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Why renting is better than buying, by parents who don't want to give you a deposit

THINKING of taking your first step on the property ladder but need help with the deposit? Tight-fisted parent Mary Fisher explains why it’s actually better if you keep renting.

You’re free to move around

As a renter the world is your oyster, especially the shitty bits nobody wants to live in or house shares with weirdos. Meanwhile us fusty old homeowners have to stay in one place and slowly accrue a return on our investment. I know which option sounds more fun to me! 

It’s a bad time to buy

Depending on how you look at the housing market, it’s always a bad time to buy. If you come begging for deposit money I’ll just say prices are shooting up or the bubble is about to burst. Renting on the other hand is reliably expensive, so you’re much safer staying put.

You don’t want to be locked into a massive contract

Once you sign on the dotted line you owe the bank money for decades, and all you get in return is your own property. Talk about a millstone around your neck. Ignore the fact that your monthly rent is much more, that kind of ruins my point. How about a nice cup of tea?

Maintenance bills, what maintenance bills?

Repairs are one of many things renters don’t have to worry about. You also don’t have to fret about choosing paint colours for your walls because you’re not allowed to decorate, which must be a real relief. Although if you so much as smudge a mirror, there goes your deposit.

I want to go on a cruise next year

With luck everything will be back to normal in 2021 so we can finally go on that Saga cruise we had to postpone. If I don’t give you money to flush down the toilet on a deposit I can splash out on extras too, like a balcony cabin or the porterage service. Thanks for understanding.

 

Schools obliged to teach merits of Sheriff of Nottingham as well as Robin Hood

SCHOOLS have been told they must not show any left-wing bias when telling the story of Robin Hood.

Under new legislation, they must acknowledge that while robbing the rich to give to the poor sounds romantic, the Sheriff’s greedy extortion of Nottingham’s peasantry also made good economic sense.

A spokesman said: “Helping the poor seems laudable, but Robin’s constant handouts ran the risk of making them lazy, feckless and lacking in enterprise.

“Teachers need to present both sides of the story. There are lots of good things the Sheriff of Nottingham probably did, like being nice to his wife, or his horse. 

“Yes, he and his men burned villages to the ground. But these villages were unviable and his actions are best viewed as part of a scheme of ‘managed decline’ for the area.

“We’re not trying to turn history lessons into a political football. We just want to point out that after living in a forest Robin Hood was probably a scruffy socialist like Corbyn.”

The move follows plans to prevent schools teaching the concept of ‘white privilege’, with more balance between the life of Martin Luther King and the Ku Klux Klan. 

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