Struggling to stay out of debt

TripleH

@essexhebridean I couldn't agree more with you. Its not stupid not knowing how to budget. What is stupid is knowing you are repeatedly getting into cycles of debt but refusing to take action about it (eg learning to budget).

There are no stupid questions, just those of different complexity when answering.

EssexHebridean

<<snip>>  What is stupid is knowing you are repeatedly getting into cycles of debt but refusing to take action about it (eg learning to budget).

<<snip>> 

Even then, not always stupid as such - often just a result of people seeing overdrafts, loans etc as a way of life. Jokes about "too much month for the amount of money" and a casual expectation that people will be in the red at the end of the month doesn't help to be honest. There's an expectation now that people take on debt for various thigs - need a new sofa? Interest free for a year then 5 years of payments. Want a car? Why not buy a new one, just 3 years to pay and then the balloon payment - but of course the dealers know nobody ever saves for the balloon payment. New Clothes? Buy now, Pay Later. Laptop's getting a bit slow? Pop onto the internet and buy a new one...PayPal credit? Oh, go on then!  In fact the old sofa would probably do for long enough to save for a cheap one, then save again to replace with a better one in a few years. A £2000 car would do perfectly as well for the majority of people but a £15000 new shiny one will impress people more. Clothes should be budgeted for monthly, and we need to move away from "shopping" as a hobby IMO. And that laptop? A quick google search on how to speed things up might well at least mean it gets you through another 6 months, by the end of which you could have saved for its replacement... 

I said elsewhere - we can't berate people for not knowing the things they've never been told about, or indeed told they SHOULD know about.