I don't gamble - although like you I may have had the odd flutter in the past on a special occasion - but it was one offs. I haven't done it once for years now.
I don't really have too much short term debt. I just have my long term debt on my mortgage which is luckily capped. I use short term credit for company expenses but they are pretty good at paying back within 2 weeks and well within the payments terms for starting to pay interest.
However, I see people around me getting into impossible debt loops where they are using further credit to pay off bad debt. Is it a lack of education? I think it is largely desperation because people are backed into a corner. They may have overspent when credit was too cheap and are now paying the price.
You have to see credit as borrowing from your future self. Are you going to be happy in the future when you find you already have spent the money you are earning before it even hits your pocket?
Yeah, you're right about the future self thing. Also, people buy things on sale (using credit) then pay way more than the item is worth through interest. Bonkers.
I have a credit card I use for most things and linked to a frequent flier programme. I earn points and cash them in for gift cards to spend at the supermarket. Saves me a few thousand dollars a year. Of course, the credit card is always paid off at the end of the month. Always. No interest. I once bought a motorbike on that credit card for the points. Paid it off a few days later with the cash I had saved up for the motorbike and saved at the supermarket with the gift cards. 😁
I wonder when society changed and needed so many things they had to use other people's money to get them and then repay far more than those items were wotlrth in the first place. It wasn't like that before. People lived within their means. There's many factors I guess, but it's the individual who zips the credit card (paywave's or whatever it's called) at the register...so the individual who is responsible.
Financial education should happen from a young age and in high school. The problem is that the parents are often clueless themselves.
I'm a great believer in the phrase "money doesn't buy happiness". I have seen people in my travels where I have stayed in some very remote tribal villages with very basic standards of living, some happy and content people. However, I society has become obsessed with having to have everything right now. The over reliance in credit is insane sometimes.
I agree, financial education should start when people are young. My father taught me, he was like "sure, you can have a sound system. Go get a job and earn yourself the money for one."
You are completely correct about society needing more, more more and failing to understand that consumerism doesn't buy happiness. In fact, the constant drive at new or the latest things can more often than not bring disappointment and depression.
Imagine a person buying the latest phone release and feeling awesome...only to realise that the next new one has a better camera...Their first one, that they were content and happy with, now brings them anxiety; it's not the latest thing. So their brain justifies the new purchase and credit steps in. They feel good again...but only until the next best thing comes along. It's a slippery slope. People attach the feeling of self worth or esteem to the things they have but it often has the reverse effect.
I know just that type of person. One of my work colleagues literally sleeps outside the London Apple store when any new phone is coming to ensure that they have the newest phone possible on the day its launched. Their "feel good" therefore comes only with their feeling they have the latest not because of really enjoying and getting the value from utilising what they have.
I just don't get the mentality that drives people that way. My phone is 3.5 years old. It wasn't cheap but I use it heavily, and not by that, I mean I use it for a lot of different features it has. It is still a great phone and serves the purpose I have for it very well despite not being the newest. It was a good buy. I have more than consumed the value of the original purchase.
A total twat.
I have nothing against quality purchases, in fact, I put quality over quantity...But I certainly don't feel validated in any way through the purchases I make. I'm all about experiences, generally in life, rather than things. I bet that wanker that lines up at the Apple store won't be laying on his death bed saying things like, thank the almighty I bought that iPhone 13. (Or maybe he will.)