Renovating a Ruin Over Time

[idun]

BIB, what is wrong with you. Asset rich does not mean that someone actually has much money to live on........

Goodness me, how many of us did that in the 1980's when mortgages were about 17%, at least our french one was......... dirt poor we were and prepared to be to buy our home, were we wrong too??????????

And that was obviously a choice Chancer made and I did not sense whinging just the stating of how he lived his life, because actually too many people bemoan a low income and cannot manage on it.... and some of us can use our noddles and just get on with it.

 

[Chancer]

[quote user="BritinBretagne"]I'm not questioning what he's done, I'm questioning the poor poor Chancer who was destitute. From reading about the assets he had behind him throughout his period of poverty I believe he has a different definition for down and out than many of the rest of us.[/quote]

 

Its a strange obsession you have BIB.

 

I have never pleaded poverty, or said that I was destitute, that is your choice of words, I was without question living on the sum I mentioned drawn from my savings I still have the annual/monthly/weekly spending figures on my coffee table to remind me of how Lucky I am now, IIRC it was one third of the French taux de pauvreté and I did not claim any benefits, I did not feel poor or hard done by, quite the opposite, assets dont put food on the table or pay taxe d'hab (which tripled at that time) or electricity, savings dwindle to nothing and I got very close before the tide finally turned.

 

Yes I had a fixed asset, one that I worked hard and saved décades for, and also the savings that I used to buy and renovate my ruin in France and to put food on the table and keep the roof above my head during that time, I did not remortgage like many, I paid mine off early through hard work and then saved again for many years to be able to jump off the merry go round, why do you have such a problem with that?

 

Another thing happened during that time which for a short while really caused me anguish because initially there was no hope whatsoever, not a case of waiting for the situation to improve, I foolishly put all my savings in an Icelandic bank for the interest, one morning everything was gone, no hope of seeing any of it ever again, at the time I was due to transfer money to my French account to pay my property taxes, the electric and other bills and was left with no money, having bricks and mortar in another country is not a lot of use when you need to eat, to buy a ferry ticket and diesel to return to begin the long process of selling a fixed asset.

 

I was not the only one on the forum to wake up to that nightmare, I remember vividly that it gave great joy to and brought out the very worst in a few  people on this forum, it is possible that one of them has returned with a new identity.

[richard51]

Sorry but I'm with BinB here. Just as a comparator: when Chancer was at his lowest income then in 2010 490 euros per month (I calculated it from weekly official figure) was the income for a single person living on an old age pension. He did require being frugal as his income was below this but it was eminently possible as he duly says.

Idun: being asset rich, in my humble opinion, means that being cash poor does not land you in despair . One can always pay off what is owing and indeed live well.

I and my family had zero cash and fixed assets at one time but I had the education and desire to create an income to live on and create a better future. Not excessive but sufficient. I'd have really loved to have had assets, including hereditary ones, to back me up though!

What I really get annoyed about (sort of getting back to the topic) is when people say that THEY have built a wonderful home when they paid others to do the various tasks and really just project managed it. I do take my hat off to the people here who can actually truthfully say that they did it themselves.

Nb My other pet hate is when people in management positions talk about THEIR staff and not about them as colleagues who work in the department they manage. (or THEIR department!)

Nb2 Putting money in Icelandic banks was just, imho, being greedy and people were after the unsustainable rates offered - very neo-liberal!

[Chancer]

Stupid yes but greedy?

If you compared it with todays rates then it would seem greedy,  but from memory it was less than what my savings had been earning in previous years but a little more than all the UK bank and building society rates had fallen to, we are only talking about half or one percent, at the time Kaupthing and Singer or (whatever they were called) deposits were supposed to be protected by the same guarantees as the UK ones but that turned out not to be true, they were being recommended by the sites like Moneysaver whatever it is (the Martin Lewis one) just like Santander are today.

 

It was only because I was under the radar in France at that time and was ostensibly a UK saver with the bank that I was bailed out by the UK government, the overseas customers including French résidents lost everything and the whole thing was hushed up, there was a woman on this forum who borrowed some money to return to the UK with to try and get some redress, she was never heard from again. Luck has always been responsable for my good fortune, never any planned décisions of mine.

 

I was stupid to put all my eggs in one basket but it was not greed, remember at that time I had no income, my savings were dwindling and the interest was still a small but measurable figure which was important to diminish the decline, now most of my money earns no interest.

 

I agree with all you say especially that about the renovators who do no more than sign cheques, they should call themselves property developers.

 

I should add that I have never had any inheritance whatsoever, I left home at 16 and all I ever got towards my rented flat was my mothers ironing board which I had to fight hard for, my stepbrothers got the entire contents of my both father and stepmothers houses between them. I saved from day 1 and ran a second car repair business outside of my apprenticeship to put me through college, the Guiness trust saved me with a rented bed-sit when I was living in a tent and I finally got a mortgage on my first flat at 22 years old, 2 years before I finished technical college, some of my classmates did a self build but they were married and had 2 incomes, it was beyond my means both physical and financial.

 

PS; I had to Google what neo-liberal meant, very astute of you, given that the UK government did in fact bail me out of my stupid mistake its a very fitting tag!

[idun]

Well getting a french mortgage in the early 80's meant that we could not pay it off or live well. I haven't the energy to go into how things worked in France then, but there you go! That is how it was!

[Théière]

Bloody luxury, when I were a lad there were 16 of us sharing a shoe box int middle of road

[woolybanana]

You were rich, we had a matchbox floating on a puddle in't midl uv cart track; ten of us in there. We were severely undernourished, only way we could all fit in

[richard51]

Thanks for reminding me. A third great great hate is the London and SE divide with the rest of the country/UK. Probably why we are in the Brexit mess that we are in now.