Poverty (not really)

Cash is a bit tight at the moment. The combination of the new mortgage, trying to build up some kind of savings for house emergencies, a series of holidays, various trips and birthdays has put a real strain on the finances. It's much easier to be lazy when you have money, in fact, part of the reason for the financial squeeze is through being a bit lazy and not fully researching some of my purchasing decisions. eg. The network rail card I mentioned the other day.

I'm lucky enough to have never really needed to worry about money. Nice comfortable middle class upbringing, decent job after university etc. I'm finding that having to actually budget and watch what you spend is a real pain in the arse.

Let's put this in context, the mortgage, all bills including Sky TV, broadband, food and even a healthy supply of wine, is paid for so I'm in a much better position than billions of people in the world, and probably most people in this country, so I probably should shut up and be grateful that I can sit here and bitch about it online. The difficulty really isn't financial at all, it's a mental issue because I now worry about something that was never really a worry in the past.

Our consumer culture doesn't allow us to sit at home and be satisfied with what we have though, we have to be out there all the time buying new shit otherwise how could we possibly be happy? This is especially true at Christmas. My family genuinely don't care how much any presents I get them cost, but I still feel the pressure to deliver decent gifts that they'll like and even spending a modest sum per person the total spend very quickly racks up. The pressure in a household with a tighter income than mine must be incredible.

I know, I should stop whinging and start racking up the £s on my credit card with a new TV, a digital camera, a video iPod, a car etc. (technically I don't actually own a TV, digital camera, a car or an iPod... ). It's good for the economy! But then I'd just be stressed about how was going to pay the credit card off. Where's the fun there?

The other day in the pub I was discussing with some people this theory that some psychologists have that our extremely comfortable lifestyle actually in some ways makes us unhappy. The things that really make us happy, once you have basic essentials like food and shelter sorted, are relationships with other people, but culturally at the moment we're so often striving for that extravagant lifestyle we see on TV that most of us can never attain. I totally agree with that. With my girlfriend rather than spending lots of money on stuff for presents we've started tending to give each other gifts of stuff we can do together. For her birthday this month I got her tickets to a cool sounding wine tasting which we're going to follow up with a nice meal out. That's if we're not too pissed, 25 wines to taste (no spitting!). I'm sure we'll have a great time together, only downside is, it still costs lots of money. Ah well!