FPN Deputy Editor's Blog

Why are we waiting?

It’s been a strange week indeed. The clocks have gone back meaning that, by the time I leave FPN HQ, it’s already pitch black; we’ve had our first snowfall and the pound has taken a nosedive. What’s more, my personal pounds (all three of them) have disappeared into the ether as someone in India has been busy stealing my entire salary and savings via a cloned version of my debit card.

All this has contributed to my overriding belief that we all need to seize the day, live in the moment and stop letting the world and his dog dictate when it’s the ‘right time’ for us to fulfil our dreams. Personally, I’m bored to death of being prudent. Since I graduated, I’ve been sensible, sensible, sensible. First, I paid off my student debt, next I saved for a deposit on a house. Once I’d signed my future earnings away for a tiny postage-stamp’s worth of space in London, I started paying into a pension fund. I managed to enjoy the full benefit of my monthly salary for precisely three seconds (or one pair of shoes – depending how you look at it), before this credit crunch business had me scrimping and saving all over again ‘just in case’. Now I’m busy watching someone else enjoy the benefits of my hard-earned cash. Literally. Yes, I’m sitting at my kitchen table, wearing three jumpers and sleeveless gloves because I can’t afford to turn the heating on, drinking an infusion verveine made with a re-used tea-bag, gazing at this thieving spendthrift’s antics via the medium of internet banking. This fraudster has been living it up in Bangalore, buying jewellery, clothes and cinema tickets, eating at restaurants and generally enjoying themselves, leaving me to pick up the tab. And I’m taking it personally. Very personally. It’s my own, personal credit crunch.

For, if you think about it, there isn’t much difference between what is happening to me right now, courtesy of this small-scale thief, and what’s been happening to all of us thanks to the irresponsible bankers of this world (insert cockney rhyming slang at will). Okay, so they may have got us into this mess legally (unlike my fraudster), but there they are, eating gold-stuffed olives and caviar washed down with Cristal as they sit on their diamond-encrusted thrones, rubbing their hands together with glee and tossing fifty-pound notes onto the fire of greed. Meanwhile, we mortals sit here shivering in multiple layers, watching as they wipe thousands off the value of our homes, fritter away our savings and trample all over our modest dreams.

What can we do? Take our fate into our own hands. Do now what we’ve been too cautious to do thus far. Because, if this thief and this credit crunch have taught me anything, it’s that being cautious doesn’t pay dividends. Forget the mortgage, savings and the pension, if I had travelled the world post-graduation, lived by the seat of my pants and saved worrying about the future for a rainy day, rather than saved money for a rainy day, I would be in exactly the same situation as I am now; broke - albeit with a far better tan. No, we need to rise up en masse, put up our umbrellas and follow our hearts.

So, if you’ve postponed your dream of moving to France, or buying that holiday home because of the current economic climate, I urge you to reconsider. After all, as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you, but as we’ve all seen this week, they can take it off you. When all is said and done, if we have to live on the breadline, I know whose baguettes I prefer.