I mean what is the point? ii

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Dear Mr Blair,

I am writing to you for some financial advice. I am very confused as to what I should do with my money. To start with, there are my student loans which I am paying off at £50 per month. Im also still paying off my overdraft and debts to my parents. On top of that, I remember that recently the pensions minister advised young people to save more money for retirement.

So far so broke but in addition to all this, I live in London. Rent is a constant drain, and I and hope to buy at some point. But living here, a one-bedroom flat could easily cost £200,000! What savings I did have were spent during my University degree, so my boyfriend and I need to save for a deposit.

My younger sister is 9 and may wish to go to University in 9 years. I feel really worried at the idea of her potentially being saddled with £9,000 in tuition fees so would like to help her out but supposing my boyfriend and I want to have children of our own? (Can we afford it, with childcare being so expensive? Maybe I should save towards that instead) I know that we are encouraged to have children, so that they can earn taxes to pay for well, for your retirement, now I think about it. And I know that we should have those children earlier, so that we are more likely to have healthy children or be able to have children at all. So putting it off until we can afford it doesn’t seem feasible.

Im sure that more debt isnt an option, as I can hardly turn on the TV without being simultaneously bombarded with adverts for more loans, and sober newsreaders telling me not to get more loans. So Ive got to find the money from somewhere.

But I found it so hard to get a job once Id graduated. I temped to begin with, doing data entry, while I printed out cvs and application forms. There were far more applicants for the graduate jobs than there were places. Most of the jobs I applied for didn’t even require a graduate. And I went to a University that considers itself the best in the country!

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