So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

Your post resonated with me today. It made me realise just how much we are bombarded with buy now, pay later. Buy one, get one free. Eat as much as you like for only ten shekels. My old MG needed a visit to to the garage today, my Missus asked me, whilst I was out, to buy a few provisions from the supermarket. The MG fits into the allocated space in the parking lot with a third to spare, modern cars, on the other hand, just about squeeze in. My car was built when the population was still experiencing WW2 rationing. People were slimmer back then, they weren't exposed to the continual buy, buy, buy profligacy that we endure today, and they were, and still are, healthier for it. It's easy to blame the boys, and I do empathise, after all, we all know that we can resist anything, except temptation.

It certainly isn’t that my credit score has always been anywhere near as high as it is now.

But with each update to that score over the past year or so it has ticked down a few points. This is on account of my carrying no consumer debt. I got a couple of credit cards with which I could, if I wanted to, rack up a debt roughly equal to my annual income. But I don’t have any desire for that, of course. I fell into that trap once and it took me years to dig out.

I don’t buy the argument that I am any less credit worthy because I haven’t used revolving credit in quite a spell. I pay the monthly bills the day they arrive. I pay the car insurance premiums every six months, so as to save the small(ish) extra amount it would cost if I paid monthly. Et cetera.

The banks and the reporting agencies are part of the same hustle. Experian, et al, encourage us to go into debt by penalizing us for not going into debt.

 

[GHT]

Haha, I want to see an average todays smartphone-kid, when it would suddenly have to install the Linux-driver for the Brother laser printer the needed manuel way, in the X(ubuntu) terminal.

I mean, Brother gives you the manual how to do it and the driver-installation-tool runs the installation itself automatically , but you just have to operate the whole process in the old fashioned command-system and of course you have to concentrate and watch exactly, what you are doing, like in the old days.
I imagine kids sitting before that and feel if they have to handle an antique office machine.

Your English is very good, yet if you typed this in Deutsch, I might have a better chance of understanding it. Linux-driver, Brother laser printer, X(ubuntu) terminal, the driver-installation-tool runs the installation itself automatically.

What is this language? Gibberish? Gobble-de-Gook?

 

[GHT]

It certainly isn’t that my credit score has always been anywhere near as high as it is now..

means
My credit score, whatever that means, can only be zero/high risk. I pay cash for everything, that's cash as in, the filthy folding stuff. No plastic to track me, no loyalty card to track me. And the tracker programmed into my computer was deleted as soon as it was delivered. No profile, no credit score.

There was a time when cash was king, but nowadays, a salesperson can rack up bonuses by signing up a customer to live now, pay later.

 

[tonyb]

Your English is very good, yet if you typed this in Deutsch, I might have a better chance of understanding it. Linux-driver, Brother laser printer, X(ubuntu) terminal, the driver-installation-tool runs the installation itself automatically.

What is this language? Gibberish? Gobble-de-Gook?

I’m guessing the unclear nature of the post has more to do with techno-literacy (or lack thereof, in my case) than the somewhat limited English proficiency of our good friend Trenchfiend.

I almost always catch the gist of our German friend’s posts. I admire his willingness to jump in and be a part of this mess here. He adds real flavor.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Your English is very good, yet if you typed this in Deutsch, I might have a better chance of understanding it. Linux-driver, Brother laser printer, X(ubuntu) terminal, the driver-installation-tool runs the installation itself automatically.

What is this language? Gibberish? Gobble-de-Gook?

Short version:
Installing the hardware-driver for a laser-printer from Brother Industries, on a Xubuntu-Linux system. You have to do it the old fashion way, like in MS DOS.

Give this task (with the manual) to a todays smombie kid and watch if that's going funny. Maybe the kid will feel like handling an antique office-machine.

 

[tonyb]

means
My credit score, whatever that means, can only be zero/high risk. I pay cash for everything, that's cash as in, the filthy folding stuff. No plastic to track me, no loyalty card to track me. And the tracker programmed into my computer was deleted as soon as it was delivered. No profile, no credit score.

There was a time when cash was king, but nowadays, a salesperson can rack up bonuses by signing up a customer to live now, pay later.

