Being poor isnt having to wait for the sale to buy a new flat screen TV

Being poor isnt having to wait for the sale to buy a new flat screen TV

Last weekend on both sides of the great ocean pond we got a stark reminder of the lengths some people will go in order to grab themselves a perceived bargain. All the major news outlets and social media sites were filled with videos and images of desperate people pushing over each other to be the one of the lucky few who manage to grab a slightly reduced no-name TV.  The behaviour and complete lack of self dignity displayed by these people never fails to amaze me each year. Infact the hysteria can reach such high levels that people have actually died during such events. The appropriately named BlackFridayDeathCount keeps a running tally of the current deaths and injuries occurring over the past 8 years.

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Quick, gotta get that piece of flimsy plastic

It’s now become such a well known event that many people are deciding to purposely avoid going into towns on Black Friday. Many other personal finance blogs were quick to comment on and mock the disgusting displays of consumerism following the weekend, however what I found more interesting was the occasionally reported opinion that instead of mocking these people.. we ought to feel pity for them and their situations. One work colleague of mine even attempted to use the violence demonstrated in some shops last weekend as a point to show how desperate the poor in this country were becoming! Apparently It’s perfectly reasonable to trample all over an elderly woman if it means your poor children back home can get their brand new flat screen tv.

“Being poor isn’t having to wait for a sale to buy a new flat screen TV”

 

I’ve been poor. Whilst a student at university and for some time while living in Sydney I was extremely poor. 49p packs of pasta with an 18p tomato sauce became the staple meal option while entertainment consisted of free outdoor activities or crowding around our free-from-gumtree ancient TV set in the evenings. To suggest that these people are poor purely because they need to wait for a sale and become violent in order to obtain an £80 discount from a £220 flat screen TV is insane, and an absolute insult to those genuinely struggling to feed their families each week.

One guy interviewed for local TV was positively beaming with delight as he explained how he had fought his way through the crowds in order to get one of the reduced televisions, and how happy his 5 year old child would be to receive it. These people aren’t poor; they’re greedy. And if they genuinely are poor perhaps there would be more efficient uses of my tax payer benefit money than to go towards an oversized luxury good for a child too young to appreciate it’s value.

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The real gem from this whole fiasco however came a few days later when the media started reporting that many of these bargain TVs were now on E-Bay. It seems our poor desperate shoppers perhaps weren’t all they first appeared afterall. Ironically it now looks like the tv touts are struggling to get rid of their quick-buck goods:

 

Which makes me wonder: If it hadnt been for the advertising hype and stampeding crowds.. Would anyone have actually bought this crap? Instead of being £219 reduced to £139, what if they had been available all year at the lower price? And would we still have people trying to prove the point of poverty in this country by pointing out how we must feel sorry for these people buying the £139 brand new flat screen TV? I suspect not.

 

13 thoughts on “Being poor isnt having to wait for the sale to buy a new flat screen TV

  1. I tend to think of those people as being more stupid than greedy. Firstly, fighting and stampeding into a store – really? We’re supposed to live in a civilised society! Secondly, they’ve just allowed themselves to be duped and brainwashed by all the media frenzy and believed in all the hype. The only good thing that may come out of Black Friday is if it’s actually helped the UK Retail economy!

    As for buying flat screen TVs for 5 year olds. perhaps these people will become poor (in their sense of the word) if they continue to buy those sorts of expensive presents for kids. Jamie Oliver once caused a bit of an uproar when he passed comment about people in ‘poverty’ and their tv sets – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10266648/Jamie-Oliver-sparks-poverty-row-after-he-attacks-families-for-eating-junk-food-and-buying-expensive-TV-sets.html

    1. Perhaps it is stupidity instead of pure greed. Either way; these adults should know better.

      I did recall reading about Mr Oliver’s comments awhile ago and to an extent I do agree with him. Making meals from scratch is nearly always cheaper, especially for native vegetables. I’d maybe be more sympathetic to these people if it wern’t for the violent behaviour which also accompanied the black friday stampedes.

  2. It always amazes me to see people going crazy on these Black Friday sales. Do you really need that 70″ TV at home? Can’t you use that money and do something else instead?

