Important: What follows is not advice to buy or sell ANY shares. I’m a private investor, storing and sharing my notes. Read my disclaimer.

Just a quick update to my share write-up in November on London-listed The Clapham House Group. (Google Finance: LON: CPH).

The shares have moved from 53.5p to 93.5p, so my caution was not warranted. I wrote back then that I was not comfortable with the group’s loan arrangements:

According to section 19 of the accounts (which were compiled before the Bicycle Club sale, remember), Clapham House then had £19 million in bank loans, which will mature between 1 and 5 years from now.

This situation was addressed in Clapham’s December 10th Interim Results:

I am pleased to announce that we have as at 9 December 2008 renewed our main banking facilities until June 2012. As a result, we have incurred a one off arrangement fee and will be paying a small increase in margin. The same total Company facilities of £21.7 million remain in place following this renewal.

This was what I wanted to hear; the group’s Gourmet Burger Kitchens are throwing off cash, but if Clapham hadn’t been able to extend its banking facilities when the loans matured it could have faced a crippling cash call.

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Anyone who reads personal finance blogs is clearly more interested in money than the average person. If you write a personal finance blog, you’re even more interested in money (even if blogging won’t make you any).

Can you be too interested? Are we deluding ourselves into thinking we’re being economically literate, whereas really we’re just being tight?

Andy over on Saving to Invest recently asked himself if he’s a cheapskate:

I admit I am much more careful with my expenses and probably question purchases much more than I used to. Still, being called a cheapskate? That hurt. I like to think of myself as Frugal. I am well aware that hoarding money is unhealthy and have no issue spending money where needed. But unnecessary and impulse spending really frustrates me. For example why pay full price for a great purse, when most likely it will be on sale in a couple of weeks. Patience is a big money saver!

I’ve seen more people ponder this sort of thing as the financial markets have unraveled. Perhaps people wonder what they’ll do if they lose their jobs: you can’t save money when you’re not making any. Or maybe the fact that money is now top of the news agenda makes us finance bloggers feel like our passion has gone mainstream. Being frugal was cool when it was underground – like listening to Arcade Fire before they became mall music.

When your dad visits and he asks to borrow your records, it’s natural to think you should get into jazz. When your spendthrift cousin tells you he’s selling his car to use public transport because of the recession, you might wonder if it’s time to buy a discounted Porsche.

Expecting this recession for a long time, I’ve:

• Spent less than I earned
• Avoided buying a house, because I saw prices were in a bubble
• Saved and invested 30-50% of my income for years
• Tried to remember what’s more important than material things
• Been inspired by everything from family illness to immigrants in kick-starting my journey to financial freedom

But now that house prices are falling and we’ve been racked by crisis after financial crisis, I can’t help wondering what I was waiting for. Was being frugal actually a safety blanket of sorts?

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