Reply to: My attitude to personal debt

[FarmerPalmer]

what about use a credit card to make money (cashback) from my spending ?
no loans, no card debts, but a low LTV mortgage

[EternalOptimist]

None of the above. I use credit cards to my personal advantage, via stoozing or slow stoozing

I have never stoozed in my life. Is it obscenely biological ?

[Bagpuss]

well ?

None of the above. I use credit cards to my personal advantage, via stoozing or slow stoozing

[Jog On]

I've gone off debt big time, don't have any left and I won't have any again (not that anyone will allow me any).

However, as you say, not having some sort of plastic makes transactions very difficult. For example, try buying a plane ticket with cash these days!! It's a good job I know what it's like up the

There's no option for used to have lots of debt, now behave very differently.

I now have several credit cards with sizable limits and zero balances. Cards are critical for some transactions to be done with minimal fuss and maximum protection.

I’m paying off a big chunk that I acquired over a few years when I was permie, in my 20s and more concerned with having a good time than anything else. I lived beyond my means with money that wasn’t mine and at the time the bank encouraged it. I remember them extending my credit card balance and overdraft without me asking a couple of times, then when I got into a jam I’d go and talk to them and they’d say “Hmm - why don’t we give you a nice personal loan to move all those nasty balances onto and reduce your interest payments”.. Then I’d max out the card/overdraft again.

I was very naive and am paying for it now – nothing like learning the hard way...

I’m now following a very aggressive debt repayment ‘snowball’ plan to get it all cleared in the next 6 months if I don’t get benched at any stage.

[NotAllThere]

Credit cards aren't a problem if you have the means to pay off in full every month. Years ago, just before I first went contracting, we managed to keep a £500 debt without paying a penny in interest, by judicious use of the credit card.

I have credit cards - that I pay off in full. And a mortgage - which is about 2/3 of what I'd pay in rent for the same house. The mortgage I work to reduce as quickly as possible.

I have no other debts at all. And never use or have used my overdraft facility.

[contractor79]

You can save money by judicious use of credit. Taking out a mortgage when you can afford to pay 100% in cash means you can invest the money and potentially make a profit off it.

??

[PAH]

Debt is debt, regardless of whether it's initially said to be secured or unsecured. Credit card/unsecured loan companies using courts to try to get their money back when it goes tits up shouldn't be a suprise at all.

Maybe the people using credit cards to live off are too desperate to care, but they must know that at some point it'll need paying back, or they risk losing whatever assets they own.

It all boils down to people living beyond their means. Even as contractors you should be aware that you need to save for a rainy day, there's no guarantees the gravy train won't derail at some point.

It used to be the norm for people to save up to buy stuff, now they are offered/landed with debt as soon as they leave school (student loans), so it's inevitable people's thinking will change and the stigma associated with debt has long gone.

Naturally the loan sharks (as all loan companies are when it comes down to it) are there to exploit the situation.

[Diver]

This is a worrying trend for those that build up credit card debts !!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle5014781.ece

This is bluddy outrageous.
There are people out there that are now living on their credit to survive redundancies, paying debts with their cards in the hope of avoiding repossession by extending the term of the debt.
Little do they know that the trap has been set by these Hyena's

[NickFitz]

This is a worrying trend for those that build up credit card debts !!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle5014781.ece

Terrible! Of course banks are run by Socialists, so people should have seen this coming.

Oh no, let me think... aren't banks run by Capitalists - the kind of people the Conservative party seeks to protect?

I mean, it'd be OK if they were doing this to common people - but they're doing it to Telegraph and Mail readers! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Oh, hang on, that should be "Talk about shafting those morons who were willing to swallow any old garbage we fed them as long as we needed them to accept it so we could make money out of them, but now times are hard, screw them - we can't even be arsed to try to con them into being on our side any more. We'll just take their stuff. Fsck 'em."

Thank God for people like Cyberman, who are willing to admit to their earlier idiocy and expose the Capitalists (and their Tory lickspittles) as a bunch of selfish chiselling weasels who have more concern for grabbing money for themselves than for helping to ensure the long-term stability of Society

[Cyberman]

This is a worrying trend for those that build up credit card debts !!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle5014781.ece

[swamp]

True, and I also have a Nationwide debit card, but unfortunately many ATMs I have tried abroad only accept credit-card.

If it has a Visa sign then your Visa debit card will work. End of. I've never had a problem using a debit card anywhere.

Nationwide are good for using abroad for cash; no charges whatsoever (apart from margin of currency conversion).

[Cyberman]

I thought bank charges (and exchange rates) tended to be less when using a debit card rather than a credit card in foreign ATMs?

True, and I also have a Nationwide debit card, but unfortunately many ATMs I have tried abroad only accept credit-card.

[EternalOptimist]

I think its pretty clear that the OP was talking about credit cards vis-a-vis running up debt, rather than as a handy payment thingy.

[voodooflux]

I use my CC mainly just for purchase protection. It gets "cleared" with every bill so I never have any interest payments.

WHS. I have one card for online purchases, and one for "bricks and mortar" purchases. Not that I buy much bricks and mortar.

[Sockpuppet]

I use my CC mainly just for purchase protection. It gets "cleared" with every bill so I never have any interest payments.

Once or twice I've left a £100 on there but that is mostly so I can carry on min salary and divs every 6 months. Just pay it off when the next div comes.