I’d imagine you are quite creditworthy. That’s assuming you have a long history of paying utility bills and you have (or had) a mortgage.

But your underlying point is a good one. We make ourselves agents of our own demise. And the economy has grown to depend on it.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

What is this language? Gobble-de-Gook?

More like Gobble-de-Geek.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Geek? Nah. I can not even program.

 

[Fading Fast]

means
My credit score, whatever that means, can only be zero/high risk. I pay cash for everything, that's cash as in, the filthy folding stuff. No plastic to track me, no loyalty card to track me. And the tracker programmed into my computer was deleted as soon as it was delivered. No profile, no credit score.

There was a time when cash was king, but nowadays, a salesperson can rack up bonuses by signing up a customer to live now, pay later.

I know that making on-time payments can help a credit score, but that's just one input. My guess, you have outstanding credit.

I've never borrowed a penny in my life - no credit card debt, no bank loans, no mortgages, no car payments, etc. If I didn't have the money in the bank to pay for it, I didn't buy it. But - I bet like you - I pay all my bills - phone, utility, cable, etc. - on time. I do have (what used to be called) a charge card - Amex - and have paid it off in full each month for, now, over three decades. Often, I've been advise to run a balance and pay the minimum to show I could "handle" debt. I never did though as I simply never wanted to owe money to anyone.

Owing to all the hacks and stuff of the large companies, several years ago, I got up to speed on how to monitor my credit scores - mainly to check for identity theft - and my credit scores are all very high. Hence, I'm an example of how you can have no credit outstanding - and never have borrowed once in your life - and still have high credit scores.

I'm not saying the systems are perfect - I have no real opinion on them as I don't know much about them - but all my life, I heard that you needed to take out some credit to show that you would make timely payments in order to have high credit scores and - at least in my case - that I never did that, did not hurt my scores, seemingly, at all.

 

[tonyb]

A charge card is still a credit card of sorts, even if payments are made in full with every monthly statement. (I believe that Amex offers both charge cards [balances to be paid in full every month] and revolving credit cards.)

My still quite high credit score has been diminished by my failure to use my credit cards.

Friends have told me I’m nuts not to use my cards and pay the balance in full every month. I’m missing out on the “miles” and “rewards,” they tell me. I suppose that’s true, but I find it akin to the coupons that used to come on cigarette packs.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'd never had to use credit until I got sick with no insurance when I was in my 30s. Been up to my neck in debt ever since. God Bless America.

The Era may not have had the current revolving-credit-card system, but they had "Finance Companies," which sold small high-interest loans both to the desperate and the gullible. For example, those who listened to the Chicago White Sox on radio in the 1940s and 50s will remember Bob Elson shilling endlessly for "Friendly Bob Adams" and "all the boys at General Finance." Well, Friendly Bob wasn't quite so friendly when you crossed him, and too many people got to know that personally.

 

[tonyb]

In my case the debt was largely on account of my lack of discipline. My use of credit was much like my cigarette smoking and other reckless personal habits in that I knew it was stupid and that I’d pay for it in the long run, but I did it anyway.

However, it’s entirely understandable how a person living (barely) paycheck to paycheck would bust out the plastic to pay for the transmission repair on the 14-year-old car he needs to get to his low-playing graveyard shift warehouse job 20 miles from home. And it’s understandable how that person would find himself scraping to make the minimum monthly payments, so that he will pay at least double for that car repair than he would have had he paid with cash. Indeed, he’ll likely be paying it off for years.

Similarly, I’ve known people who left college not only owing tens of thousands dollars in student loan debt (or even more than that; one PhD candidate of my acquaintance is looking at $200K, but then, I’m only so sympathetic, seeing how she hasn’t done anything that might accurately be called productive in more than a decade), but also in considerable credit card debt, which they racked up buying such luxuries as ramen noodles and microwave burritos.

Damned spendthrifts!

 

[GHT]

Short version:
Installing the hardware-driver for a laser-printer from Brother Industries, on a Xubuntu-Linux system. You have to do it the old fashion way, like in MS DOS.

I'm only teasing you, I've heard of MS DOS, but it means nothing to me. Today's technology just passed me by, it's one of those: never had it, can't miss it, situations.

