Travel before mortgage

AdelaideNow... Travel before mortgage:

"And when it comes to this year's tax returns, a new report by ING Direct and the Melbourne Institute has revealed more South Australians will fritter the money away than will plunge it into the mortgage."

The article may be small but it is pretty harsh and judgemental. Frittering on holidays or anything else may not be what it is. People are working long hours. Our jobs have become a job and a half and increasingly we are becoming clerks as well as whatever else we do. Then we get to print our own photos, pay our own bills, do our own banking, pay levies for this and levies for that. Do this do that. Come and be a regular person and the pressure is on. Why not get away from it all? Then there is the pressure to have a certain type of home with the right post code, drink the right wine, be in the right coffee shops have the right entertainments and a mobile or two. This is the economy speaking. Travel has become fashionable to help get people away from it all, because people are now curious about other places and because it's the thing to do. How many travel shows have we on TV? The mortgage will always be there and the penalties for paying it off faster are quite severe. It's about having and who developed that as a notion? We'd have to shift the emphasis back to other things if we wanted the mortgage to be a priority. Poeple are paying for everything and working to try and get those things people are supposed to have these days. Modest living has gone by the board and the occasional trip overseas doesn't exist. The haves are doing everything a lot. The have nots don't even have a mortgage. So shift the values in our daily living, ease the pressure, spread the wealth and maybe we'll stop being fritterers. It's only frittering when you disapprove or you think you have more money than others.