To ask how much, if any, credit people have?

[Allinadayswork80]

Not wanting to offend anyone, but having seen previous threads asking how much you you earn, etc. I hope this question wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask.

Curious to know how much credit/debt people have and what for? I was brought up with the attitude that if you can’t afford it, you don’t have it but I also have friends whose attitude is “life is too short and have what you want”. There’s lots of things I’d like, new clothes, upgraded furniture/white goods but we live within our means and generally only buy what we can afford or have saved for. Whereas we have friends with lovely newer cars, latest clothes, American fridge freezers with ice dispensers etc. all on credit. I personally would find this stressful. I’d love to know the general consensus on peoples’ attitudes towards credit and if I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face?

All debts paid off, have about 25k credit limit between 2 credit cards.
Pay for absolutely everything on one credit card to get cashback, pay it off in full every month. Keeping other card for moving house as that has the largest limit on it.

@Clarissa76

I only use credit cards for convenience and pay them off every month. Only debt is my mortgage.

However I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using credit as a way of spreading cost as long as you doing with your eyes open. It’s fine to eg spread the coat of a holiday over a few months if you can’t pay it all at once. But be conscious of what you’re doing and have a plan to pay it off. Where it all goes wrong is when people treat their credit limit as cash in the bank, spend if all and then sit there for years making the minimum payment.

I feel exactly the same. I use credit cards for cashback rewards but always pay in full. Have lowered the credit on all of them to where I know I can pay off everything monthly so I don't go over. If I can't afford it I don't have it.

Remember though that a lot of people actually use credit to pay for basics (food, shoes, as 'money transfers' to cover bills) that they cannot afford. It's not as straightforward as 'everyone uses credit to make frivolous, unnecessary purchases.

I had over £20k at some point through no fault of my own; now I have £100, which I will pay off before it's due at the end of the month.

None other than a very small mortgage - 20k.
I had racked up my credit cards once and it was horrendous trying to meet the payments, I had no life.
A salary windfall enabled me to pay them off and I never have credit now.
I prefer to put all my spare cash into savings and save for what I need.

this is what I meant, what do people have ON credit / finance or as you say, how much debt. I’m just curious to know if/how people use credit
I never use the term credit to describe debt.
Its part of how people get into debt, they view credit as available to them like their own money when in fact its debt.

@Donthaveagoodusername

However seeing quite a few holier than thou posts here. It's very easy to say 'if you can't afford it, you shouldn't have it'. Does that go for food and living costs too? Some people have been forced to take out credit to live due to losing income in the pandemic Don't be so quick to judge

This is true actually for my post I'd like to add that I didn't always work like that and it took us years to pay off debt. Years and some uncomfortable winters and one really difficult year without a car with four young children. But that's why now, if we don't afford it we don't have it. Obviously it's a completely different thing to being in circumstances that force you to use credit

It is FAR harder if you have a limited income and can't just fix the boiler, or replace the cooker without resorting to credit cards or loans

This is true but there is also a mindset thing. I was raised in a family where debt was considered awful, the idea that you would borrow for anything other than a house was completely taboo.

My grandfather lived in genuine poverty. His daily attitude was that savings were a necessity as much as a debt repayment were, and went without so much to maintain his small buffer. He was a terrifically shrewd man though, it would have killed him to pay interest. His view was that anything he ever could have had to scrape out of his income to repay debt could be scraped out to save.

It was a different time though.

Only debt we have is our mortgage. We have never had credit cards. Both of us have had car finance and credit union loans in the past. Nothing major though.

I use credit, up to a couple of grand, to spread the cost of big purchases and keep my spending stable rather than having money sitting in the accounts some months and being down to double digits others. It's much easier to have a couple of hundred going out each month to cover an interest free credit payment than it is to wait the months it would take to save up for stuff that is important to my quality of life but too expensive to buy in one go -- I just don't make big purchases on credit so often that my balance gets to the point of not being able to keep on top of the payment and make sure to stick to interest free cards.

People who think they are morally superior to go without a fridge freezer until they have saved up £200 pound a month for several months to buy outright rather than just buying what they need and paying it off after are just cutting off their noses for the sake of it - there's nothing wrong with credit as long as you use it responsibly.

I honestly have no idea how much credit I have available should I feel the need to go on a shopping spree - I really need to do a credit card audit and get rid of all my unused cards. I have several as I had a couple on 0% interest periods to put large purchases on when we did our kitchen. Purely because I wanted the extra protection rather than paying cash. We had the cash available and paid them all off within a month or two.

I have in the past bought a second hand car (about £6,000) on a credit card and paid it off within the interest free period just so I didn't have to deplete my savings.

I use a credit card (that's not on a 0% period, I don't even know the interest rate) for absolutely everything but have it set up to pay off in its entirety every month so I never pay interest.

