Company credit

[oraclesmith]

No - you buy from another supplier that does not build cost of credit into price.

Credit only makes sense when you can't possibly afford up front payment and you really need it, ie - house. To buy few hundred quid PC in credit is a waste of money because you ought to be able to afford it, and if you don't then you got much bigger problem at hand than just thinking about credit!

Not necessarily. There is definitely sense in shopping around, but when the supplier you find is offering the cheapest or near cheapest deal and 0% finance then I'd go for that. It's not necessarily built into the price, it may just be a device to get you to carry on the credit arrangement beyond the intro period. eg. we buy often buy goods and get credit cards on 0%, but we make sure we always have the money to pay the final bill when it occurs. Stupid people will take the credit AND spend the money, thus guaranteeing the credit card/finance company future lots of interest in the future when they can't pay it off.

[AtW]

when the supplier you find is offering the cheapest or near cheapest deal and 0% finance then I'd go for that.

This only happens when:
a) deal is not actually the same even though it looks like the same (ie poor quality components used to cut costs, though spec is the same)
b) they try to bait you using a loss leader - happens less often than you may think

Credit will almost always cost you more than you would make by "saving" money in your account - given that interest rates paid by banks in this country is near zero, it kind of makes sense to actually pay upfront.

It may be worth buying small stuff in credit to build credit history with bank though.

[MarillionFan]

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[MarillionFan]

Sorry bout that, my daughter on the keyboard reading this thread.

My daughter couldnt believe some of the crap you write either!!!

[AtW]

Nice photo MF. Make sure (when she reaches right age obviously) you teach her to love people for what they are on the inside, rather than the outside.

[oraclesmith]

This only happens when:
a) deal is not actually the same even though it looks like the same (ie poor quality components used to cut costs, though spec is the same)
b) they try to bait you using a loss leader - happens less often than you may think

Credit will almost always cost you more than you would make by "saving" money in your account - given that interest rates paid by banks in this country is near zero, it kind of makes sense to actually pay upfront.

It may be worth buying small stuff in credit to build credit history with bank though.

Not in my experience. I've so far had two credit cards with long periods of zero percent interest on purchases. I've simply banked the money I would have used to pay these off every month in a reasonably high interest account. When the time comes to cough up the resulting (huge) balance I have the money already saved, plus I get to keep the interest.

We've also bought branded goods on zero percent credit - for example a Bosch washine machine or a Freelander - where the goods were at a competitive price anyway. They tend to give you a credit agreement where if you can't pay it off in the time given, they will automatically charge back interest, which is where they make money on stupid people. I bet most people won't have the readies when the time comes, or maybe they'd forget (you don't get a reminder), but we make sure we pay all of it on time, so we win.

We always look for loss leaders - for example genuine buy-on-get-one-free's on supermarket goods. Some (for example meat purchases) can be cons, but a lot are cyclical efforts to gain market share. For example, the shampoo and toothpaste manufaturers know that people can only use so much of these products per week, so if they discount heavily they can knock the opposition out of the market temporarily, even though they don't make much profit doing it.

Why pay full price when you don't have to ?

[AtW]

ok, I don't like to be in debt - morgage is probably the only kind of debt I would accept, the following poetic start that I have just written sums it up:

Once I became an IT contractor,
I forgot about the permie factor,
Being in debt means not being free,
Might as well become again the dreaded permieee.

[VectraMan]

Mortgage.

I've opened a can of worms here. In my case this is about keeping options open. If you can push costs into the future than you can do more things in the present, or you can keep going for longer before before the crunch point. I'm not talking about splashing out on something I can't afford, just managing cash flow.

Oh an I hate holier than thou types who won't go into debt.

[oraclesmith]

We (me and wifey) only do debt if it's in our advantage or essential to living. We're happy to get a discount rate mortgage that allows us to keep savings in ISA's at a better, compound, rate. We're happy to take zero rated finance if it means we can earn interest on the money we would otherwise have to spend. The zero rated finance option that Dell have at the moment sounds a reasonable deal, in my opinion, providing you don't miss out on other discounts (free memory upgrade, free delivery etc) but remember to make sure you can comfortably make the payments and the final amount. It's a game set up by the supplier - you versus the stupid people - make sure you win !

[MarillionFan]

I reckon my 3 month old daughter is probably a better .Net programmer than Milan!! She's already better than me