ACQUISITIONS

It’s easy to get “things” whether we need them or not. No ready cash? No problem; off to the bank and get a loan. Can you repay it? Who cares – it’s their money! This in a very simplified way is how the majority of people live today. Getting money has never been easier and in most cases banks are happy to comply with your wishes – at a price!

A friend living in Zagreb tells me that the town planners have been extremely clever and used what she calls the “5B” approach. On each block there is a bank (where you go to get money you don’t have to buy things you don’t need); also there are shops selling boots, bags and bra’s (all the things your wife thinks she needs to buy with the money you don’t have but which the bank has kindly given you). The final “B” is the bar – where you go to drink beer and commiserate with others in the same situation, whilst your wife spends the money she doesn’t have!  Carpe diem taken to absurdity!

Having got the “things” we think we need, do we appreciate them? I have my doubts; easy come, easy go is the motto of today. Live for the moment and (conveniently) forget about repayment. The value of the “thing” falls in our estimations and after due time we wonder why we bothered buying it in the first place. I recall the American comedian, W.C. Fields saying

“I have enough money to last my lifetime – unless I buy something”

Here I must admit that I have had NO loans, No credit, NO plastic cards since 1988. Whatever I “need” (and I use that word deliberately), I buy when I have the cash to do so. As a result, my credit rating is a big fat “ZERO”! Long ago I learned the value of concentrating on my needs and leave the “wants” until such time as they became needs or I could afford them. When I do buy, I fully appreciate my purchase as it has been earned rather than merely acquired. Yes, I fully understand there are items which demand credit – housing is an excellent example. Perhaps a car also; but for those “things” we do not need but want, I question the validity of easy credit – the finance industry and big business have seduced us into believing we cannot live without what they make or sell.

I believe many people are coming to my point of view; some good friends recently spent an evening cutting up their plastic cards having come to the conclusion they were being screwed by banks and also that they could not see the point of either virtually giving their money to others (banks) or buying “stuff” they did not need.

So, if you feel similarly and accept that YOU are being ripped-off, join the growing numbers opting for a better quality of life without having “pecuniary maladjustments”….

Until next time (and fewer acquisitions),

P.S.