Financial Makeover

All this gloomy financial news at the moment is making me more financially conscious than I've been for a while.

So I've taken the opportunity to review my list of standing orders and direct debits today. As a result I've cancelled several and discovered one howler - a payment that has been going out for the past 16 months when it shouldn't have. Came to almost £300. Steps have been taken and it will all be repaid, so no lasting damage.

It shows what happens though when you are sufficiently financially secure not to be worrying each month about what's in the bank. We've enjoyed that position for ten years or so and clearly it's an age that is coming to an end. I'm referring here to having to live off a clergy stipend from next year, rather than the general economic crises, although that too has brought the 'nice' decade to an end.

The other financial news though today was for Becky. The cost of a Uni education is much higher than I thought. We've already shelled out over £4k for her accommodation for the first year; her tuition fees are over £3k and then she has to eat and drink of course.

So I reckon it's going to cost £10k a year for each of them - £6k of which can be borrowed under the student loan scheme. Fortunately we've been saving for years for this in the hope that both Becky and Kieran would leave college (after first degrees anyway) without debts. I don't think we're going to have saved quite enough but should get within £2/3k of the total cost for each of them.

Which all goes to illustrate well what we all know. Only the rich can afford an education and debt is being structurally built into many young people's lives - even before they've had a chance to earn a living.

I don't believe that is the way to encourage young adults to acquire the skills they need so that they may enjoy life in all its abundance.

I don't believe it's indicative of a Christian approach to economics either. The common good must lie at the heart of that.

What it is doing is encouraging a fragmentation of society that will damage us all, not simply those with debts to repay. There are plenty of stories in the Old Testament about that.

The success of a society cannot be measured on a balance sheet.