I'm old enough to remember when anything you bought had a price. You could either afford it or you couldn't. If you couldn't you could borrow on Hire Purchase. Mortgage deposits were 2.5 times your salary & even professional women's salaries couldn't be counted. Credit cards didn't exist, but you could talk to your local bank manager and try to negotiate a loan. Basically ordinary working people saved up to buy things & went without if they didn't have the money. Second hand was commonplace. We weren't ashamed to be given furniture by friends & family, younger children were used to hand me down clothes.
Things have changed, sometimes for the good. Often for worse.
What p..... me off is the fact that there is a business culture of ripping off the public, charging excessive amounts if they can get away with it, not valuing customer loyalty.
Everything you buy, unless it's unique, can vary enormously in price. For example - I am about to have a stair lift fitted. The variation between the three quotes I got was hundreds of pounds. The highest quote was from Age Concern, who are in partnership with a stair lift company, (for the identical stairlift). I don't mind donating to a charity, but not when that donation is hidden within a commercial transaction.
Every time I renew anything, insurance, phone & broadband, energy, bank accounts - Or when I buy anything, big or small - holidays, white goods, TV's... I have to check to see whether I'm paying a reasonable price. I have to spend a considerable ammount of time, usually on line on comparison sites, checking what I should be paying.
There are specific sites to do this, Money Supermarket, Money Saving Expert, uSwitch, Which....All of whom make money out of helping us to buy something without getting ripped off.
Why on earth have we reached this point where the consumer needs advice & protection from everyone who sells us anything? "Buyer Beware" has never been more relevant.
Why are the public treated with so little respect by big companies for whom the bottom line is everything? All they are really interested in is paying shareholders big enough dividends so that they won't query the excessive salaries the top management are paying themselves.
The world has become enslaved to big business. Politicians are lobbied hard & a lot of money is spent ensuring that what the business world wants it gets. The consumer is a very small & insignificant cog in the wheel of commerce. The balance of power is weighted against ordinary people.
Now our consumerism is seriously damaging our world. We, all, created this mess.
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