Info about Debt Collection
Self Sufficiency - Money
Having grown up without any, I have only modest respect for money and this, as you will be aware, has given your father heart failure on many occasions, as well as hay fever. Since I'm not in any position to say for a fact that I'm right and he's wrong, I'll confine myself to a few brief points on fiscal matters which will inform if not impress you.
• Your allowance
Since you were thirteen, we have given you a monthly allowance from which you were supposed to meet your clothing, present and outings expenses. The idea was to teach you the value of money. This failed. You all have had to be subsidised. But you have all had the grace to realise that holiday jobs were part of the answer so you must have learnt something.
• Sick feeling
Your attitude to money is completely dependent on what you can Jive with, never mind on. A permanent gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach and a reluctance to open bank statements is a clue that all is not well. You will have spent more than you are earning, or we are giving you, and you will be wondering how you can possibly repay your debts.
Your father and I will help you out whenever we can but since our position ranges so widely from feast to famine, you won't be able to rely on us. Our famines are always a little heart-stopping but no matter how reckless I am, I have always listened to my stomach.
• Monitor regularly
Don't be a wimp about it. Always know how much you owe and what you are owed. Comb the back of your mind for assets and possible sources of income and check them out, bearing in mind there is no money in the family other than ours that you can expect to inherit. Don't even try to kid yourself. Your stomach won't be fooled. It will only go from gnawing to taking bites out of itself.
Begin with a total of what is or isn't in the bank. I check it by telephone using my special 'you might think this is a problem but it doesn't worry me' voice. Write the amount at the top of a page, draw a line down the centre of the page and on one side total up what you are owed and on the other side further outgoings which have yet to appear on the statement. Remember all standing orders and any payments made by debit card of which you have no real record having thrown away the slips. For accuracy, overestimate the cost of restaurant meals and what you have spent on taxis, clothes and haircuts. It's impossible, believe me.
You will notice that what you are owed is a very small column while the other is a long one. This is normal. To still your racing heart, do the sums in your head. Do not use a calculator. You will soon become so good at mental arithmetic that being in debt will become a positive thing.
If you are in serious debt with no hope of paying it back given your income and current outgoings, you must cut right back on the outgoings. If you are of school age, forget outings. If you have left school and home, either move back home or stop going out, walk to work and take a second job. lust do it. It is disastrous for your mental health to build a debt you cannot repay.
Owing to extremely long custom and massive amounts going in and out, we have a bank which is helpful and mostly sympathetic. But never tell yourself that the bank is there to help. The bank is only there to help itself to your money which Is why they like you to be in debt. They like you to have as big a debt to them as possible, to have it for as long as possible and to have a regular income which keeps those interest repayments coming in, month in, month out.
On the other hand, you do need to have a reasonable relationship with them.
• Love the bank
Never be frightened of the bank manager. Get to know him or her. You won't get to be that friendly because banks move their managers every three or four weeks these days in case they form an attachment to their customers and let them have money cheap. Your father has always been a great one for keeping the bank in the picture. He rings the manager of the day and explains where the money is coming from to repay the overdraft and they are always grateful. So am I.
• Even so
When we were living in Australia and didn't have the sentimental attachment we have to our bank here, I shopped about. I was constantly remortgaging and getting better deals and in the end I began to think of myself as a monetary giant. By the time we returned to England, I was ready to ditch sentiment and take on the entire City, so I decided to convert our mortgage to a repayment one. I went to our bank because they knew us and the bank sent a rep to the house.
I asked him in passing where the balance went on a repayment mortgage after the interest had been taken out of the monthly repayment I said, 'Surely it reduces the capital.' He said, 'Ah ... maybe not' I said, 'Surely. Where else could it go?' He wasn't sure. He asked for a Panadol. I said I was amazed he wasn't sure when he was from the bank. I said I wasn't a banker myself but it was plain to me, unless of course something fishy and fraudulent was going on.
He said he would have to refer to his branch. His branch said it would have to refer to head office and many days later, I was assured in writing that the balance did indeed reduce the capital.
How impressive is that? I was pretty impressed. Familiarise yourself with banking terms so no one can pull the wool over your eyes.
• Small print
When you are committing money to anything, always read the small print of every document and if you don't understand it show it to me. You will be surprised at how often the people who send it to you don't know what it means either.
• Niggardliness
Don't be rash but don't stint yourself. There's nothing worse than a miser or hoarder. If you are not impoverished, spend. You won't ever get to have that day again and if that was the day you should have had a bottle of champagne, what a tragedy not to have had it. Take the holiday, have the party, give the gift.
Splashing out is my favourite thing though I have no great interest in acquiring stuff. Stuff is an encumbrance and my dislike of it could well stem from my need to be on the move as often as possible. It's my belief that you need very few things. Some will acquire sentimental value but even then, better to treasure the memory of an occasion or person in my opinion. You need money for shelter, food, and clothes and everything after that is a bonus. But that's my opinion only. Spend however you like as I know you already do.
• Can't help you. Sorry.
Pension schemes and other insurances
They cost your father and me a fortune and are mainly to protect you from burdens you don't need, like us when we are aged, infirm or dead. You are too young to have to consider any for yourself but I advise you to look into them when you become property owners.
• Acquiring it
We may leave you money in our will. Then again, we may not. The one thing you can be sure about with money is that you can never be sure you will always have it. It comes. It goes. In our family it has come by hard work. Perhaps you will find careers that pay spectacularly well. Maybe you won't. Hardly anyone does. But it makes sense to take into account your tastes and needs when pursuing a career because you will be miserable if poverty is unacceptable to you and you become a nun. You could marry well. You could win the Lottery. You could make a lucky investment. You're on your own with all these schemes. What's mine is yours, however, until I drop.
Rule: Buying endless clothes from charity shops could turn out to be an Investment but probably not. Cull. Your rooms can't take much more.