A Thread about Getting into Debt.

Barlkes I agree that circumstances can change.............and i do feel sympathy for these people........

but for many they just borrow money on non essentials and then complain they can't feed the kids......

whilst many will still smoke or drink or go on holiday eat takeaways or pay for internet or mobile contracts or sky tv.........................whilst moaning they can't feed the kids.......

we believe we are entitled to all these things nowadays...........we want the penny and the bun........

but in the end if you have x coming in you are only entitled to spend x.............the same equation that is often quoted on here.....if you want to lose weight just eat less than you burn off...............

i do  think there are other factors involved.........

Yeah, I know that, and there are some numpties.

Consider this tho'.. the timing of circumstance change can catch people differently at different times. Veyr few under the age of fifty will have no mortgage. Often younger oners on 30s , for example will have other loans etc to do with house improvement, cars etc  Your level of commitment varies due to age, stage of career and other circumstances.

Not defending the silly ones, just pointing out that life's finacial commitments vary over time.

I've always operated an iron rule with my finances - spend no more than what's coming in and preferably less. Even if it's only a fiver less, it's still less.

This has worked for me in a well-paid job being fed and housed for free and being able to booze the rest of it away (HM armed forces), as a skint student on a grant, in a job abroad being paid in a currency that was nonconvertible and therefore worthless anywhere else, and now as a reasonably well-paid professional despite having to start over 10 years ago when I got divorced. It works now as interest rate drops have slashed my mortgage payments, as it did before the crunch when I paying out over half my monthly take-home.

I understand that circumstances can change and people can be misled. But ultimately you control your own finances. If you can't afford that holiday, don't take it. If you don't need to upgrade the car, phone, Sky package etc, don't do it. And so on. If you're spending more than is coming in, do something about it now and not a year down the line.

So I've never been in a debt position and I wish luck to those struggling with it.

But I think we're storing up problems for the future because the current crop of youngsters are going to leave uni with student debts of £30K or more (Muttley Jnr included). To me, debt is something to avoid or pay off asap. To them, it's just a fact of life and nowt to worry about.

That works for me Muttley, and means if things do change you are not instantly buried under debt

seren nos wrote (see)

But like weight i think there is strong psychological links to being overweight/ underweight and being in debt in the general population........

Nonsense, i've never been a penny in dept (except for a mortgage which was never defaulted to any degree), but i've struggled hold back my waistline my whole life.

Apart from the mortgage for the house I've never had any debt.  I've sympathy for people that get into financial trouble though - of course often it's their own silly fault but even so we all make mistakes.  

Personally I'd never buy a car or whatever on finance - I've never really been motivated to have certain possessions to the extent I'd go into debt for it.   I used to share an office with a woman who was in debt to the tune of about 10k - not a huge amount but then she wasn't earning a lot - yet she'd still eat out a couple of times a week, go on a foreign holiday etc, and couldn't really see that she was living beyond her means by doing so even though she was pretty stressed by it all.   In the end I think her husband getting a much better job and then a promotion very soon after made the problem go away.

I agree with Muttley and Dave.

Many years ago (and I mean in the 1980s) I got loads of credit cards and maxed them all on things I didn't need.  When making the minimum payments became a struggle, I got a bank loan, cleared the lot, and paid the loan off over a long period.

Since then I've had credit cards, but ALWAYS pay off the balance. 

I use them to buy stuff on the internet because I figure if the card gets cloned better it's a credit card, not something which gives them access to my bank account.

I use a credit card for paying for things abroad, so that I don't pay the charge my debit card would incur.

I have more than one card, and I keep one of them at home - so that if my purse gets stolen I've still got a means of getting money and buying things until I can sort out new cards.

Back then banks and building societies were pushing endowment mortgages, telling you you'd have a huge payout when it matured, which would not only pay off the mortgage but give you plenty extra.  I never trusted that - common sense tells you it's a risk no matter what the bank are saying!

You have to take responsibility for your decisions, and bear in mind that the salesman has his eye on his commission.