  3. I don’t think they are stupid, they are marking their territory and showing their status like the human animal has been doing for millions of years

    As far as I can see it there are different status symbols depending the social class you find yourself:

    – the lowest class define their status by the size of their tv their sofa and the number of gadgets they have
    – the largest class (the middle class) define their status by the size of their house, the make of their car and the number/opulence of their holidays
    – the upper class (by this I mean the truly rich) define themselves by how much money and assets they have (yachts, houses, estates)

    The person paying £150 for a cut-price TV is no more stupid than a billionaire paying £10m for a Damian Hirst painting/sculpture that got made in a factory that Damian Hirst didn’t even touch

    Escaping the rat race of status is hard for humans

    1. Hello Neverland,

      Excellent point! And I totally agree with you that the billionair is as much a fool for wasteful purchases. The difference however is that we are not made to try and feel sorry for the billionaire’s situations and sympathy for their poor decisions.

      1. @Guy

        Have you never read one of those “how-we-struggle-to live-in-a-five-bedroom-detached-house-and-send-our-four-children-to-private-school-on-£100,000-a-year-income” stories that appear every few months in the Daily Mail then?

        Its just click-bait

  4. It’s hard not to draw sweeping conclusions when there is so much evidence in front of you isn’t it!

    On the whole I think you and Oliver have it spot on, simply because I know for a fact that you can eat really healthily for cheap because that is what I do (~£100/month), and I think my food spending is quite opulent. I could definitely cut down while remaining healthy.

    The problem here I think is one of education and, dare I say it, pure laziness. Some people just cannot be bothered to cook from scratch all the time which is how you get the healthiest meals for lowest cost. This is not limited to poor people! So let’s not draw that stereo type.

    There is always the excuse of being too tired and not having enough time after pulling a 15 hour shift just to put food on the table in the first place but, just to bring it back to the original topic nicely, I would wager that those with “no time” to cook healthy meals spend more than the average 4 hours a day sat on their ill defined derriers in front of their 50″ TV bought on black Friday :)

    1. Hello TFS,

      I agree on the point of education. Many kids these days arnt taught even basic cooking skills and it’s just far easier to drive down to McDonalds instead. Like you; I eat relativly healthily and our food spending isnt massive. I could easily cut it down by alot more if we bought more fresh ingrediants.

  5. Hi Guy,

    A fascinating debate, and there are some well argued points above.

    I agree that there is some lack of foresight from the die hard Black Friday (BF) shoppers. Neverland is right, stupidity (or consumerism) isn’t restricted to the BF shoppers. I watched a documentary on Rolls Royce, and although I respect the amount of effort the company make to create perfection, their product is so excessive. Their customers were quick to put an order in after seeing the sparkles of diamonds within the dashboard and taking a test drive.

    On the home cooking front, I agree with TFS. I believe laziness is a big factor in why people don’t cook at home. I think there’s a bit of ignorance to the health consequences to what they’re eating too. People don’t understand/care about what they’re putting in their mouth. TFS also mentioned convenience, which I think is linked to laziness and ignorance/lack of education on nutrition. They want something now, and they don’t care or know about the details of what they’re eating.

    Thank you for posting this Guy. think we could all talk for some time about this topic!

    Cheers
    Huw

    1. Hello Huw,

      Neverland made a great point and it is worth remembering that this isnt just restricted to the ‘poor’. However I’m less concerned about how a millionaire spends their spare cash than I am about how someone supposidly living in poverty is wasting theirs.
      These people who waste their money on expensive luxury goods and then claim to be poor are distracting away from the people genuinely in need of support. I’m not one of the ultra hard-lined conservatives who believe those on benefits have absoloutly no right to buy anything non-essential.. but there is no excuse for the violence and selfishness demonstrated by some at the sales last week.

      It’s a great topic and I’m glad to host debate!

      1. @ Guy

        From the prism of an economist someone who wants to work for only about 20 years, minimising their taxes (direct and indirect) and then retire paying little or no tax while benefiting from the free services on offer from the UK state (NHS, Police, roads, legal framework etc.) living as a rentier off their capital could also be viewed of as being pretty selfish

        By contrast someone spending all their income, borrowing even more to consume, being taxed heavily and producing a litter of future little taxpayers/consumers before retiring in their 70s and then expiring shortly afterwards leaving a fat wad of inheritance tax to the state is a model citizen

        I tend to agree with you that its uncool to brawl for £100 off a TV however

        1. Excellent point Neverland! I’m not a macro economist (economics actually being my weakest module in the final year business degree) however I can appreciate the concepts. I recall reading a detailed article by MMM who went into depth about the financial and ethical implications you’ve touched on. I would however challenge that someone working for 20 years (paying the income tax, NI, VAT and Council tax) is perhaps going to pay more in those few years than someone only paying VAT on benefit cash. But we’ve gone way off on a tangent here ;)

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