The only actual debt we have is a car each on lease and the mortgage.

Appreciate this is a privileged position to be in, that I have credit available but don't need it.

My mum was a big fan of the Kays club book in the 80s and early 90s and spreading the cost across X number of weeks. I hadn't thought about that for years. Used to love looking through them at the toys.

I’ve never had a credit card, the only debt I have is my mortgage

All those saying they have credit and store cards but don't use them, or use them lightly and pay off worth bearing in mind that mortgage lenders will be interested in the amount of available credit you have because you could spend it.

Mortgage advisor told me once about a customer she'd been dealing with who hadn't considered the lender's perspective that they could leave the bank, walk to the shops and spend £70k on an assortment of credit and store cards.

I always turn down increases to my credit limit on my card.

I wasn't even happy with a car loan, I kept thinking what if I lost my job or was too ill to work.
I decided to have a small lease car on a cheap rate that I could return while I saved up for a car.

Apart from the mortgage, I have a personal loan with about £4,000 left to pay. I have a credit card with £9,500 limit but nothing on it currently.

None. No mortgage.

The only debt we have is our mortgage. It was very different about 6 years ago when we were paying for two lots of childcare and we had to get a new car (new to us!) We ended up with about £7,000 of credit card debt. It took 5 years to slowly pay it off and now that the kids are at school and our earnings have gone up a little we are able to save a bit each month. We've always just bought things outright. I don't like the thought of lots of regular outgoings each month. I'd rather save up for something.

No credit card , no car loan . I have £60 left to pay on the Argos card for a Hoover that I bought on a whim last month

We used credit cards to pay for our loft extension to be completed ten years ago and have been paying it off ever since - around 10k. We had just bought the house and needed the unfinished loft for ds's bedroom. Since then we have shifted the debts every couple of years, always keeping them on interest free cards and slowly whittling them away. We now owe around 5k for the loft.
We are both self employed and also use credit cards to cover us while waiting for payments. We never pay interest but switching cards often involves paying a fee of 2-3% for two years. I don't like it and sometimes worry about what would happen if we couldn't get new cards when the interest free runs out but have been surprised how easy it's been go shift cards (I'm sure having a mortgage helps).

£5500. But two and a half years ago it was £15250, combination of credit cards and overdraft. It had built up gradually over years of single parenthood, childcare costs and private rent, also to be honest being disorganised about money. I didn't even have anything to show for that bloody debt, not really. I was doing things like paying the council tax on credit card.

Then we got an eviction notice from our landlord (the sixth in ten years - a good few grand of that spending was things like moving costs, paying two lots of rent and council tax etc during tenancy term overlaps, buying a fridge freezer for one house, selling it for fifty quid a year later because the next house had one and wouldn't remove it, buying another a year later because the next didn't have one, that sort of thing) and I dug my heels in at the council till we got an HA property. So finally my costs went down. Couple of months later got promotion, then lockdown so less commuting, no childcare, suddenly my spending had dropped madly and I made a massive concerted effort to get myself out of the mess.

Obviously I'm not quite clear yet but it's much better and less stressful than it was, and is now on two interest free cards that I'm continuing to pay off. I also have £5k in savings which I could use to clear it but I like having that there so I know I'm not going to hit the buffers again.

I buried my head in the sand for a long time but feel proud that I'm getting out of it now.

Obviously the pandemic has been shit for me, as for everyone, in many ways but it did give me the kick I needed to sort out my finances.

7200 one 4K credit card, not really used, one 1200 quid used for Amazon points near top of limit but if I pay 400 in jan and rest in feb no interest. 2k overdraft that I’m 100 quid into, I used to earn more money but joys of no childcare means I do min wage stuff. I think my credit rating is still good though.

I don't buy anything I can't afford. So I only have the mortgage debt and a credit card for emergencies or where it benefits me to pay by credit card for purchase protection etc and then I pay it straight off.

My DP recently took out a PCP on a new car which is something that he's never done before.

I've got 3 credit cards because I collect different points/benefits on all of them. I think the total available credit line is about 75k. I may them off every month though. I'm always a bit baffled that people think credit card = debt.

Other than that it's just the mortgage.

Just a mortgage.

Credit cards used by both of us but are paid off in full every month.

Perhaps it would be more helpful if posters said how much they actually had on the mortgage, since that is debt?
Mine is about £80,500 currently.

We used to always be in debt until our mortgage was paid off when we were in our mid 50s. Since then we made a concerted effort to get debt free before we reached retirement age. Which we achieved. We now do all our daily spending on credit card, so I suppose we go up to £1500 each month, but it is paid off in full every month so we have no charges, but we do get the reward points. We may get a loan when we replace our car, but only if it is 0% interest, or other benefits to make it worthwhile.