Have your say & ask the experts

My answer to that is yes we are, but fortunately I am in a nearly Identical position as Chebby. 15months left on mortgage at £192.00 a month thank the lord. For anyone having a really hard time I feel for you.

haven't noticed "the credit crunch"  and am spending normally. but then again i dont have a mortgage or any borrowings.

on the whole don't  let things that are out of my control bother me

There are murmurings of price increases in AV equipment in the new year so now might be the time to make that purchase rather than hold off.

matthewpiano:

There are murmurings of price increases in AV equipment in the new year so now might be the time to make that purchase rather than hold off.

hmm, interesting! was planning on going hd after xmas with plasma tv, hd reciever and freesat pvr

Well I for the 1st time in my 26yrs of life started saving a few months ago- I even started getting good at! But then I read some stupid magazine called What HIFI that said the Sony40W4500 is an awesome TV so I just spent half of my savings on that TV and BLU RAY player! it's an awesome TV and I don't regret buying it all and I think the WHAT HIFI team got the review right! 

 Be young be foolish but be happy! But yes I think everyone should be careful with the money! 

 Apparently Aldi is the new M & S 

My firm has frozen any wage incentives until further notice. I can't complain. . .at least I'm still in work, phew!

So, no. I won't be buying anything for the next few months, apart from the essentials.

plastic penguin:

My firm has frozen any wage incentives until further notice. I can't complain. . .at least I'm still in work, phew!

Ditto..Pay freeze, second move in a year, large redundencies. Apparently my job is not "at risk".

Looking for another job just in case, but it won't stop me from upgrading my AV receiver at Christmas.

RodhasGibson:

My answer to that is yes we are, but fortunately I am in a nearly Identical position as Chebby. 15months left on mortgage at £192.00 a month thank the lord. For anyone having a really hard time I feel for you.

Please tell me you are over 50! I shouldn't complain, I have a whopping mortgage but it's a lifelong tracker at only .99% above the BR after two years (soon to end) at .25% below the BR.

Some of the deals at the moment are an insult and will not help the economy, one iota.

Hi Gerrard, Yeh Just over the big 50 but I started a couple of  [what turned out to be] very good endowment policies about 10 years before I took out a mortgage, one paid out £7500 above the guarranteed sum assured and one paid out £4950 above. It was hard at times keeping them going as well as mortgage payments but paid off in the end. It also enabled me to get the upgrade fever for the last year and treat the lady to a couple of Gucci handbags, J.D will know the score there I think. regards Rod

Thankfully I paid my mortgage off 4 years ago,paid off extra every month and finished 2 years early, but I feel for people with mortgages in this present climate.

Not holding back here, just purchased Pioneer Blu-ray player and Humax Freesat PVR on pre-order.  

topbloke55:

Not holding back here, just purchased Pioneer Blu-ray player and Humax Freesat PVR on pre-order.  

Tell Gordon, you could be his Joe Plumber!

Not over 50 here for some time yet! I got my mortgage in my early 20's.

But I took my mortgage out when the interest rate was 13.8 percent and rising, 3 years before the 'negative equity' crisis kicked off in the late 1980s.

Oh yes, our eldest daughter was born the same weekend we moved into the house (during the coldest winter in decades) and my wife lost her job for being pregnant (that was normal back then).

I took voluntary redundancy (after 13 years service) the same year as 'Black Wednesday' in 1992 and walked away with about a year's salary and into a new job weeks later. The company I left got taken over just months later and made a swathe of compulsory redundancies amongst my ex-colleagues. They only got a few weeks pay! (Lots of people remarked at my prescience at the time but it was just dumb luck!)

I guess that seeing a major 'recession' during every decade of my life so far gives a certain perspective on things. Despite still being a 'kid' in the mid-late 1970s I still remember the headlines. The fuel shortages, 3 day working week, power cuts, nationwide strikes in all parts of the private sector and civil service, toppled governments, rampant inflation, IMF loans (to Britain), a top income-tax rate of 98 percent, quadrupling of the oil prices in 1973 by OPEC and even rumours of a military coup to oust the prime minister (before he resigned in 1976) etc etc.


Some large companies were even giving free HGV training to non-unionised employees, retaining ex-military 'advisers', and leasing fleets of fuel tankers and mobile generating plant in case they were forced by more lengthy fuel shortages/power cuts to take their own 'initiatives'. (My elder brother gained his HGV this way.)

I guess these things are cyclical. After seeing recessions and other national crises in the 70s, 80s and 90s and hearing first hand from parents who lived through a world war and started raising kids whilst rationing was still on, when a young couple (Marine & nurse) with a child could only afford a rented room (in a road where the bomb damage was still being repaired) I suppose the latest 'crisis' does not seem so doom laden as the pundits hype it up to be.