http://blog.torgodevil.com/archives/351 Crunky! This is a blog about an English teacher living in South Korea. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:14:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 http://blog.torgodevil.com/archives/351#comment-2247 Eric Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:08:32 +0000 http://www.torgodevil.com/archives/351#comment-2247 I read about something like this in a book called The Other Americans, I think. It was about recent (1990s-ish based on the copyright) immigrants. Some populations from the Caribbean have a system like this. It really is dependent upon the strength of the community trust. But the advantage is you don't have to wait as long for a huge chunk of money. Most of the people interviewed for the book were using it as a down payment for a home. Saving up the same amount of money in a bank on your own would take longer. I read about something like this in a book called The Other Americans, I think. It was about recent (1990s-ish based on the copyright) immigrants. Some populations from the Caribbean have a system like this. It really is dependent upon the strength of the community trust. But the advantage is you don’t have to wait as long for a huge chunk of money. Most of the people interviewed for the book were using it as a down payment for a home. Saving up the same amount of money in a bank on your own would take longer.

]]> http://blog.torgodevil.com/archives/351#comment-2243 jonallen Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:11:31 +0000 http://www.torgodevil.com/archives/351#comment-2243 There was a sad story just before Christmas in the UK where a firm that took small weekly payments (£1 or £2) during the for a "christmas hamper" at the end of the year. They went bankrupt and thousands of poor people who had been saving with this company lost money and had a sad christmas with no hamper. They did not get any compensation because the company was not a financial instition and was not covered by any scheme like the banks are. We may all hate banks but there are a certain number of advantages to them! There was a sad story just before Christmas in the UK where a firm that took small weekly payments (£1 or £2) during the for a “christmas hamper” at the end of the year. They went bankrupt and thousands of poor people who had been saving with this company lost money and had a sad christmas with no hamper.
They did not get any compensation because the company was not a financial instition and was not covered by any scheme like the banks are.
We may all hate banks but there are a certain number of advantages to them!

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