When I was brought up, my parents did NOT live in a material world.

They buy what they can afford.

What they don't need, they don't get.

Now, I live in a world where everything is affordable, and if you cant afford it, you get credit.

I earn more money, but spend more too.

My parents just can't understand this.

I mean they put 4 kids through school and college, could afford holidays (not every year) but we always lived a comfortable lifestyle. I live in a a world where going out for meals and drinks is the norm, buying new clothes, CDs etc is normal - it becomes excessive, cos everyone is doing it.

Do you think it is wrong?

Or do you think that cos you earn it, it is up to you how you spend your money???

it's not wrong, but it can be dangerous

young people are getting into so much debt, by the age of 21 i think i owed more than 10,000 in loans and credit cards and thats not even counting the mortgage i had too.....

it's scary really

lollyp0p said:

It is really scary, but back in the days.. they had like a pair of trousers, a skirt, a winter coat and 2 pair of shoes.

Now we have full wardrobes, 1093 pairs of shoes, DVDs, Compooters, TVs, I-Pods, etc etc and more etcs....

REDFEATHERS said:

i bought an ipod and lied about how much it cost as i was ashamed i had spent so much on somthing that i didn't really need

there is too much pressure in todays society, i don't really like to be part of the crowd anyway but i like to have new things, i feel even worse when it comes to my children they HAVE to have as much as i can give them.....

you can NEVER have too many clothes or shoes, but i hate buying luxury items like cd's, dvd's IPODS and computer games, the guilt of the wasted money eats at me

lollyp0p said:

But today we do *treat* ourselves more than we should IMO...

Some things I have bought, I really should have waited till Christmas or whatever, as a present..

So why do we *treat* ourselves to these things??

REDFEATHERS said:

i buy things cause i'm not able to wait, today we want everything now or even yesterday, we don't like to wait for anything.....

fast food
e-mail
speed check outs at the supermarkets

why wait, we are losing our ability to wait and why should we when people throw money at us to buy the things we want

lollyp0p said:

What lollyp0p said

People are impatient, and we're spoilt.

Alot of kids these days are getting sh*t loads of pocket money too, or their parents spoil them rotten.