Monday, August 23, 2010

Investigative Blogging: money and Other People

I know lots of interesting people (so lucky), and most of these people have and spend money in a completely different way to me. In an effort to keep me and other peeps enthused, I've started interviewing people about their attitudes towards money and how it is that they are able to keep doing the awesome things that they do!
Lizzie (L) and Me, extreme-close-up-and-three-years-ago Edition. 
This is an interview with the Lovely Lizzie, who I've known since high school (oh those days!). Amongst the other fascinating things that makes up her loveliness, Liz runs a second hand stall at Camden Passage in Angel, London, on Saturdays, and is planning to open a shop soon. If you're in London you should visit and benefit from her Amazing Eye for such things.

Liz has always impressed me with her ability to be apparently so relaxed with money - she's inspirational in that she Lives Within her Means. Also she's very funny.


Ginger: I’ve had savings accounts on and off since I was a kid, but until relatively recently I’ve been pretty crap at keeping on top of it. How about you - do you have a savings account? When did you first start saving?

Lizzie: Am also very very very bad at saving. The only times I’ve ever been able to do it is when I’m saving for something v specific, over a short and determined period of time. That said, extreme poverty upon arrival in London did force me into a quite nifty savings/current account arrangement. When I get paid I put all of my money immediately into a savings account. I then transfer a weekly budget each Monday. This seems to be the only way that I can resist spending my entire pay cheque in the first fortnight of a monthly (!) pay cycle. Although it has the downside of making me feel a bit like a ten year old with pocket money. Now that I’ve written that, maybe the pocket money thing is more of an upside.

What about a credit card? If yes, how do you use it (i.e. as oppose to a debit card, hardly at all and pay back immediately, or, like me, max it out and spend three years paying it back?)

No credit card at the moment – my bank won’t let me! But I generally have a large fear of credit. I used to have one with the BNZ. Started out at a $3000 limit which they arbitrarily extended to $10 000. This caused me to lie awake at night wondering if my card had been swiped from my purse without me noticing. I am pretty good with credit cards though – tended to only use it to buy things online and had such a deep dread of interest that I would pay it off within the month.

You run what I have no doubt at all is a pretty awesome second hand stall. How did you come up with the capital you needed to get it going? How are you finding managing the money and accounting side of your business? 

This question made me laugh with great joy. My stall is amazing, but its money and accounting sides are somewhat akin to a giant mock tudor mansion standing on stilt legs in the middle of a lake. Basically, when we started the stall we each put in around £100 to buy stock with. Since then, it’s been entirely self-funding but pays us pretty much nothing (aside from wine and salami sandwiches). We keep all of our money in a fetching black leatherette bumbag and don’t keep track of either out or ingoings. We know that we have had one too many free pub lunches when the bumbag runs dry, what follows is usually a couple of slightly desperate weeks when we actively sell things to people rather than just sitting a couple of metres away gossiping and drinking tea.

Despite this somewhat precarious financial situation, we are hoping to open a shop. This may sound rash. [In fact, writing it makes my heart race in an uncomfortable manner that has little to do with the four cups of coffee I’ve had this morning.] But our plans are essentially dependant on finding a shop with very cheap rent; being prepared to sell everything we own even the most cherished of secondhand possessions; both continuing to work essentially full-time at other places and each being alone in the shop for a couple of days a week [happy offshoot to this lone selling: a shop dog for company]; plus we have grand and exciting plans to use said shop’s windows as an exhibition space for funny designers. And, we would borrow around £3000 to get us started.

Exciting but exhausting. Will let you know how it goes.

How would you characterise your attitude towards money - would you describe yourself as a saver or a spender? And on the day to day - are you a hard core budgeter, or do you just take the money as it comes?

Definitely a spender. That said, relocation to England and student-based poverty has made me realise am not as much of a frivolous spender as I had previously imagined. I still buy lots of things that I don’t need, but most of my non-essential money is spent on having a fun life – going out for meals, drinks, buying coffees. [Also, I have an almost obsessive need to always have a bottle of wine and flowers in my house. This seems ridiculous, but no budgeting can ever make me stop.] What I haven’t done at all since moving here and being struck down with financial lack, is buy things. I haven’t bought any new clothes for about two years, and I never buy books or things for my house [only exception to this recently is an AMAZING 1930s children’s tea-set. It was irresistible to me].

Basically, I am excellent at spending all of the money that I have, but not living outside my means. This is generally a pretty good way to be, I think, apart from the brief moments of panic when I think about wanting to buy a house and the deep deep distance that my frittering of any penny puts me away from that point.

Finally, do you have anything that you want to add in terms of HOTT money tips?

Nope, not really. Except maybe that there is a whole world of wonder that can reached with a bag of potatoes in times of acute financial crisis?

Thanks Lizzie my love, I shall see you soon I hope. Good luck with everything!


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