It’s so easy today to be flat broke and yet have no difficulty buying anything we want on credit.
‘No deposit and easy terms’, ‘buy now, pay later’, say the enticing advertisements. It’s only when you calculate the actual cost of the item after the repayments have been made, you realise the actual rate of interest you have been charged.
You can even purchase your major items ’interest free’ for a set period of time, which can be years in the future. Not only are you paying an inflated price for the object, but you will be hit with an enormous interest bill and fees should you fail to finalise the payment within the prescribed time.
It seems, these days, you would be considered odd if you were to save up to buy something, when you could use your plastic card or take out an instant loan at an inflated interest rate.
Maybe it has been made too easy for us today to really understand what a little hardship is all about. The ease of getting whatever we want, when we want it, is doing little to develop the value of our own self-control.
The difference between what we see as our real ‘needs’ as against what are our ‘wants’ has become deliberately hazy.
We should be aware we can gain strength of character by not getting – We can be enriched by not having and – We can gain maturity through our ability to say the occasional NO to self.
I’m Peter Mack and that’s life.