The following is a story that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. I thought I would share it with you, as my opening post.

This story made me think. It made me think about the credit card I have, and the (thankfully small) overdraft I have. It made me think it's time to give the money back to the bank, and go save up for stuff I want.

This is long, but well written:



When I was a kid…with my blonde mop and shiny teeth, I used to go into Farnham with my parents at the weekend. Holding my Dad’s massive hand, which I could barely reach, I’d toddle into Barclay’s with him. I had no idea what Barclay’s was, and I never knew what we were doing in there. The desks were too high for me to see over, and the queue barrier too low for me to crawl under. All I did know was that it was where my Mum and Dad kept their money.

My overly vivid imagination sometimes crossed the blurred line into reality. Instead of trying to understand things the way they actually worked, I would make up my own ideas and answers to questions I was too shy to ask. Clinging onto his stonewashed denim, I’d look up at his beady eyes, which he was kind enough to pass on to me. With his fuzzy brown hair and Harrison Ford-esque stubbly chin, he’d utter something, which I couldn’t hear, through a glass window. I would survey the room to try and figure out what on earth was going on. My Mum would be at the door with a smaller version of me in a pram. Again, being about the height of 2 milk crates, I couldn’t see my brother Ollie, but I could certainly hear him.

Gazing back up at my Dad, whilst something resembling ‘The Magic Roundabout’ played in my head, I’d see him receive what I knew as ‘munny’. He always placed it into that funny leather pouch that lived in his back pocket. It made his bum look lopsided. So gradually, I figured it out. The bank looked after my parents’ munny, and when they wanted it, someone inside the glass window would get it for them, and my Dad would look after it for a while until he decided he wanted to give it to somebody else in exchange for food or things I couldn’t touch. Like pens!

I desperately wanted to break into the bank. Because it was on a corner, it loomed over me like a giant castle, made of that same horrible brown-curved brick that they built the Sports Centre out of. It wasn’t the nicest looking building in town, but if I were to bump into it, I’d just slide around the corner without even a trace of pain. And for that, I liked the bank. I’d decided that behind the glass windows were hundreds of little drawers. Really deep drawers. When we wanted some money, the ‘bank man’ would find the drawer named ‘Horsley’ and open it up, removing however much Dad wanted to put in his funny leather pouch, which I later learned was a wallet. I wanted to break into someone else’s drawer. They’d never know! I’m so small! You can’t catch me, I slide off bricks! I want my own pens!

That was my first lesson about money. And probably my last. It is classic Ben-learning. Watch. Analyse. Imagine. Try. As with everything in life, to understand something I watch how it is done, how it is not done, analyse why it is done that way, imagine the way in which I’d like to do it…and finally…try it. I’m the guy who holds his plectrum between the wrong fingers, the guy who skips second gear, the guy who prefers Corel to Adobe. I do everything the “wrong way” for the right reasons. Twenty years later and I cycle past a big-ass metal building on the way to work every morning and proudly smile to myself knowing that it’s my Dad’s business and he’s in there doing businessy things. He built that from scratch. I wonder how many pens are in there?!?

This note has a purpose, I promise you. Your time here is not wasted. There was another shitty documentary on TV tonight about this hideously boring words "CREDIT" $ "CRUNCH" that just seems to be falling like anvils out of everyone’s mouths right now. I am neither ignorant nor oblivious. I know exactly what is going on ‘out there’. The British civilian has become so hopelessly dependant on munny, finance, credit and spending, that the country has actually decided ‘marry this’ and folded it two. Everyone that has borrowed money once has borrowed it twice. Then three times, and then OH SHIT it’s too late. So many fuckers are borrowing money that they don’t need. Money which the bank are WAITING to give to you, minimal questions asked.

“So just to reiterate Mr Walton, you are borrowing this money for…?”
“I’m building a detox centre for dehabilitated cockroaches trained in the art of mime”
“Of course.”
“It’ll be made entirely of cream cheese.”
“FANTASTIC! £45,000 for you to spend!”

