The Woodses
  • Home
    • Why we are here... >
      • Who we are
      • Ollie's page
      • Where we are >
        • Holidays
        • Links
        • Sparham pools
        • Views around Lyng
        • A walk around Lyng...
        • Light relief
        • Snow!
        • Snow 2013
    • Old holiday kit...
    • Caravans
    • New caravan
    • Head turning
    • Page of pride
    • Blog >
      • Holiday blog
      • And other blogs...
    • Places and people >
      • Family matters
      • A weekend with the Wests
      • Liverpool with friends
      • Pets R ours
  • Our pictures
    • Facebook >
      • Linked In >
        • Holiday blog
      • The wider world of the web >
        • Stationers
  • Music
  • Life on the Ladder
    • Life on the Ladder 1 A beginning >
      • Life on the Ladder 2 Our 'ouse
      • Life on the Ladder 3 On the street
      • Life on the Ladder 4 Slow cooked turkey
      • Life on the Ladder - 5 The people you meet
      • Life on the Ladder - 6 Inside, downstairs
      • Life on the Ladder - 7 The view from above
      • Life on the Ladder - 8 Consumers!
      • Life on the Ladder - 9 Food - but not as we know it
      • Life on the Ladder - 10 Hornsey Town Hall
      • Life on the Ladder - 11
      • Life on the Ladder 12
      • Living on the Ladder 1
      • Living on the Ladder 2
      • Living on the Ladder 3
  • Where we are
    • April and May 2014
  • Golden Wedding
  • Golden Wedding thoughts
  • Hintlesham night out
  • Ooop north again....
  • Lyng Causeway
  • Village Hall archive
  • 2015 France April
  • 2015 France May - Part 1
  • 2015 France May - Part 2
  • East Mersea weekend
  • Birthday 72
  • Weekend in Wales
  • The last knock down
  • Bollington 2016
  • One man went to moan
  • Pat - a bientot
  • Our dogs
  • New Scientist
  • Hello Halstead
  • Ollie's page
  • Spain 2018
  • Living on the Ladder 1
  • Living on the Ladder 2
  • Living on the Ladder 4
  • New Page

What's in a million? No, really...

2/5/2013

0 Comments

 
Apparently there are more millianaires in the UK than ever before and the number grew by 7.9 % last year. There are now said to be over 300,000 people worth over a million. And yet we remain convinced these people are actually RICH. 
In fact they are not. That million would be equivalent to £67,000 or so in 1962. In fact the first £200,000 football pool pay out was in 1957 and to match that today you would need to win £3.6 million. Oddly of course on the lottery today you win even more than that. 
So what's in a million and why do we continue to rate it so highly? After all London is full of houses worth far more than a million and even Manchester, Birmingham - indeed almost any city will have some. And to get a significant pension you need a pension pot over a million pounds. That will earn up to £50,000 a year so it can be seen that even pensioners with half that have a big pot. A couple both with decent pension may well have a million pound pot. 
The average price of a house today is £160,000 but double that in London and the south east. My first house was bought in 1968 and cost us £3,675 (we even borrowed the deposit so it was a 100 per cent mortgage!). That amount of money is today equivalent to £44,000 or so. 
But a similar house last changed hands a few years ago for £250,000! Which makes a mockery of our passion for the millionaire.
Back in 1967 a millionaire could have bought the best house in Tonbridge, Kent - probably for £50k, chosen  a Rolls Royce for each foot and still had more than enough left to get the local boatbuilders Tylers to hand create a 60 foot yacht!.
Today our millionaire would have to be content with my semi, one Roller at about £250k and something off the shelf from the boat yard.
Taking the 60s as a benchmark, ordinary inflation means the 1960s £1 is worth about 5p today. In fact a newspaper was less than 1p back then and today is anything from 70p up today. Beer was about two bob a pint and is now about £3 (bargain?). Petrol was about 13 shillings (65p) a gallon - which is about 15p a litre!
But using house price inflation the figure is terrifyingly higher. In London and the south-east an  ordinary semi will have gone up by a factor of 60 or 70 times.
On that basis I think we all need to calm down about millionaires. I know, I know it means we cannot hate the cabinet anything like as much but that's real life. Anyway, people are not what they own;  they are what they do so just carry on hating! This lot deserve it.
I would like everyone to use the lottery top prize as their new "Gosh Wow" factor - if it ain't at least £10MILL it ain't nothing. Mind you, we do have an awful lot of billionaires around now and that is, even today, an obscene amount of *spodoolicks!
*sadly obsolete for money or pounds.



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture