This is one birthday party that no one wants to attend; it is just over a year ago now that most people in the U.K. were spiralled into the web of deceit that brought down banks and bankers alike. I remember commenting 2 years ago that something was afoot when Citi-Bank wrote to me, and told me that they were cutting my credit limit whilst blaming it onto me. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong as I always used to pay my credit bills on time every month. 12 months later the world, never mind the U.K., woke up to find out the truth.
So, here we are now 12 months or so further on, and with doom and gloom every where. Like the old boy on Dad’s Army, the news reporters and financial experts are constantly telling us “we’re all doomed”, but are we? Well as I always say in times of a downward spiral, the skill in surviving any situation is finding that silver lining in that grey and rain threatening cloud. We may not have as much credit as we used to have, but who needs that when most things are now that much cheaper anyway. I for one have learnt a few really useful lessons from the crunch. Like every business, and running a family is a business like any other, `Er indoors` and myself have had to look at ways of saving money, or should I say credit! After all isn’t that what our economy was and is still based on? Not so much `how much are you worth` but more `how much can you borrow`? this is an expression voiced by the Australian multi-millionaire Alan Bond in the 1970s; this was at a time when we spoke in millions and not billions or trillions. Asked by a reporter how much he was worth, the owner of several huge corporations including Fosters lager, replied “don’t ask stupid questions mate, ask proper ones like how much can I borrow. For that is the true worth of a businessman”. Sadly our hero went bankrupt a few years later, and ended up in jail for corporate fraud proving that even the mighty can fall.
Anyway, I digress so let’s get back to basics. `The missus` and I sat down to make the important cuts we needed to make; in order to try to outlive the credit crunch. Going through all the standing orders I found that I had been so busy making money, and enjoying the fruits of my labour, that I didn’t see the waste I had fallen victim to. To start with we had 3 policies for our holiday insurance, 2 free ones and 1 we paid heavily for. None of them was better than the other 2, so I kept a free one we had with the bank account, and cancelled the other 2. Then I looked at bank fees, I had 3 accounts with Barclays and `she who must be obeyed` had 2 accounts with Nat West, of the 5 accounts we paid monthly fees on 3 of them; so we cancelled the accounts saving a whopping £35 a month, loosing no big benefits in the process except an overdraft facility which we rarely used anyway. Next I looked at the house insurance policies, the look on the face of my `little swamp duck` said it all, I had always advocated that you get what you pay for, and insisted that with insurance you needed to pay the highest fees for the best service. The look of joy on her face when I admitted I may have been wrong all along was like a new wonder of the world! Shopping at Tesco`s the day before `the love of my life` had picked up an insurance leaflet, slipping it into my hand made her day and who am I to deny nature a thrill. I phoned the free number and before long I had signed up to new car policies (we had 3 cars between us), and a new household policy with buildings insurance. The saving was £72 a month in total, and we got everything we had in the more expensive policies which I cancelled straight away. Next I sold the Bentley and managed to actually make a profit on it, 6 months later I would have lost 40% of the value. All in all I managed to save around £230 a month simply by spending a few hours going through the household accounts and dumping a car that was just a toy really, and why not? The Victorians used to keep household accounts even in the modest of family homes, and as a businessman I keet an eye on my outgoings for tax purposes. Not only did I manage to save a huge amount of money, but with the mortgage payments falling, and the cut in V.A.T. as well as the huge discounts the shops were offering on everything, we found that we were actually better off under the credit crunch than before it. So now I say happy hunting and happy money management to you all, as for the credit crunch, that can go and take a running jump and birthday on It`s own like the `Billy no-mates` it is.
