FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Fritter Nation

By Jane Mack (TMFJane)
April 17, 2003

You've probably noticed that the adverts on television at the moment mostly seem to have some connection with home improvements. This is hardly surprising as, with the advent of the Easter break, the world and his wife always seem to spend it trawling around Homebase or the DFS Furniture Store. For some reason people get it into their heads that this is exactly the right time of year to redecorate the sitting room or lay the new patio.

Having been guilty of it myself, I wasn't surprised, therefore, to read two reports published earlier this month pointing out how much we fritter away on useless items.

According to the internet bank, Cahoot, a staggering £0.5 billion is being spent on power tools that are left to gather dust.  More and more of us don't have even the most rudimentary DIY skills such as changing a plug, putting up shelves, decorating or putting up flat pack furniture. It's clear we have good intentions though – 85% of us own at least one power tool, such as an electric drill or screwdriver, but around 30% of us have not plugged them in for over a year or even bothered to get them out of the box.

(I can testify to that actually considering we bought a wallpaper steam stripper four years ago and it's still sitting in its box, unused, in the shed).

Our lack of ability or rather, our ability to botch up DIY jobs means that we spend a further £1 billion a year on getting the experts in to do even the most simple home improvements.

• One in five of those surveyed do not know how to change a plug
• One in three admitted to not even knowing how to put up flat pack furniture
• One in three do not know how to put up shelves
• Nearly one in five are not confident to even change a halogen bulb

This is truly pathetic but it may be that, as many of us tend to have more money these days, we can't be bothered to DIY.

Much as we like buying power tools that we don't know how to use, we also fritter away billions of pounds each year on other useless items.

Research from Cahoot's parent bank, Abbey National, also reveals that we waste more than £14 billion every year on uneaten food, unworn clothes, expensive ready-meals and takeaways, unnecessary cabs, abandoned gadgets, hobbies and gym memberships and uncompetitive current accounts and credit cards.

Every year, we fritter away on average:

• £501 on expensive ready-meals and takeaways rather than cooking from scratch
• £212 on unnecessary day-to-day purchases, for example taking a taxi rather than public transport
• £155 a year each on food that never gets eaten
• £23 on clothes that we never wear
• £38 on gadgets that we have to have and then never use
• £19 on hobbies that don't last past the first flush on enthusiasm

I'm guilty of at least three of those which is annoying when you think that such waste could add up to the cost of a little holiday or start off an ISA.

More importantly, we're wasting money not just by our random spending but also by not keeping an eye on where we keep our money.

The Abbey National found that customers of the Big Four banks (Barclays, Lloyds TSB, HSBC and NatWest) are losing £500 million every year (£20 per customer) in lost interest payments and high overdraft rates by not moving their account to a better deal. Credit card customers of the Big Four banks could also save more than £2 billion in a year (£66 per customer) if they switched their balance to a credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers for six months.

Of course the purpose of the Abbey National report is to persuade you that they offer a better deal – and maybe they do in comparison to your current bank but it's always worth shopping around.

While there may be something liberating about frittering money away on treats for ourselves, there's no reason why people should put up with low interest rates on their current account or high rates on their credit cards. And they're right when they say that that's more like setting fire to your own money. Spending a few minutes changing to a better deal will make people better off - so that the odd taxi home, takeaway or mistaken clothing purchase doesn't have such a negative effect on the old bank balance.

So, if you need encouragement from your neighbours to handle your money better than Scotland, London and the South East are areas where people tend to shop around more for better deals.

And if you want to practice your DIY skills so all those power tools you bought aren't wasted, then move to Wales. Apparently, the Welsh are quite good at DIY!

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