Rebecca O'Connor

‘Invisible spending’ is turning us into a nation of Micawbers

You don’t have to be an economist to know that if you spend more than you earn, you’re in trouble. As Micawber famously said in David Copperfield: ‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.’

But what Micawber couldn’t account for was the swathe of stuff we would find ourselves paying for to live a modern life in the 21st century. Back in those days, there were five outgoings: food, clothes, heat, light and accommodation.

We have the same today, but added to that there’s the home phone, mobile phone, broadband, laptops, tablets, Apple Pay, iTunes, train fares, cars, childcare, overdraft facilities, credit cards, loans, mortgages that are five times income, student debt repayments, five insurance policies, Pret a Manger, holidays in France, apps, subscriptions, NowTV, Netflix and a bottle of red wine a night to wash it down.

I know what you’re going to say. If you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t have it. There is no question that is true. But what Micawber also didn’t have as he uttered his fail-safe route to financial harmony was the constant barrage of advertising, the consumer society, the buy now, pay later culture of which most of us have happily partaken, but have been heavily influenced into accepting as normal.

In this world of easy payments and small treats everywhere, it’s hard to Micawber our own finances. Outgoings spread like impetigo: you think you’ve contained them, then up pops another one. The rhizomatic encroachment of technology across our every interaction has resulted in more tiny, regular, disaggregated payments which, taken together over a year, add up to a two-week holiday in Tuscany.

What happens in our brains as we make such decisions is something like this: ‘that Birchbox subscription for £12.99

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