how is the credit crunch affecting you

seven-day-weekend

We no longer have a mortgage, or any debt, and are early retired, so no jobs to lose.

But we live in Spain and have our income (my husband's Teachers Pension) in £s so by the time we have changed it to euros it is now about 40% less than when we first moved here when the exchange rate was £1 equalled 1.50 euros (it's about 1.10 at the moment and was nearly at parity last week). We are also getting less interest on our savings.

So that's how it's affected us.

Our son works in retail in the UK, so we worry about him losing his job, but he also has no debt or mortgage, so no effect on those.

swiss69

Positives .......Tracker mortgage so lowest monthly payment I have ever had on my mortgage at a rate of 1.99%. Price War in supermarkets......4 Baked potatoes in Asda 37p! Excellent!.......Lowest Petrol prices for years....good news as I can claim 40p a mile so more for me...House prices falling....good for when I want to move up as they are falling more.

Negatives

Job Insecurity ....Been paid late....No wage rise this year....Bonus scheme cut....Falling £ bad for holidays....

Main one though for me is the feeling that my job is no longer safe and the number of vacancies in my industry has fallen dramatically.

worried_jim

I agree with swiss69- mortgage has never been cheaper, petrol like it was 2004, food prices coming down. My job gains workload from a struggling economy (fruad and crime realted)- we currently have 7 new vacancies today. I am not bothered about house prices as I bought 6 years ago with a lot of money made in property boom of late 1990's and owe about 55% of prop value in mortgage. My only downside is that a holiday would be more expensive.
I was made redundent 4 years ago and although I went straight into another job I know its not a nice experince and I wish everyone in that situation all the very best in getting back to work quickly !

milliemonster

It's taught me a lot actually, I was one of the big spenders of the last decade of 'boom' most of it on credit, but am now paying it all off gradually and have learned to budget, live within my means and not use credit anymore. I am pleased with the fact we have just had our first xmas in years without any of it going on credit, that's an achievement.

Fortunately we both have secure well paid jobs and a mortgage 2 x our joint income, whilst we are currently gaining from low mortgage rates (we are on a tracker), the extra money that is giving us is not, unfortunately for gordon brown, going to be spent propping up the economy again or by taking out more credit, no, instead it is being spent by overpaying on our debt to get it paid off while the rates are so low. I hope many others in my position are doing the same thing.

The country is going to go to the wall, most of the boom of the last decade has been through people like me spending on credit, people like me now have learned their lesson and aren't prepared to do that anymore, I will now only spend what I have in my purse and no more, where does that leave the retailers and the banks then if they can't persuade us to take on more credit in the future?, I don't know

worried_jim

I agree- I am now living well within my means and will not be hitting the high st in any way, any funds I get will going to clear existing debt.

Davesnave

PasturesNew wrote: »

I wouldn't mind being there, (Cheltenham) and have looked at jobs for what I do, but they all want security clearance, which I don't have.
quote]

Just been thinking about this. With your ability to find all those properties that have been on TV shows, mentioned on MSE etc, have you considered GCHQ? You see, there's this guy called Bin Laden....

fc123

lostinrates wrote: »

Good luck Pastures.

Crunch has been interesting so far. Lost some income from interest on savings, but the savings are for a house and house prices are falling too, so who knows.

You know waht? I 've been thinking about this....as soon as you manage to win in a situation not of your making (like HPI or STR or HPC ) then the Govt change the goal posts....I reckon it is really hard to get ahead of them.....win if HPI, lose on low IR due to HPC....you can't win.

shelovestobuystuff

Feel really stupid now as I posted earlier saying it hadn,t really affected us at all.Big problem has just come to light re hubbys credit card debts.His 0% rates have just ended and they were to revert abck to his standard rate which was 6.9% on one and 14.9 on the other.1st statements and the rate has gone up to over 30% on both!!!Thats now his new standard rate.He has been frantically trying to get lower rates,do balance transfers or get a loan but he cant get anything.Cant do a balance transfer as he card he had 10k available credit on has just been reduced by 10k to his current balance.He is now stuck with 19k at 34.9% and we cant even afford the interest!!!Dont know what to do nowOur household bills are now going up by over £400 a month in credit card interest which we just dont have.
I think the wedding will have to be cancelled and jsut as i have paid for the venue.