If you are what you consider Middle class you had better watch out you can become poor very quickly in this recession. To avoid disaster you must act swiftly. Do not bury your head in the sand. The first thing to go must be your pride, the second is some so-called friends, you may not actually get rid of them yourself but they may belong to your old life which you can no longer afford and they certainly aren’t going to fund you, unless they are super rich and related too you in some way or they are very nice people and in my experience that is very few and far between.
It could start very quickly. First your hours are cut at work it is your little pin-money job, but your husbands work is not generating as much money as it used to and little niggley things are happening. You had better cut down on your drinking in the week because you can’t afford it and actually the way you feel after drinking on top of your money worries leaves you feeling a bit sick in the mornings. The Private tennis club that you pay a fortune to attend is suddenly very expensive and as they are also feeling the pinch they are putting their prices up you know that you are going to have to make a decision here soon, do we stop coming and lose the friends that we have made here or do we go on pretending that everything is fine. You’ll not eat there in the evening anymore because the price of the children’s food is unbelievable and not the best quality.
Next will it really mean shopping at Tesco’s or God forbid Lidl’s, not Marks and Spencer or Waitrose for that weekly shop. Lidl’s actually sell some quality products, their jams are beautiful.
Will you even begin to consider that two cars might be too expensive, I mean the price of petrol is just disgusting, the school is just down the road and around the corner, so maybe you might find that actually it’s nice walking to school because you can talk to the kids and you might find out little things about them that you didn’t know before you started to become poor.
I have a friend who runs a shoe repair shop and he says that the number of people having their shoes repaired has doubled, you will have to love your favorite shoes a bit longer and not just throw them out when they become worn down, oh and you may have to buy shoe polish to keep them shiny and clean, like your mum and dad did when you were small, remember some of you weren’t always middle class.
The heating must come down, when I was little we lived in a Victorian house with no heating, we had little electric heaters and thick blankets it was also common to wear jumpers, slippers and scarves whilst watching the telly, I remember waking up on cold mornings and Jack Frost had visited he left his icy marks on the inside of the windows, I am not suggesting for one moment that you let your house get so cold that you have ice forming on the inside of your house, but you could put the dial down from 20 to 10 and remember to put that jumper on. If your children have left home what are you doing with the spare bedrooms? Have you considered a lodger. I can hear your cries of derision already, “I’m not having strangers in my house” Think of it as running a business, I have had lodgers for a number of years without them I would not have my property anymore, I would be homeless or living in council accommodation, not that there is anything wrong with that but I have been there and I don’t want to go backwards.
Do you go shopping everyday, cheap things, medium range or quite pricey, because you have to keep up with the mums on the school run who dress up as if they are going to a Wags convention. Ha ha ha who wants to live under so much pressure.
I had a good look through my wardrobe and realized that I wasn’t even wearing some of the clothing that I thought was so lovely and original and then got bored with so quickly. Well not anymore wear them and stop being so fussy mix and match. Really the trick is to be yourself not what you think others think you are, stop acting, get comfortable with yourself and live YOUR life, really it’s not so bad and one day with a little hard work, a little austerity and a lot of humor you may become middle class again. Good luck
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