To be irritated by people on C4 news taking out payday loans

[SilverSixpence]

I am at people taking out loans to buy brand new fridge freezers and playstations from Bright House instead of buying secondhand/doing without if they can't afford it. 8 year olds are old enough to understand they cant have the latest thing if their parents can't afford it. If your kids are influenced by ads just turn them off! Isn't this basic common sense?

I have used Brighthouse to buy things like my washing machine, fridge/freezer and beds for the DC.

I understand how it all works, and that I am paying over the odds long term, when I took these things out I was newly separated from XH, and all we had was the clothes on our backs. No access to the internet, and no cash to even buy second hand, and certainly no money to pay for vans to deliver.

To be able to pay a few pounds a week was brilliant for me, I was never late in paying, and never got into trouble.

I think the only luxury item I ever bought from them was an X Box a few years ago, to be shared by the DC. They never demanded one, I just wanted to get them one, and again, I understood the payments, and was never late.

Goldengytha that sounds perfectly reasonable, what I don't understand is taking out money you can't afford for stuff you don't need.

It seems some people are viewing this as a benefits bashing thread which it absolutely isn't, I do appreciate some people struggle to pay for the basics and don't blame anyone for wanting to treat their kids on Christmas but also think people have to take some personal responsibility.

I did see one woman in there once though,

She was telling the assistant that she couldn't afford her repayments at £100 per week, when all she got in benefits was £165.

I did wonder what on earth she had bought for her payments to be that much each week.

I think my payments were something like £10, and when those items were paid off, the X Box was around £5 per week.

Hmmm some of this is a bit patronising to us poor folk on low incomes. I've gotten a fair few bits and pieces on credit because I've needed them and couldn't afford to buy outright. My debt is not unmanageable and gets paid off every month, if not more often. Despite being paid a pittance.

I think every child needs to be taught how to budget, in school. They need to learn about how to put together a budget that pays the essentials first, and then divides up what is left for everything else. They need to know how loans, hire purchase, credit and mortgages work, and how the interest can make a small loan into a big debt.

There is nothing wrong with saying that people should make sure they can afford the repayments on a loan before they take it out - and if they can't afford the repayments, maybe they should put off buying whatever it is. If you have to take out the loan (for something essential, like car repairs or a cooker), you need to budget in those repayments, ahead of things you consider luxuries.

I also,think it should be illegal for the payday loan companies to charge the exorbitant rates of interest that some do - and I don't think they should be advertising in the way they do, either - the 'It's so easy to get a loan, and you will be totally in control - apply online and the money can be in your account in seconds' adverts that are, I think, a huge con.

Such patronising posts on here.It is not a matter of not understranding APRs, not being able to budget.
It is a case of having NO CHOICE!!

no one needs a playstation

You think people should 'just do without' a fridge if they can't afford it? Have you just arrived from the 1940s? Do you think social services would be impressed with a family who kept their kids' milk in a bowl of cold water for the week or something?

ppl with certain medical conditions also need a fridge to store medication in.

I completely disagree that Brighthouse and other hp lenders are for 'poor' people.

It's just not the case. Df works for them. Over half of his customers are paying over £50 a WEEK for stuff they've got...not the sort of money you could afford if you're scraping by on job seekers. The default rate is surprisingly low.

Df's 'biggest' customer is paying £230 a week for pretty much a houseful of goods.

Stores like Brighthouse are for people with bad credit. Plenty of people use them who are not 'poor'

Well - I certainly didn't set out to patronise anyone, pixie - I think budgeting is a vital life skill, and everyone should learn it in school - what is patronising about that?

You know people who get stuff on credit don't necessarily not know how to do basic maths, don't you?

Where did I say they didn't know basic maths? I am not making a value judgement about any socio-economic group. But I do think budgeting is a core life skill, and not everyone can do it.

you mean poor people/benefits claimants can't do it?

Big difference between a fridge and a play station.
Are poor people supposed to eat gone off food?
For some people it's the only way they can ever afford large items.

