if your job went sideways.

Got earnings, got aspirations? Then put away 25%. If you can't do 25, then figure out a way to cut something out of the spending. If you think you can't, then think laterally. Think harder. Think differently. Change something. Trim something. Forgo something. There's a virus out there and nothing is certain. Caution is the buzzword. You are less helpless than you think.

Question everything.