To think it's ridiculous to get into debt to pay for:

[SlightlySuperiorPeasant]

• attending someone else's wedding/birthday party/random party;
• presents;
• a loan to a 'friend'; or
• random junk that you don't need but want to keep up with the Joneses.

yanbu

of course YANBU but people do it, debt is just debt if you cant pay back some people cant afford to pay things in a one but imo I would go without

If you're on the breadline I imagine it would be perfectly normal to go into 'debt' for those normal things you've detailed - in fact I'd guess that the poorest sections of society move in and out of 'debt' all the time as they have so little to budget with.

- attending someone else's wedding/birthday party/random party;

Unless it was a very close family member or friend and you had no other possible way of getting to it - and a wedding is a very different matter to a random party BTW - YANBU.

- presents

If we are talking about Christmas or Birthday presents for DC, and you have literally no other way of affording them then I would take a small loan. Not to buy the latest, expensive, electrical things or designer clothes but to make sure they have something.

- a loan to a 'friend'

YANBU. I don't understand why people do this (apart from that they are kind to a fault). My understanding is that if you cannot comfortably afford to lend the money, you do not lend it.

- random junk that you don't need but want to keep up with the Joneses

YANBU.

Although it really is none of my business what other people chose to spend money on, whether they are borrowing it or not.

I suppose it depends on what you class as debt, I'd get an overdraft that I could pay back next month for some of those things, but I wouldn't get a loan. Nor do I see any point in spending money on expensive presents that you can't afford full stop, but if I could use my overdraft to pay off a loan shark for a mate I would do it.

YANBU. It also annoys me, during the current really bad recession here in Ireland, how people who got themselves into debt in order to have fabulous holidays, big fancy cars, do up the kitchen every year and so on, are now trying to equate themselves with people who are in negative equity due to the property crash and never borrowed money for show offy inessentials.

Apart from the wedding, sort of. It might be a really important and lovely friend?

well yes sometimes needs must I put a few things on a credit card for a wedding in the summer because we wanted and needed to go we couldnt really miss out on it

I took out a loan to lend money to ds years ago. It was £5000 and he was desperately in debt and living abroad-married with a small child.
He paid back every month and has never been in debt since.
We have never regretted it.

MY Mil died in debt it was constant loans and loan companies sorry to bring the thread down but I do think people need to think about taking out loans mil was poor but some of that was her own making she insisted she bought her council house with 3 young adults/teens still at home expecting them to help her with a mortgage and a part time job,
she insisted she needed new furntiure and she ended up needing these loans to survive and pay loans, she even gave her son (bil) a loan as a wedding presnt because she didn't want folk to think she was stingy

We got a return flight for dh to NZ on a credit card for his best friends wedding.

I was on Maternity Leave when the invite came but have been back at work a while so it is paid off now.

It was a no brainer for us - they are besy friends, and DH hasn't seen him since he came over for our wedding.

It's not about anyone in particular, just an opinion after seeing various people in RL and on MN do all of those things when they really couldn't afford it. Surely if you don't have the money then you go without? I would be so sad if a friend or relative got themselves into financial difficulty to attend an event for me or buy me a present. It has happened :(

Yanbu at all. On any points, imo.

I would not get into debt for any of those things. I just wouldn't.

The last two, yes, definitely. The first two, not so sure.

Also, doesn't it make a difference (to you at time, in how you think about it) depending on how you get into debt? Maybe few people would say 'oh, yes, definitely going to take out a payday loan so I can buy the kids something for Christmas'. But lots of people talk about 'putting it on the credit card' without necessarily knowing how they'll pay off that credit card. I did that all of last year and I didn't think of it as 'getting into debt', even though I did know perfectly well I needed to pay it off in the end. It was just the simplest way of juggling money until payday. That must be true of a lot of people, and then the issue is, whether you end up getting further and further behind.

hat the hell is wrong with saving up for stuff?

no I know that some budgets are really tight, but you are going to have to pay back MORE if you take a loan out.

one off's is fine if you're able to repay it. And stuff like christmas for example. As long as they can repay then yabu and their choice on how to spend the money is their own.
if they can't afford to repay then yanbu.

in fact the biggest worry is those using credit for basics - if you are buying food/ bills on credit (and not paying back in full - as some do do all shopping on a card and pay in full at the end of the month) then it is highly likely that the person is in financial difficulty.