Dad 46: Living Beyond our Means. Or are we?

 

Mum 49 and I have lived beyond our means for so long that the phrase has ceased to have any meaning. I had always assumed that this was because we were bad with money in that:

a) We don’t open brown envelopes or bank statements or, particularly, credit card statements. Instead, we leave them lying on the mat until one or other of us cracks and, in a daring commando raid, picks up an envelope, scuttles down to the cellar, and frisbees it into the far corner where it comes to rest upon the brown envelope mountain that is testament to our general badness with money.

b) We don’t answer the landline. When was the last time anyone heard any good news on a landline? Last millennium? Fortunately, Girl 15, Boy 15 and Girl 12, being more technologically adept than their parents, have somehow managed to record an a capella version of the theme-tune to the Charlie Sheen version of Two and a Half Men as the phone’s default answering message. Since then there has been a marked decrease in the number of calls on the land-line. Is it possible the creditors have been scared off? If so, then in the words of the incomparable Mr Sheen…WE’RE WINNING.

c) We never ever push the dreaded check balance button when attempting to remove money from a cashpoint machine. Does anyone? Surely, it can only be bad news. Have you ever ever seen anyone avail themselves of this service and then turn round to the rest of the queue and with a punch of the air yell, ‘Yesss’…other than John Terry, of course.

d) I can’t speak for Mum 49 but when I attempt some telephone banking there is always a nervy moment when on hearing the automaton say ‘your current balance is…’ I have to move swiftly to hide the phone under a convenient cushion before any information which, on balance, ho ho, I really wouldn’t want to hear seeps out. The whole procedure being further complicated by then having to remove the phone from the cushion not so early that you hear the dreaded information but not so late that the automaton has given up on you and put the phone down (how do automatons do this?)

Anyhow, from the above you will deduce that we are not so much bad with money as criminally negligent. And yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are better with money than a host of European Countries which we can no longer afford to visit. If we are bad then Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy…are atrocious.

And, in fact, our policy of avoidance (outlined in a) to d) above) might not be so stupid, after all. The Western economy which is, these things are relative, outperforming all others is that of Belgium. And Belgium hasn’t had a government for 15 months. They have, in a sense, not been opening envelopes and not answering the landline or checking their balance on a national scale..and it appears to be working.