Brian Kelly: So much to be thankful for

I like to think I am a glass half full kind of person.

In other words, I like to think positive about things - although at times I have to say that can be very difficult.

I don't know about you, but I am over this recession, or at least the constant talk about the recession. How long have we been hearing those words now?

Almost everywhere you turn you are bombarded with it in the media, radio news, newspapers and TV news bulletins.

It has been going for a few years now.

There has to be light at the end of the tunnel, surely.

When you take a step back things do not appear to be as bad as we are told.

To start off with, home mortgage interest rates are the lowest they have been for many years and look as though they are going to stay that way for a while longer. That's good news for those of us who have mortgages or are looking to getting into home ownership for the first time and there appears to be plenty of money around from the banks to loan to prospective home buyers. That's one positive.

On the housing front, sales appear to be picking up, which I guess is good news for those selling and for folk in the real estate game.

The recent purchase by Carrus Corporation of land at The Lakes subdivision is a good sign and I'm sure that the sales of house and section packages there will pick up.

For those people who are planning holidays, travel - particularly by air - can save you a lot of money if you plan ahead and look for specials from sites such as Air New Zealand's Grab a Seat.

There was a deal just this week that offered flights from Tauranga to Christchurch for about $90.

Admittedly there are catches, like when you can travel and they are limited to first in, but still it's great to have those deals.

I read an article the other day saying that new flat screen TVs in New Zealand were the cheapest in the world at the moment. Latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show prices on TVs fell 18 per cent in the year to March. It went on to say that one retailer was selling a 42 inch flat screen TVs for $599.

Three or four years ago it would have cost around $2000.

We love our TVs, so much so that Kiwis bought about 500,000 of them in the year ending February, which was an increase of 23 per cent.

Here's an interesting statistic from that article: When the Philips K9 went on sale in 1973 we paid about $1200 for it.

In today's dollars that $14,142. So we are definitely winning on that front.

Heck we even had a drop in the price of petrol the other day! Wonders will never cease.

It is nice to look at life in an optimistic way, but I do realise there a still a lot of people who are struggling with the cost of living and as we head into winter the threat of more expensive electricity.

I guess it's time to tighten the old belt yet again.

We are lucky living in the Bay - and in New Zealand for that matter.

We do appear to have escaped a lot of the so-called financial troubles that many countries in the world are facing, particularly countries in Europe.

The Northern Chamber of Commerce is running a business confidence survey at the moment and it will be very interesting to read the results.

A couple of the questions in the survey relate to business confidence in New Zealand and also on a local level and whether there will be an improvement over the next six months or that things will get harder.

With winter arriving some people take the old squirrel attitude and go into hibernation, but I'm a great believer in getting out there and getting it done.

It's the old scenario of the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

It's like that in the advertising game. It's no good opening a business but telling nobody about it and so many people do that.

I realise things are a little tough for some, but its great to try to remain positive and don't let yourself get beaten down by negative people.

To my way of thinking there are too many of those types around.