I am in the middle - you deal with what you create and if you have debt most of us have to admit to making some wong decisions.  circumstances do change though and you have to deal with that as well sometimes.  Banks don't help and neither does the current economic crisis for lots of us but you can't change alot of that you can only try to make the best of whats thrown at you both self inflicted or otherwise.

I try not to judge but we all do on some level

Muttley.........

I agree that the student loan system is a big major problem...............it leads youngsters to believe that debt is normal and thats the only way to be able  to live..........a whole generation will not have  achance to be debt free

lardarse.........its the same lack of control over a situation.your trigger might be food.orthers is shoe shopping ...others its sex........it sgoing out of control in one aspect to compensate for no control in other areas

Thankfully I've never had a debt problem.

Right now I have a mortgage (80% LTV) and a home loan that was used to renovate the kitchen and bathroom that will be paid off in two years. I've never had an overdraft in my life and I only spend on the credit card what I know I can repay in full when it's due. I've never missed a payment on any direct debits or had any bank charges in my life.

Despite being of the age that silly 125% mortgages and constant take a loan/credit card stuff was flying about I have always been a bit scared of debt, so always shied away from it.

I am currently struggling with debt, but its my own stupid falt for being made redundant, taking a job on a drastically reduced salary. What I should of done is just sign on the rock and roll got housing benefit council tax paid for and all the other benefits I could wrangle out of the state.

,see I'm stupid but this stupid old fool does not want to be a burden you the righteous tax payers out there. Maybe I should tae out a credit card or two

Wilkie wrote (see)

 

Back then banks and building societies were pushing endowment mortgages, telling you you'd have a huge payout when it matured, which would not only pay off the mortgage but give you plenty extra.  I never trusted that - common sense tells you it's a risk no matter what the bank are saying!

You have to take responsibility for your decisions, and bear in mind that the salesman has his eye on his commission.

My point was that a lot of the customers that I saw going in to speak to the advisors actually didn't realise that they were primarily sales people, they genuinely thought they were there to help them and recommend the best product for them, not the product that would get them the most commission. I don't think many people would have the same level of trust in any financial institution now, one positive thing to come out of the recession perhaps?

Emmy_H wrote (see)

I have friends who have left uni and not been able to find a job or find one under the 15.000 GBP threshold which means that they don't need to pay it back, but the interest keeps piling on.

A friend of mine came abroad to find a job and found their 15 quid a month repayments are now 145 quid as they now live in a more profitable country (Spain....).

Do the SLC calculate your payments differently depending which country you are living/working in? I didn't realise that, I thought it was just done by gross income

Tommygun2 wrote (see)

I am currently struggling with debt, but its my own stupid falt for being made redundant, taking a job on a drastically reduced salary. What I should of done is just sign on the rock and roll got housing benefit council tax paid for and all the other benefits I could wrangle out of the state.

,see I'm stupid but this stupid old fool does not want to be a burden you the righteous tax payers out there. Maybe I should tae out a credit card or two

I know where you're coming from, I've always made my own moral decisions re benefits. Maybe I'm a fuckwit too in some people's eyes.

seren nos wrote (see)

xine.i don't work and my husbands money is beklow the national average.......we bank with natwest.......when woolwich was taken over by barclays we had to also have a barclays current account...........the instant lending reserve with that account is over £55,000......we can just write a cheque out for that amount any day of the week without even seeing any bank staff.............that is several times our annual salary.........

but just because its there doesn't mean we have to take it.the same as the pile of biscuits on the plate or the all you can eat bufett..

problem is we all have our weaknesses.......somethings we have to work harder at saying no than others.........

 

Um wow, that's actually scary and irresponsible lending imo. But that is also what the credit card companies did back in the time we started getting into trouble. Instant card with a 12 grand limit, and then times that by the number you actually could go for... It was actually worth maxing out and then disappearing abroad never to be found again.

Dave The Ex- Spartan wrote (see)

Have they KK ? Who would have thunk it

Have they what? Though I'm a fuckwit...?