I know that making on-time payments can help a credit score, but that's just one input. My guess, you have outstanding credit.

I've never borrowed a penny in my life - no credit card debt, no bank loans, no mortgages, no car payments, etc. If I didn't have the money in the bank to pay for it, I didn't buy it.

You are right, I've never had debt other than our first mortgage, and even that was only for 50% of the property value, paid it off in eight years. It didn't make sense to rent when ownership was much better value. My wife and I also had a charge card, it was with Mastercard, through our bank. After they withdrew that facility, (it didn't make them enough profit,) we gave up on cards.

Our utility bills arrive in the mail and are paid at the post office, as is our local community charge known as Council Tax. Large cash payments do raise eyebrows, criminal gangs launder their cash takings in many ways. Paying cash can cause the concern of where the money came from. So for large payments I use my debit card, but I would never use my debit card online or for minor retail spending.

Friends have told me I’m nuts not to use my cards and pay the balance in full every month. I’m missing out on the “miles” and “rewards,” they tell me. I suppose that’s true, but I find it akin to the coupons that used to come on cigarette packs.

Lizzie put it quite succinctly, rewards, points and discounts, no such thing as a free lunch. Sign up to those, so called, loyalty cards and you are the product. The profile amassed on your spending habits is sold on, big organisations buy copies from others so that they acquire more and more information about you. One British journalist wrote that he thinks that his supermarket has worked out how many sheets of toilet tissue he uses. Too much information? Not for big business, if you'll excuse the pun.

 

[Edward]

The best I ever saw it put was by the late Terry Pratchett:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

(FRom the 1993 Discworld novel Men At Arms.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Substitute “automobile” for “boots” and he’s pretty well described the plight of millions upon millions of working-class Americans, whose need for a car is very real (we’ve built our world around the things) but whose incomes allow for the purchase of only well-used examples, which will, over the course of a few years, cost that struggling person more in repairs than the purchase price.

It’s admittedly far from a perfect analogy. (New cars drop dramatically in value the instant they’re driven off the dealer’s lot, which makes the purchase of new cars generally unwise for people without money to burn. And don’t get me started on leasing.) Still, though, a car rendered inoperable by a major mechanical failure is a major problem for its owner.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. I remember right after I got out of the hospital in 2004, barely able to walk, the brakes in my sixteen year old car gave out. Had to spend $600 I didn't have just so I could get to the grocery store.

Budget planning when you live paycheck to paycheck -- especially when a big chunk of your income is freelance -- is like that. You literally never know from day to day when you're going to hit a joker in the deck -- you need $2000 eye surgery that's not covered by your insurance, your furnace croaks and needs a new burner, your roof starts to leak, the hot water heater rusts out, you end up in the ER with a kidney stone and you've got a $7K deductible. And that's how even with the most careful attention to personal spending you end up in the hole.

This summer I took a 30 percent pay cut when one of my long-term writing jobs went bust. Still trying to figure out how I'm going to get by without having to take a part-time job in a convenience store -- hard thing to do when you work 50+ hours a week at your "real job."

 

[Trenchfriend]

This summer I took a 30 percent pay cut when one of my long-term writing jobs went bust. Still trying to figure out how I'm going to get by without having to take a part-time job in a convenience store -- hard thing to do when you work 50+ hours a week at your "real job."

We got a new upcoming tertiary branch, in old Germany:

"Professional cuddler". 60 Euro per hour.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If it involves cats, dogs, or baby goats, I'm in.

 

[tonyb]

It is not to absolve people of all responsibility for their own financial circumstances to note that the game is increasingly rigged against lower-income people.

It’s true that a struggling person really shouldn’t drop five bucks at Starbucks every workday or purchase new furniture on credit when perfectly serviceable (and better built) used stuff can be had for nothing or next to it. But such economizing won’t lift that person out of the struggling classes, especially not in a time when the trend is to convert employees into contractors, to push the risks onto the workers, to provide zip for worker benefits.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@LizzieMaine

Or the other trend:

You and your community-kids could establish and run a Cat Café. You're boss and you wouldn't have to be there all the time.