So i thought i would share our reasoning behind having tablets, pc's and consoles whilst maintaining a steady pace of removing debt and living within our means.
I also wrote something very similar on a forum i visited earlier.
I think having the latest gadgets and using techology such as ipads, tablets, smart phones, tv's etc is fine as long as your not getting into debt to get them. I know its sounds silly but hear me out.
My partner and two children are obsessed with gadgets and they love mucking around with computers and playing on games.To be honest i like them to but not to the same degree. My partner decided that he wanted to have internet upstairs, so he re-routed cables so now if we wanted to we could effectively have the internet anywhere in the house.
For instance my eldest son is 12 years old so he's a typical teenage boy, the moods, humor, the lot. He has a pc and a Xbox 360 in his room. We decided when he when 10 years old he could a desktop pc in his bedroom, this was the first electrical item in his room. We decided we would allow him to have these for both his homework and entertainment. The Xbox he chats to his friends through, as he rarely leaves the house and suffered form bullying when he was younger. He's not a fighter and prefers to walk away, unfortunately this affected his confidence so even now he still gets bullied. Except now they older kids with weapons. So for me personally i'd rather him socialise with people who he likes and he feels safe at the same time. Its funny because you can hear him laughing his head off and he puts mates on loud speaker, so sometimes they's four of them all shouting and laughing at the same time!
My youngest son is 8 years old, he only has a radio in his room as we still think he is to young.
Instead in the living room he has a wii and lots of games, before we got it he struggled to play with other children. But since he started playing on the wii it has really helped his communication skills. He now is able to have a conversation with another child, which is so amazing and such a dramatic change. To go from from barely stringing two words together to having a full conversation. This year for christmas we decided to get him a tablet, he asked santa for an ipad, but they are just too expensive so went for an unbranded one off ebay. The tablet itself helps to calm him down and gives him something to focus on when were out and there's too much going on around him. Also we thought it would assist him with spelling and homework. To be honest it really has helped bring him and the tablet also has a physical keyboard he uses with it too, so it is very multifunctional.
A bit about us myself and my partner do not smoke, we very rarely drink alcohol. At christmas we bought two bottles of white wine and we stilll have one left.We try and go on very cheap uk based holidays and we budget for them accordingly. We both cook from scratch when we can, take our children to the great outdoors and visit lots of historical sites.
We have a landline and broadband, BUT we don't have any channels including the bog standard terrestrial ones. If we want to watch anything we use 4OD, itv player and bbc iplayer. this is our own personal choice, so whilst we have technology we also mix it with the traditional. To be honest we don't really watch that much tv, and don't watch soaps instead we prefer drams, documentaries and films. Before we made the decision not have sky we used to sit and veg out in front of the tv, our life was dominated by the tv guide and soaps. We also craft, make things such as benches, garden, go camping and we have a house full of books, toys and board games. When my children's friends come round they ask how to play connect 4 as they have never seen them before. Some of these children are 13 years old!
Recently we bought a new 40" flat screen tv for £250in the sales, it has freeview on it but we haven't tuned it in as we don not have an aerial. It is essentially a monitor so we can watch dvd's and play games on. Before that we had a 20 yr old tv that died a death just before christmas 2012, it had been going for a while but i refused to buy a . I wanted a smaller one but all the 20" inch tv's were than £250!!!!
We have mobile phones for business and personal but getting a contract was cheaper for us than PAYG.
This year all of our christmas presents were budgeted for and we never spent extra on credit cards. I had about £200 worth of vouchers / money which i earned from completing surveys. We used them to pay for games and gifts off amazon and ebay. The rest we paid from our cash budget. My partner was shocked that the Halo 4 game was £39.99, i bought ours off amazon using vouchers, in the end it was free.
My youngest wanted wii Lego batman 2 for christmas, priced at £25, i got it for £5 from argos. Using a mixture of nectar points and survey vouchers.
So really it does depend on your lifestyle, we don't buy designer labels, we sell / buy on ebay and hunt around charity shops for our clothes.
Right now were skint, our finances are poor, but that's not because of christmas, its through mismanagement and losing money.T he last three years of my life have been a complete turn around, we went from withdrawing cash from credit cards to pay for childcare and rent. To now , personally anyway, we have consolidated our cc debt onto two cards. I have probably paid over £6k or more worth of debt off on a very tight budget. Still have another £4k worth of debt on cc's but still it is slowly being paid off.
What i'm trying to say just because people have ipads/ tablets doesn't mean they haven't budgeted accordingly. It could be they are doing from an educational / social point of view. Or they could have saved up for the item, and thought right we have saved £200 up, dads gave us £50 for christmas,shall we treat ourselves. Its the end of the year and you know the coming year is going to be hard and you so you think yes. Lets go buy the tv so we know if the weather is rubbish and we haven't got any money to have a day out. Instead we'll make some home made pizza's, juice and home made popcorn and have a film day / night.
Its fun and everyone enjoys it, that way you don't feel deprived and you can have a good time without spending a penny!
So for us in our household its all about consciously deciding what to buy.
I hope what i've written makes sense and can give you an idea of how you can live simply whilst having things you want.
kez x
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