Spend, Spend, Spend

Freebie_Hunter_2

Tell you what I am going to do!!!

I an going to ignore all of Marins advice and spend a load on credit cards and personal loans until I am in debt up to my eyeballs(and beyond).Then I go to court with a sympathetic judge and he wipes it out.

Easy Peasy!!!!!!!!!! ???

It's not as easy a that.

People who go to court and who apply for personal bankrupcy really do pay for it.

Their credit reference is non-existent. They cannot get any credit at all, obviously, but they also cannot have simple things like a mobile phone or a bank account.

Every penny of their earnings is monitered (as debt still has to be paid off) and they cannot have any luxuries such as sky or a home telephone.
If anything is amiss they get grilled - they have no spending money of their own.

Their life is pretty much watched and monitered for the next few years and it is simply not worth it!

Some companies write the debt off after a couple of years or so but these people don't get away scot-free. You don't see half of what they go through and if they in any way mess up, they could end up in prison.
But when they come out the debts are still there!

I am in no way whatsoever taking sides - it's just that people don't realise how much this can affect peoples lives and they DO pay for it...

... in more ways than one.

jellyhead

i had a friend (ex-friend now i hasten to add!) who borrowed money off me under false pretences. he owed loads of people money and i didn't realise that the money he borrowed was to spend on new furniture because his wife wanted it rather than paying the fuel bills.

anyway, all of sudden he told me he wouldn't be paying it back and i could go on the long list of people taking him to court. he got an administration order which is not quite as bad as bankruptcy. he went on the dole and filled in an income/expenditure sheet (claiming to spend 4 times as mucbh on nappies and milk as anybody else with a baby would spend). as a dolie with a dolie wife and 4 children they let him off most of the debt. the administration order said he had to pay £5 a week to the court and the court would split it between everyone on the list. he was ordered to pay for 5 years. he stopped paying after 2 years but i couldn't afford to take him to court. i'd got back £26 out of the thousand he owed me. yes i was incredibly stupid to lend him the money, especially as it was my student grant cheque and i am still repaying it to the council ten years later. but this admin order malarkey was in no way hard on him or his family. he stayed in his nicely decorated council house and carried on claiming welfare, he couldn't even be bothered to pay the £5 a week the court wanted. he got away with everything and just built up new debts (with fuel companies, water, catalogues that his wife already had before the admin order but hadn't used to the full credit limit, etc.).

obeywan_kenobe

Its the old saying that if you owe the bank £100s of pounds its your problem. If you owe hundreds of thousands its thiers!!!

Spendless

Some companies write the debt off after a couple of years or so but these people don't get away scot-free. You don't see half of what they go through and if they in any way mess up, they could end up in prison.
But when they come out the debts are still there!


.

I didn't think you could go to prison for debt with the exception of council tax and tv licence(?). Though i understand you can go to prison for fraud.

bridiej

while there's people that don't pay attention to what they sign up to there'll be people to rip them off...

just seems to be the society we live in where people don't take responsability for what they do, someone in our family's just as bad... thinks just because a company offers them credit, it's ok to take it even if they can't afford to repay it  >:(

Doesn't take much to keep your finances in check  ::)

Yep, totally agree, people shouldnt be so stupid to sign up to these things...

Mind you, see plenty of them on Watchdog!

loadsacash

I think that the silly part of it all is that if the couple had waited and saved up the money that they paid to the loan company, they would have saved enough for the home improvements after just over a year.

paulcdb

paulcdb - it is easy to say that it doesn't take much to keep your finances in check, but it's not that easy for people who don't earn enough to live on,that alone save. You have to know people's circumstances before you can judge them. I get really tired of people saying things like "we've worked hard for what we've got" and omit to say about the house- the £1/2 million that they inherited - the fact that they have been subsidised by their parents all their lives or had a nice cushy job, well paid job.  For people who have had to stand on their own two feet from the day they left school life can be very difficult. For example my husband's Dad was fairly wealthy, but died at the age of 36 leaving his mum with a 4 and a 6 year old. Their lives completley changed after that. It was in the 60's, so they wern't entitled to any benefits.

Do you know my circumstances?

My dad died when i was 2 and my mum has had to work all her life to bring us up... we've never had any inheritance, we've never had weathy parents but i was brought up to save if i wanted something... if i couldn't afford it, i had to wait. Since i was in school i've always worked for what i've got but I don't have vast amounts of clothes and 2 years ago due to illness i had to live off my credit card until i qualified for benefits... and until i have an operation i'm stuck on very little... so i think if i can manage then so can others. i can tell you how much money i'd have in a months time... budgetting is all about working within your means, too many times people say they can't live without something, even though it's not a nessesity.

I have a friend who lived off £160 a month yet still managed to pay bills, food and go out a little so don't tell me it can't be done. Most people get more than that a week.

However i have a brother who's the reverse... he'll spend on credit cards and loans and only worry when the baliffs call around... he's quit well paid jobs, because he got bored and blames everyone else... and i've lost count the amount of times my mums bailed him out only to have to struggle because he's had the money... so i've seen both sides.

Now i'm not saying some might have a hard time... but i've yet to see this 'breadline' people keep talking about, except when it comes to single people!

shaz1000

Paulcdp. I never said I did know your circumstances. But I do know loads of people that omit to tell the truth about why they are so wealthy and then judge overs that arn't so fortunate. You do not mention whether you have kids or not, if you do then you will know that it is very hard to buget for what kids might need, due to their constant growth and changing events. You say that there was a time when you had to rely on credit cards. Some people have to rely on them to actually have enough to buy food and bare essentals - not for things that they could do without. That is why I never judge other people unless I know their circumstances.
My husband was a mature student for 4 years and we had to live on a student grant and with two young children, we couldn't make ends meet. All our parents had died when we were young so there were no people to help us with childcare. If I had worked I would have had to pay childminders and that money would then have been deducted from our grant, so we could not win. All I am saying, is walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you condem them!