old mcdonald:

I note you omitted food, was that deliberate?

 

Yes, I left it to last on purpose. I think many people do. A lot of expenditure is now inescapable - Mr Local Government Lackey is not going to be very overjoyed when you say you cant pay his council tax as you need to use the money to eat. 

TeslaCoils:

If I were younger, I would take less income for more capital growth. When I am older, I suspect I will want more income less capital

Your latest post suggests you are currently more interested in income than capital growth. On forums such as this you take a liking to some folks, you take a dislike to others, some amuse, some intrigue and some just downright infuriate. Yet most of us have never met.  You are one of those I have "admired" in my few years on this forum, but I sometimes wonder about your long-term aims, although I also think that you have the intelligence to not be ofended by this post and understand the point that I am endeavouring to make, even if not particularly well. I suppose the difficulty I have is that your wife is a successful career woman (as is my own son's wife [a medical doctor] and they have recently had my first grandson) and that is an alien world to me. My wife qualified as a domestic science teacher (I picked her out whilst stil at school and have never regretted it) but gave up work when we married to concentrate on looking after me and the property we had acquired, in anticipation of marriage, whilst I went out to work as an emloyee. It is a difference of attitude, but I feel a child needs its mother in its formative years, and especially in the first few months when it is beginning to walk and talk. It needs its parents' values in its being, not those of a child-minder. I can, however, appreciate that there are times when, if the wife is capable of high earnings, then the husband is the one who stays at home. I have no objection to this if it suits the couple.

I may have posted that in the style of Motley, but what I am trying to say is that when you become older you wil realise that you actualy need less income, not more.

 

Inflation,

            Just to change Tack a little but do any Posters have views on what causes Inflation and what are the general effects of this Phenonamon or evil and is it for good or bad for a Nation.

Old Mac,

I take a similair view to you on this.Most of my friends have working wives.Quite a number of them would,in my opinion,have a better quality of life if one of them didnt work.They seem to be in a perpetual state of stress about things and dont have time to do anything important.Others it seems to suit far better.As to the cost of child-care,well,it amuses me to hear professional people girning about the money they have to pay for someone to look after their children even though they themselves are earning several times as much.Each. 

burocrat basher:

Inflation,

            Just to change Tack a little but do any Posters have views on what causes Inflation and what are the general effects of this Phenonamon or evil and is it for good or bad for a Nation.

The standard of living,though perhaps not quality of life,has risen dramatically throughout the past few generations of relatively high inflation.Current thinking seems to be that 1-2% inflation is good.Above or below is bad.

peesie:

Most of my friends have working wives.Quite a number of them would,in my opinion,have a better quality of life if one of them didnt work.They seem to be in a perpetual state of stress about things and dont have time to do anything important.

 

I'm going to wade in here and go slightly off topic, but I wish the majority of women (and some men!) with children wouldn't work. Controversial I know, but I am a childless, working woman and I am sick of having to cover for women with children dropping everything because little Johnnie has the sniffles or it's his school play, or the childminder has let them down or, god forbid, it's the school holidays! Decide what is important to you, career or kids, and concentrate on that. You can't have the best of everything all the time. Sacrifices have to be made, be it through the price of food you buy to feed your brood, or where you go on holiday or which Sky channels you have piped into your house. Families should learn to spend within their income and budget, rather than being beholden to Mammon all the time.

BTW I am childless through choice and may be slightly guilty of putting my animals (farm and domestic) before work on about three occasions in the last 5 years (that I can remember!)

Right, having got that off my chest I am off to construct my nuclear bunker on a deserted island where none of you can find me!

katndog2:

Decide what is important to you, career or kids, and concentrate on that. You can't have the best of everything all the time.

 

Completely agree. Having a career + children + husband is a juggling act and one has to decide where the compromises are to be made. Nuclear bunker is looking quite full.

 

peesie:

Quite a number of them would,in my opinion,have a better quality of life if one of them didnt work.

Yup.

burocrat basher:

Just to change Tack a little but do any Posters have views on what causes Inflation and what are the general effects of this Phenonamon or evil and is it for good or bad for a Nation.

Inflation is caused by an imbalance of supply and demand. Try here for a nice guide.  http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/targettwopointzero/inflation/whatcausesinflation.aspx

 

peesie:

Current thinking seems to be that 1-2% inflation is good.Above or below is bad.

Although historically, inflation pretty much didnt exist. Inflation is something that governments feel the need to try and tame. I suppose that, in the olden days when food was a large % of income, the effects of inflation were bad things like mass starvation. 

One could say then, that inflation, quality of lives, childcare etc could be sorted easily by having a single breadwinner in the house. Would also reduce number of unemployed. But it doesnt work unless childless couples have only one breadwinner, or society realises the value in some of its members generating offspring and is willing to support them financially. 

old mcdonald:

but I sometimes wonder about your long-term aims, although I also think that you have the intelligence to not be ofended by this post and understand the point that I am endeavouring to make

 

When I was younger, I was a fan of income. Now i see that really financial weath is made up of the income and capital parts combined. To make more wealth, there is some degree of juggling. Farming allows, to an extent, to efficiently decide on April 5th if I have more income of capital that year. I suppose my post really says that long-term planning can be deceptive, and that really the long-term is a lot of short-terms all joined together, and long-term planning is pretty much impossible. Hope that makes some sense. 

Given that, as someone with assets I will have to pay for my long-term care costs (at todays political thinking) and these are c£700 a week, I expect I will need the income when I am an old codger.

old mcdonald:

I picked her out whilst stil at school and have never regretted it

 

Same here. 1st girlfriend, mine. 

Thing is, I think some people are more / less suited to be in the house with the kids and cooker. And you dont find that out until long after the littles are born. I wont have a childminder. My children need consistency, and a full-time nanny for the next 9 years is a reasonable compromise given my wife wants a career. In France, they would be in full-time nursery / chilcare from about 1. Its a cultural thing, and I dont think it does serious harm to the children, but does give a different parent/child relationship. Different, not worse.

www.wolfbane.com/rpi.htm

Here's a hundred year inflation table with January 1987 as the base point. 4p would have bought your pounds worth of goods in 1915 and this year you needed £2.38. Over those hundred years the increase in cost of living has been fairly consistent except for the 20's depression, the second world war and a few economic crises on the way.

The alternatives to some inflation are stagnation or deflation both of which cause consumers to stop spending and an economy enters a viscious circle of contraction. Thats why the current thinking is for the Bank of England to do it's utmost to maintain a 2% level of inflation by the control of credit supply and interest rates. Unfortunately in a global recession ,with several countries on the brink of collapse, neither the Govenment nor the BoE is the master of the UK economy.

markw:

The alternatives to some inflation are stagnation or deflation both of which cause consumers to stop spending and an economy enters a viscious circle of contraction.

 

Or a constant money supply. 

If you have the time, a graph of UK money supply vs land prices might be interesting. Or if you are very bored, go and have a look at the relationship of money supply with inflation.