Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Not so very bright

Talking about what annoys me today involves me revealing a secret shame, á la those awful Trisha type chat-shows... and it is, dun-dun-dun - me watching Trisha today*.

You see, the sponsors of Trisha are Bright House, your weekly payment store, that allows you to buy things you can't normally afford - at a 29.9% interest rate. What bugs me about the adverts is that they show people buying flatscreen tvs, game consoles and such-like.

While it's surely up to you what you go into debt for, and in theory I'm all for people making their own choices, it makes me itch and itch and itch.

You don't need those things! For goodness sake don't buy them if you haven't got the money lying about waiting to be spent!

The only things I could see in these ads as valid** expenditures were sofas and fridges. And even then, I'm not really on your side***. If you troll around looking at the cards in shop windows, tour the charity shops, look up freecycle and network with friends & family you can pick up absolute bargains in secondhand furniture, even get items free. Or you can go to reclaim stores for reconditioned furniture and white goods. There are options other than buying brand new at high rates of interest.

OK, what you get may not be absolutely to your taste but when you can afford it better you can always trade up. OK, a reconditioned fridge may not have the life expectancy of a brand new one, but it'll do the job and I've always had very good value out of mine, to date. At least you're not paying a third extra for the privilege as well.

Grr.

I wonder what it says about the intended audience of a tv show like that, when they get sponsored by such companies. I suppose I don't take offence at Spondex/Spongex/whatever it is type of marigolds that sponsored House, 'though.


* At least it wasn't Jeremy Kyle, eh?
** According to the Gospel of Mephitis.
*** If 'you' were to be a dying-to-get-into-more-debt sort of person.
In which case, stop it and behave!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's definitely been a change in that people seem to expect brand new things as a given right.

Have had real problems trying to sell on (cheaply) a pram and a bike - being told by dealers there was little market as people want new and will (and will pay tomorrow to have today). It's got to be the latest shiny new thing.

Managed to pass on the items through charity shops so all was not lost. Freecycle is a great idea too, although not used that yet myself.

Anonymous said...

I concur, Freecycle is great, we used it to get rid of a spare mattress we never used, and various other things in our shed like a baby's cot that was in perfect nick. I intend to use it to get myself a bicycle, when I get my act together. It's better to get an old bike cos it's less nickable. Abster x

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with you. I work in a Brighthouse shop and most customers want full italian leather suites, 47" lcd tv's, top of the range everything AND they don't even work. I havent got any of this stuff and I work, not by choice in Brighthouse though but at least I work. People are greedy and jealous, they have to have it all but are not willing to work for it, they cant stand their mates having more than them. They are so false and shallow.Its not the companys fault, they dont force people to buy from them and there apr is the same as catalogues but catalogues dont get slagged off.