It truly amazes me how many Tunisians live their whole lives in debt; I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world like it.
A regular Tunisian does the following:
– He starts off with a loan to be able to get the list of demands required for him to get married.
– He takes a big loan (even double loan) from a bank to buy or build a house, that he spends over a third of his life paying for.
– He takes another loan to buy a car.
– If his wife is naggy, he’ll have to go for yet another loan to get her a car too.
– He has to go into more debt every holiday or occasion, by either going for another loan or borrowing money from family or friends to buy clothes, gifts, sheep or whatever else.
– He takes smaller bank loans to buy luxury house items and appliances, that he could certainly do without.
– He can’t just accept his situation and stay at home at summer, he has to borrow some more money to rent a house in some touristic beach area for at least a couple of weeks.
– As if that is not enough, he also does his best to get enough money to travel abroad for a nice shopping spree every now and then.
– On a more responsible note, supposedly, he has to go into more debt with the bank to pay for his children’s tuition fees, especially that he wants to send them to study university in France or Canada.
And the list goes on and on, and our average Tunisian spends his whole life sinking deeper and deeper in debt, trying to pay back his dues until his dying day, in more occasions than not leaving a burden for his children to carry on after him.
It really strikes me, especially that there is nothing I hate in life more than being in debt. How can these people go to bed at night with the heavy burden of so many debts weighing on their shoulders?
Why can’t people just live according to their finances? It’d help them make their financial situation better with time, and enable them to do more and more in a safer and better way.