I've often heard the old chestnut about how difficult it was dealing with the old monetary system.

I grew up in a farm labouring community; most of the people I came into contact with had not had an extensive education. My mother was educatd at primary school only to the age of 14. Yet, even amongst those people, who had had less education than most, I have no recollection of anyone being in anguish because the monetary system was too difficult for them to handle. Nor did I, as an adolescent, have any problem with it. Whatever system you use, people adapt to it and it works.

(I'm not a great fan of the decimal system anyway. If you want to make it really easy for everyone, change everything to base 8; you can divide right through then!)

It's pertinent to remember that life was also much simpler then. What causes so much confusion and frustration with finances these days is the constantly changing plethora of utility prices, loan rates, bank rates, internet rates, special offers etc., which are at best extremely time-consuming, and at worst virtually impenetrable.

(You'll all be telling me how difficult it is to count twelve inches to the foot next! Or perhaps how difficult it is to tell the time because we have to use units of 60 and 24 instead of 10!)