Are YOU responsible for your spending & debt?

normdeplume

Oh yes, I am. But having late-payment charges, fees and whatnot lumped on debts doesn't help when you're trying to repay what you owe.

Ames

Yes and no. No-one held a gun to my head and made me take out the loan that crippled me, or made me spend it. But I have bipolar and was having an episode at the time so I wasn't 100% responsible for my actions. Although I do also have an issue with the bank- when I ran into difficulties they wouldn't help me because they said they shouldn't have given me the loan in the first place as it went against their lending criteria, so surely they should take some responsibility there.

The other debts that I took out when 100% sane (well, as near as possible!) yes, I take responsibility for and will eventually pay back, although as I'm on IS it may well be just f&fs.

In general I think there's a lot of problems surrounding expectations. When the government is wanting 50% of people to go to university but forcing them to get loans to do so, I think it says a lot about the mentality of the country as a whole.

PROLIANT

Well, I don’t normally post on this part of the forum however I agree with the OP here, there are genuine people who are working their backsides off to get out of debt and then there is the "compensation brigade" who don’t take responsibility for themselves, run up debt then come crying on here blaming the financial institution who trusted them with the banks money in the first place, credit is a privileged facility in life and if used and managed correctly then it is a very powerful tool in, but if it is seen as a "free dinner ticket" then it becomes a black cloud that will follow you everywhere, so, answer my question please, why do people mis-manage their money and then blame the bank for their incompetence? If your business was having its revenue stolen "legally" via a legal loop hole in the pathetic weak laws of the UK by your customers, what steps would you take to recover that "stolen" money so that your business did not suffer? Let s take responsibility for ourselves in life, not just financially either.

ZTD

IWantToBeFree wrote: »

No one is forced into taking credit,

Yes we are. Government debt isn't going to be paid by the Government...

Deep_In_Debt

Yes and No.

I am responsible for my debts. The banks and lending houses offered it to me and I took it, I didn't have to, but I did. No-one was holding a gun to my head.

I have a mortgage which I've had since I was 20 (got 5 years left on it), I've never defaulted or been in arrears on it. I was at uni at the time I got my mortgage, had no regular income and was very irresponsible then (how I ever managed to pay it then, I shall never know!) but the bank still lent me the money. Luckily, it's turned out ok, although because of my "good custom" my mortgage company are still offering all sorts although I've told them I don't want it and can't afford it.

My ex OH was lent £25k unsecured (as he had nothing) by his bank 3 years ago. He went bankrupt last year - he didn't have a regular job at the time that he was lent 25k but as he'd been with the bank for over 20 years they were happy to give him the money - how daft is that?

PROLIANT

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

Yes and No.

I am responsible for my debts. The banks and lending houses offered it to me and I took it, I didn't have to, but I did. No-one was holding a gun to my head.

I have a mortgage which I've had since I was 20 (got 5 years left on it), I've never defaulted or been in arrears on it. I was at uni at the time I got my mortgage, had no regular income and was very irresponsible then (how I ever managed to pay it then, I shall never know!) but the bank still lent me the money. Luckily, it's turned out ok, although because of my "good custom" my mortgage company are still offering all sorts although I've told them I don't want it and can't afford it.

My ex OH was lent £25k unsecured (as he had nothing) by his bank 3 years ago. He went bankrupt last year - he didn't have a regular job at the time that he was lent 25k but as he'd been with the bank for over 20 years they were happy to give him the money - how daft is that?

It is called a "trust" relationship, 20 years of "trust" and business with a bank will commend that kind of lending practice, if they guy did not have a regular income he should have said...no thank you.

meerkat2007

I signed the forms, so I'm responsible.

However, I would also say that to a degree, I'm also a victim, but a victim of my own naivete, the good intentions I had to make my parents' lives better, and a total lack of education in personal finance and the consequences of borrowing. Oh, and the extended period of unemployment that made a bad situation worse.

I'm not asking for sympathy for any of that - stuff happens, and you have to deal with it.

ZTD

MrsTine wrote: »

I think the vast majority of people are very responcible for the debt they are in. I know I certainly am and yet I have nothing to show for it. It wasn't silly spending on "keeping up with the Jones's" - but pure naivity when it came to finances. However I should have been responcible and looked at what I was getting myself into and not blindly trust my bank...

I think that a lot of the problem is that throughout school you are taught time and again to blindly trust those in authority. You can be a questioning child like myself, and spend a lot of time being punished.

"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," Jesuit Motto.

Our schools breed victims. I guess they're more profitable.

Then people leave school and get their eyes taken out and then they come back for the sockets. Lessons are learnt - but through bitter and expensive experience. You can blame yourself, but that means blaming yourself for everything you don't know.

That's a lot of blame.

So tell me everyone: How much education did you receive in netball rules which you will never use? And how much did you receive in debt/credit/interest/unlawful charges/IVAs/DMPs and bankruptcies?

Approximately - in hours.

PROLIANT

tonypipps wrote: »

there used to be a saying "don't look a gift horse in the face" - I believe that is very much outdated, it's more like a trojan horse these days.

And the moral of the "analogy" is?

PROLIANT

tonypipps wrote: »

i would assume you knew who i was infering as to who the gift horses were.

Oh yes, I have just twigged, np.