What is one of the most expensive things that youve ever bought?

I guess that the easy answer would be our house followed by our car but the more that I think about it the answer is much more complicated because it involves comparing the cost of what you are buying with what financial resources you have. If you have no savings or means to borrow or a small income then even something with a relatively small cost can be very expensive. When Mum and I emigrated we came with very little money so our savings have accumulated over the last fifty years or so.

We both came with backgrounds that emphasized frugality and not wasting anything and saving for the rainy day. So in our years together Mum and I always tried to live within our incomes which, at various times, was not that great. We scrimped and saved and got by. We did without a lot.

I remember one instance where Joanna and Julianne were interested in taking tap dancing lessons but there was an obvious requirement that they had to have tap dancing shoes. When we investigated we were horrified at the price - we just could not afford that level of expense. What money we had was needed to put food on the table and for clothes for the family so that is why Joanna and Julianne still cannot tap dance. Tied into all this is the belief that we were brought up with and that is not to go into debt, the only exceptions being to take out a mortgage on your house or perhaps a car but certainly never to finance the costs of day to day living.

My grandmother, Little Nana, used to say "Neither a borrower nor lender be", a quotation from Shakespeares's Macbeth in 1602 so the problem is obviously quite an old one!