There’s a big difference between not being impressed with people who are

Comment on Reasons to Vote Labour by David.

There’s a big difference between not being impressed with people who are born into money relative to those who earn their fortune and believing those born into wealth don’t deserve it. Of course they deserve it, their parents or whatever earned the money and as such they deserve it. That’s one of the reasons many of us (me included) work so hard, so we can pass on wealth to our children to make their life easier.

To suggest I believe anything else is twisting my words.

Back to politics.

I don’t care if SOME of the shadow cabinet (or actual government cabinet) are millionaires, if there’s a few millionaires its representative of Britain, but out of the 32 shadow Conservative cabinet apparently 18 are millionaires (I haven’t confirmed if it’s 18, anyone know for sure?).

The Conservative shadow cabinet significantly over represents the extremely wealthy. Before I knew this I already had an issue with the Conservatives understanding what it’s like to be working class, if well over half of them are millionaires how can they understand what it’s like for the average family living in Britain today?

In my experience having a lot of money, especially if you are born into it, does not necessarily mean you are good at managing money. When you have a lot of money, you no longer have to manage it as well.

I have to admit I was MUCH better at managing my finances before I was earning enough money to no longer have to worry about money.

When we were poor I knew to the penny how much money we had and what we owed, I used all sorts of techniques to save money on a daily basis. Now I no longer even bother to keep track of money, tend to sort my finances yearly. It took about a year to realise HSBC had signed me up for an insurance thing at £30 a month! We have a mortgage with 4.9% variable rate interest (it was fixed up until March last year) and I haven’t got around to sorting out a better mortgage deal.

Setup a saving account that automatically transferred £250 a month to it for 8% interest (was before interest rates dropped). The bank deal was you get the 8% for the first year, (after it dropped really low) the first year ran out in November/December, it took until yesterday for me to call into the local bank to transfer the money to a higher interest account (same deal, but 4% now).

I’ve been really poor, now I’m not I don’t manage money half as well as I used to, if I want something I buy it, no need to save up or worry about a debt. I used to know which supermarket had the cheapest of each type of food and would shop from multiple locations, now I don’t even look at prices and shop at the most convenient location.

The above doesn’t make me look good, but it supports my point. Having money does not mean you are good at managing money, can be quite the opposite.

David