It is so stupidly easy to borrow money. If you want to be one of those twats that drive a BMW to work everyday in a meaningless, dull and entirely over-subscribed Prada suit, then by all means go for it. The bank will be there with you, every step of the way. Pressing your trousers for you and aligning your quiff to the recommended 17-degree angle. Even if you don’t have the job to match. marry it, you’re a caretaker…drive a Hummer! It’s cool! Off to the local bowls tournament? Better take the Mustang! I saw a lollypop lady the other day wearing a jacket made entirely of diamonds!

No one is rich anymore. Everything is borrowed. There was a time way before I was born when you would see a sharp-dressed man walking down the street, umbrella under arm with a bowler hat. That skip in his walk is because he is a realistic down-to-earth normal kinda guy who is making an honest living.

People are so obsessed with the idea of being rich. They need those designer sunglasses which probably hold as much quality and relevance as a pair from the £1 shop. They need that SuperWideScreenHiDefBluRayTV with built in microwave and on-board fat fryer. It’s just STUFF. Stuff which in a real world like perhaps Sweden or Utopia you could never ever afford. Stuff which is made in bulk, like any other shitty mass-produced toy.

Don’t do it kids. The economy is a shrivelling wreck because people want everything, all the time, right away. I’m so fucking glad I didn’t break into Barclay’s as a toddler, wielding bricks with letters on, in an adult-glove-cum-child-balaclava. It’s taught me not to borrow what I will spend the rest of my life trying to pay back. It’s taught me that there is no damn hurry to get the things that you want. It’s taught me that we should all take one giant step back a hundred years or so, when life didn’t revolve evolve around what cards are in your wallet or what car is on the drive.

I rent a house big enough for me and the girl to have an ample amount of fun it. I wear and own the perfect amount of clothes which I feel myself in. I love my labels, but I don’t need ‘ARMANI’ emblazed across the front to make me feel like socially valid. I’ve gathered enough furniture and ‘house things’ to live comfortably. I have 3 TV’s, 2 PC’s and phone/mp3 player/dvd this/automatic that. Do I take any of it for granted? No. Is it all borrowed, not paid for, on lease? No. Am I living beyond my means? No. I go to work everyday and get paid for it. Works for me. I work from home sometimes and get paid for it. Works for me. Kat does too. Works for her. We're doing just fine...the futures bright! But then when you go to the supermarket, or decide you wanna buy something and see how fucking expensive NORMAL stuff has got, you kinda think to yourself…thanks a lot buddy. I’ll buy this orange pepper at £5.64. This time. So you can fist marry the economy from the comfort of your massage chair whilst your trophy Mrs pretends she’s okay with the lipstick on your shirt collar.

The next time you see one of those programs on TV where the unfortunate sour-faced 50-something is saying something along the lines of “I have 42 credit cards, and 17 loans but I can’t feed my baby” please just laugh at them and pray to Elvis that you don’t end up like that. Otherwise you and your baby will end up in a detox centre for dehabilitated cockroaches.

Stop fucking it up for the rest of us, seriously.
How much of an arsehole are you gonna feel like when you can’t feed your kids?
What are you going to do when you’ve borrowed everything and have nothing?
Stop pretending to be rich. You’re lucky you had money in the first place.
It’s fucking EASY to get by. Just remember who you are and what you deserve.
Take a reality check...stop being spoon-fed help on a plate by this bullshit government.

Have some genuine aspirations, and if you wanna get rich, do it the old fashioned way!
And don't work in retail.

And could you actually rob a bank wielding bricks with letters on, in an adult-glove-cum-child-balaclava?

Take this note with a pinch of salt, this is just mere opinion, I’m no hater, I just like to write

I like that. It's a good read.

It was such a good read when I saw it. It actually made me go and write something, too. But I'm not posting that, because I still have self respect and a desire not to be humiliated.