Money Talks!

I very nearly didn’t become the aspiring playwright and disillusioned and cynical journalist and all-round word butcher that I am today. No sir-ree!

At one point in my life I was planning to be an accountant and after successfully negotiating my ‘O’ Level Accounts with a minimum of instruction I even had a job interview at a local firm of book-keepers. Sadly they rejected me in favour of someone who I later found out had a huge gambling addiction, which seemed to me at the time not a very good trait for somebody who needed to be good with money. So I concluded the only reason he got the job over me was that he had better hair and a better suit.

He was quite smug about this at the time but he got run over by a bus three years ago and I imagine that somewhat ruined his plush threads and also wiped the smile from his gloating face. It does however mean there’s something of an opening in the firm so I could try again… But why retread old ground? Unless the pay’s better…

I mention this because even before my potential life in debit and credit ledgers I understood a pretty basic rule of money and that was this: Don’t spend more than you have (or more than you can pay back!) because that way you end up in really serious debt. And it’s such a good lesson that Spendaholics got a second series out of it on BBC 3.

Sadly hairdresser Colin, the subject of last night’s show, had not only ignored this basic rule but pissed all over the stone tablet it was written on, smeared it with his own excrement, doused it in petrol, set it on fire and lobbed it through the window of Sensible Accounting Is Us.

Spendaholics is a great programme. It’s MVFS (Makes Viewers Feel Superior) TV and its basic premise is that the producers find somebody who treats money like confetti and films them blowing vast amounts of cash – then its presenters Jay Hunt and Benjamin Fry ride to the rescue to help them stave off the bailiffs and debtors prison.

Colin was last night’s subject and he was a hairdresser and he was gay and he was bullied as a child and our experts concluded that his flagrant use of money was an attempt to bolster his damaged sense of self-worth… That may well be the case but even to my now unfocused financial eye any idiot who routinely spends £45 on a pair of boxer shorts, doesn’t bother opening bills when they arrive and blows other vast amounts of moollah on luxury breaks and wild weekends is simply asking for trouble.

I like Spendaholics. It’s a smart BBC 3 show and the first series was pretty watchable but last night there were signs it’s starting to gimmick up. Colin couldn’t face his bills so our experts locked him in a cage with his bills stuck to the wall to make him face his bills (geddit?) and to show him where he could end up if he carried on his current road to fiscal suicide.

This is a shame because the show and its subjects are usually pretty engaging and the series doesn’t need it. You’d also have thought that a show that preaches frugality would itself be keen to keep its production budget to a minimum. But that’s a small criticism really. It all seemed to work for Colin as last night he went on a journey and managed to deal with his demons and also cut down on his ludicrous spending. So we should all feel loads better as there was a happy conclusion.

Well, for everyone but his underwear shop which may be closing down next week. Fortunately Colin will know just the people to help out if they run into financial trouble…