I think the problem is people's expectations of Christmas and what they teach their children to expect. I used to work with a lady who felt she had failed her children if she didn't get them everything they requested on their Christmas lists. Whereas I always saw my daughter's list as merely suggestions. She may get something off it or she may not. As it was always that way, she knew no different so was always happy with what she got.

This year her list is all books and playstation games (she's 20 ). What she's actually getting is a years supply of prawn coctail crisps. We don't live in the UK so I've had to import them, she'll think she's died and gone to heaven :o

My kids watch adverts on TV and all I hear is 'I want that' constantly. We walk round the shops and they want every toy they see. I have no qualms with saying no to them... I told my son that even if I was a millionaire, he would have the same amount of toys that he has now! My family could afford to get me lots of toys/gadgets etc as a child, but they didn't!!

People's relationship with money is not as simple as money in/money out. balance the books at the end of the month. It is an emotional and social relationship too.

No, vampyre - I do NOT mean poor people/benefit claimants can't budget - I did not say that in any of my posts on this thread, nor have I said it anywhere else - because I do not THINK that poor people/benefit claimants cannot budget!!

So, unless you can show me where I have said it is poor people and/or benefit claimants who cannot budget, I would thank you to stop putting words into my mouth, and then having a go at me for things I haven't said!

I'm poor and count every penny so I will say it. It's stupid to get a loan for something you don't actually need.

I understand the urge though when you never get to buy anything "just because you want it"

People with completely reasonable or even fabulous incomes are sometimes bad at budgeting or spendaholics, and get into ridiculous debt. It would be odd if those people on tight budgets were all somehow immune just by dint of being skint.

It shouldn't be but its one of these areas where people who perceive themselves as socialists or liberals have gone too far and basically imbued some less well off people with the idea that money shouldn't be a barrier to anything because everyone should be equal or whatever. So rather than condemn companies that exploit the financial incompetence of the less well off they defend them as giving access to things that "by rights" poor people should be able to have. Never mind that those same poor people could afford the same stuff and more if they were better financially educated.

Dear Heavens Above - are you totally bloody insane?

I've been in debt before, heavily. I'm now debt free but I will never forget the gut wrenching sadness, shame and downright mortifying feeling of having to borrow money. I was just able to avoid payday loans and similar by borrowing from my own family. I was very lucky to have that option, not many do, and there's always a limit to how often you can do that. I can totally understand the desperation of having to replace a washing machine or even a pair of school shoes without having anywhere to get credit. Anyone who is forced to borrow money from anyone whether family or a company does so out of desperation, and it is devastating. I am as judgey as the next girl, but not when it comes to debt. Then I hold my head up and offer out my hand for holding, I hope others do too.

To be honest, I think the blame should be on the companies and the totally lax laws surrounding pay day loans and repayment plans.

I work at a bank (I know, let the booing start) and we have strict affordability criteria for offering people loans or credit - if we cannot prove that they can manage the repayments as part of their monthly spending we are not allowed to lend to them. Full stop. This is government mandated and it baffles me that the same criteria aren't applied to payday loans companies...

Sometimes the people who get rejected for loans desperately need the money still which is really hard and we've started recommending a local credit union in the hopes it will stop people turning to companies like Wonga.

The problem is people get desperate for money - and unless you've known that sick feeling of having literally no money left and no bank of Mum & Dad to turn to, you can't appreciate it, and that is what these companies deal in. They see people with no choices left and I personally think they take advantage of that desperation, but unless the government bring back emergency loans then they're going to continue being who the desperate turn to.

In the olden days mum got the woman from the Provi to come every week so she could buy things. She paid out what she could afford to get provi cheques to buy us clothes and for the wasing machine, etc. We called ours the washer woman.

It's so easy to lambast people for borrowing to buy stuff but you still need stuff when you are poor. And as a kid I had nothing through the year...no birthday presents and no holidays but mum went into debt every year to buy us the one thinv we wanted.

Brighthouse and the likes are awful but for some people they are the only option. Usury has always existed and always will. The government could intervene but they don't give a rats ass about the poor.

Doing without these days is easier said than done and perhaps some of us have been oser to these usurers than others and get why they exist.