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Interesting article on the BBC’s website about the cost of living, putting Cardiff at the top of the list, with Glasgow at 80% and London at 73% of average income going out on bills.

I’m not very surprised by this ‘news’ (you can tell it’s the Silly Season) for a couple of reasons: Council tax bills here in Glasgow require a deep breath and a stiff drink when reading. We’re paying over £2000 a year to the council (admittedly, that includes water rates) for a Band E property. But this sum comes as quite a surprise to folk when I tell them, as many people (including, I’ll confess, myself until we started looking at moving up here) think that the rest of the UK is cheap, and that fleeing to the regions is a recipe for saving money.

Ah well, like many statistics, it’s rather flawed. Whilst Londoners may well pay more money out, they’re also earning more (as explained in the article). But also average wages are just that - there are plenty of people above the average, and below the average (by definition), and you have to wonder how big the survey size is (Just look at the small print on cosmetic adverts to see what you can get when you have a small survey size) . So it gets altogether rather muddy, and silly, especially as credit card debt repayment is included in this, and far too many people are just plain foolish with them. Is it any wonder we’re seeing a raft of adverts for getting out of debt right now, hot on the heels of the interest rate rise?

As Disraeli said, There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Plus a lot of people don’t seem to know how to manage personal finances, and including that in the curriculum would go a long way to solving the dangerous problem of ever increasing levels of debt.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 10:29 am and is filed under Glasgow, London, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.