Why are you in debt, choice or necessity?

pault123

Why are you in debt?

Through no choice of your own eg paying bills/rent, buying food to survive etc?

or

Putting it on the plastic rather than saving up?


For me its a case of having to have something right now, if I want something rather than save up i'll put it on the creditcard and pay it off in bits. Probably the wrong way of thinking but i can be a bit of an impulse buyer. My mentality says the money I could be putting away to save up can be paying off the item im already using and benefiting from.

This has got me into £5000 of debt I'm now trying to restrain from using my cards till ive payed off this. The problem i'm finding is the minimum payments are leaving me with less dispoable income each month and tempting me to spend on them again to live as comfortably as I was.

So for me through choice I have gotton into debt and now left with the predicament of getting into more debt to maintain the false lifestyle ive gotton used to through credit. :mad:

So in general is Britain in debt through choice or necessity?

Paul

Kevicho

Neither - overspending and being careless with my money, i didnt choose to be or through necessity , i just didnt pay attention to it

But that was in a previous monetary life

fairylights_2

Both here!

Ours was a combination of a tiny bit of I want it, we'll pay later, and a lot of how are we going to pay this bill? credit card will do ....

I have to say though, that OH didn't tell me he couldn't afford to - I thought he was paying it off each month. I probably should have known things weren't right, but he's not always forthcoming with bad news.

Still two more months, and we'll be all ok! and NEVER again!

Bargain_Rzl

At the mo I'm not in debt, and haven't been since paying off the last of my student loan (in 2002). I'm not the sort of person who gets into debt by choice (unless you count stoozing and "slow stoozing" by spending on 0% purchase cards when the money's in my account anyway).

However, short of being forced into debt by a sudden drastic change in circumstances, there are two situations I can envisage where I would get into debt of my own accord. Firstly, hopefully one day I'll have a mortgage (current combination of savings and salary mean I'd fall about £10k short of the cost of a 1-bed flat near where I live in one of the cheapest boroughs of outer London) and secondly, I'd consider getting into debt to re-train in a career with good salary prospects. As regards investing in my future like this, I think are definitely times when debt can be worth it.

mummytofour

Necessity I think. Dh has run up a lot of cc debt over the years, he would put his travle on there without me knowing ( travle costs are HUGE in our household).

We have learnt a lot tho over the years, one things being we wont be wasting money on a almost new car for a very long long time!

Im trying really hard now to live within our means, this is not something I am enjoying at all, we have very little cash after paying the bills and travel and its very hard to manage the budget.

skintchick

Through 'choice' in that I didn't NEED any of the stuff I bought, I just wanted it. And through not having a proper budget.

jellycat40

2 failed marriages, unemployement, depression and greediness!!!

dinkylou

Guess it was a mixture of both, but alot came down to carelessness with money and an 'i'll deal with it later' attitude.

It wasn't as much 'want' as some people's (car loan for transport, another loan to pay for legal fees for house and then student loan) but then I could have lived without.

Going to poorer places in the world makes you feel guilty for turning a 'want' into a perceived 'need'.

southernscouser

I didn't choose to be in debt. It just escalated by buying stuff I couldn't afford.

Alot of the time debt is amounted by depression. People buy things to fill a void in their life! My debt is down to not realising how much money I actually owed and carrying on with the must have mentality.

Used to think to myself, well I have that, it's only £100! It will be paid off in 2 months! Of course it never was! :doh:

taplady

Mainly neccesity due to Oh having 2 heart attacks and a bypass op and myself having severe pneumonia.This resulted in long spells on statutory sick pay etc and a severe drop in income, and having to use the credit cards to survive.We have no expensive purchases, the money went on bills,car repairs,food and just normal day to day living.

We have never had any savings to tide us over and since finding this site I am making it my priority so we never get in this position again.

We would probably have been in debt anyway but the illness's certainly did us no favours.

rainbowseeker

Agree with southernscouser 100%! A combination of 'must have it now' - the little things that make life sweeter. But in my case definitely due to depression. My debt just escalated in the last 8 months out of all control. I reckon majority of people are in at least a little debt but this is manageable, when it becomes a big problem you can bet there's some kind of tragic story behind it like breakdown in relationships etc.. The debt is just a symptom of something big going on...