Helping to fix busted budgets

"Biscuit?" Marjorie Iliffe offers, shaking a white Tupperware container at me.
"They're Budget brand. I think they're nicer than any other cookies on the supermarket shelves."
Of course they're Budget, I think to myself. It just wouldn't be right if Tauranga's Budget Advisory Service were to splash out on Arnott's or Griffin's.
I gratefully take a chocolate chip one and dunk it into my tea as I assess my surroundings.
The two-storey character building in the heart of the Historic Village is sparsely decorated with second-hand furnishings that have clearly been bought on - well, a budget.
A young man wearing a black T-shirt and beanie is playing the drums mid-air as he waits on a faded striped sofa.
Children's books published in 1977 sit alongside well-thumbed magazines and flyers advertising "clean school uniforms at reasonable prices - nothing over $10" sit on the countertop.
Marjorie and her colleagues work in a no-frills workplace, helping people climb out of a financial quagmire that often involves credit cards, hire purchase agreements and high interest loans.
With our economy having slumped during the past two years and the cost of living soaring ever upwards, Marjorie deals with the reality that such financial pressure brings.
She admits she is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
"As much as we hate it. We want to be the fence at the top but people don't come to us in time. We would much rather see people before they make a financial decision than after it."
Tauranga's Budget Advisory Service receives government funding to cater for about 450 new clients annually. But Marjorie and her seven staff have seen almost 1200 new people in their current financial year, with another three months to go.
Kids are very resourceful as a result

Luckily for those who seek her help, Marjorie has "been there, done that".
She was 27 when her first husband walked out, leaving behind three boys aged 7, 5 and 2, and a mountain of debt.
She discovered her mechanic husband - who had controlled the family's chequebook - was three months behind on their mortgage repayments along with hire purchase agreements for their new carpet and lounge suite.
"It was a big shock but you gather your resources. Fortunately, I'm a feet-on-the-ground person. You have a think about what's the best thing to do and go and deal with it. You have to keep the roof over your head."
Marjorie phoned her creditors and re-structured her loans. She moved her sons into one bedroom and took a boarder into her Hamilton home. She also went to work part-time in a petrol station.
"I made all the kids' clothes. I used to get hand-me-down coats and cut them down to make tracksuits and things ... I cut all my boys' hair, took in ironing, always did home baking and, fortunately, I'm a good cook so I knew how to make sausages, mince and cheap cuts of meat go round.
"I tried to keep life as normal as possible and my kids are very resourceful as a result. It was a blessing in disguise in the end."
Her second son, Beau Spicer, is now the administration officer for Tauranga's Elim Church.
He recalls idyllic childhood days playing with neighbourhood friends and regular trips to stay at his grandparents' farm.
"If she was struggling, she kept it hidden. I never recall having a feeling of going without or being underprivileged.
"Whether our clothes came new or second hand from our cousins didn't even enter into the picture because that was part of life."
Beau says he admires his mother's determination to help herself.
Make choices about what to spend

Marjorie credits her faith in God and her supportive family for getting her through those difficult days, as they helped her provide the sort of upbringing she herself had had.
"My dad was the superintendent of the Post Office Savings Bank so we were each given a money box and pocket money.
"We got to spend some and we had to save some. I used that same process with my own kids and I still recommend it to clients now. It's still good budgeting - to have to make choices about what to spend money on depending on how much you have available."
Marjorie says she and her three siblings "never went without", although money was always tight.
"We had hand-me-downs and Mum thought twice about buying everything but we had lollies, we had fruit, we had food on our table, we had clothes on our back, we had space to play in, we had friends and we had values instilled."
Her father - a Pentecostal church minister - made the conscious decision not to seek promotion and to stay in Hamilton so the family could have a stable childhood.
"I've always appreciated that. You don't realise what a good childhood you had until you see what other people's were like."
And in her line of work, Marjorie has seen it all.
What trips people up
"What I've come to understand about our clients is that a lot of them haven't had the advantages I've had as a child. They haven't been brought up in stable homes. They haven't had certain values instilled into them. They haven't been taught the basics of money management and how to make wise decisions.
"They haven't been encouraged to wait and save up for things."
Marjorie says she despises full-page colour advertisements from companies that tempt people to "buy now, pay later".
"The interest-free terms are fine. That gives people the chance to buy goods at cost price. It's this deferred payment business that's the problem.
"I've heard clients say 'I don't have to pay that until next March' - it doesn't even count in their thinking, in their sense of obligation or indebtedness that they have."
Clothing and furniture trucks that cruise from street to street are another pet hate.
Clothing trucks? I haven't noticed any clothing trucks trawling for business around Matua, I say.
Marjorie laughs and gives me a wry smile. "No. You won't see them there.
"They deliberately target the most vulnerable neighbourhoods. It comes to their door, stops outside their house. People can go in, have a look at the catalogue and buy this stuff.
"You could go down to The Warehouse and buy the same stuff for about a third of the price but they've got to save up for that."
Christmases and birthdays often trip people up.
"I call it the compensation factor. They try to compensate for what isn't in their lives such as a parent or a flash house or nice clothes or whatever. When the chance comes for a celebration or they get extra money, they tend to go overboard."
Instead, Marjorie counsels people to make the occasion special, not the gift.
"It doesn't need to be huge and expensive. It just needs to be wrapped up in bright paper. With my own children, if it was something they needed like new shoes or a school bag, then they got it for their birthday."
They're not counsellors

But for many people seeking budget advice, money problems are only the tip of the iceberg. "You learn to sympathise with the clients but we're advisers - we're not counsellors, not marriage experts or child experts. We can give a certain amount of support.
"A lot of people are lonely and all they want is an ear to listen and listening is what we're trained to do.
"But if we find there are problems in other areas then our policy is to try to find somewhere they can be referred to for that need."
The stacks of brochures available in the organisation's reception area illustrate how much support is available in the community.
Working for Families, Victim Support, Disputes Tribunal, Problem Gambling Foundation, Women's Refuge, Grief Support, Parent to Parent, childcare facilities, counselling and therapy programmes all have a presence and offer a helping hand.
Marjorie says the typical person seeking budgeting advice is female - "because women will ask for help" - aged in their 20s or 30s, and on a benefit.
Like many volunteer services, Marjorie and her co-workers do not receive high wages for what they do. They do it for the love.
And although her personal circumstances have changed from her days as a solo mum, she still practises what she preaches and likes to live a pretty frugal existence.
"I have always had a budget. I like to know what's coming in and what's going out."
Marjorie has recently found love again after her second husband, Basil Spicer, died from cancer in 2001.
But blending her financial personality and spending habits with that of her new husband - design engineer Roger Iliffe - has had its challenges.
She says she struggled to get her head around buying a leather lounge suite recently because much cheaper alternatives were available.
"I've never paid that much money for something in my life. It's been hard to blend two different spending patterns and tastes but we got it in a sale - that was the redeeming feature," she says, laughing.
A kind ear and wise words
Roger says he's learning to "re-negotiate" his financial affairs since marrying Marjorie.
"I've had a slightly different lifestyle to hers, whereas she's had children to bring up and has had to make do."
He describes his wife as a great communicator - someone who can relate to people from all walks of life - and a Christian woman who is caring, genuine and honest.
"She'll call a spade a spade. She's very well suited for the job that she does."
Marjorie has now been Tauranga Budget Advisory Service's manager for eight years, having first started as a volunteer in 1995. The 67-year-old is on the pension but plans to keep working for a "few more years". She has a kind ear and lots of wise words for those who ask for her help.
"My life has been lived out of op-shops and second-hand furniture stores and hand-me-downs.
"None of us ever suffered for it."