where has the credit gone?

[winterblues25]

I’ve usually never had a problem being accepted for credit but just tried to increase my credit limit on my card recently and was refused, new balance transfer card and loan applications refused, credit score good, even the balance transfer offers on my credit card which I’ve had for years have been withdrawn??

<sigh> I was trying to make the point that belts can be tightened and some of the "essentials" aren't essential at all.

Desperate??

I’ve already come to the conclusion many of these posters are quite deranged, we simply redirected income into our pensions while credit was cheap, thats all. Many people have their cars on a loan that far exceeds 8k which we’re paying off as per the terms of our agreement with the bank so what the hell it’s got to do with them I don’t know. I rather suspect if these people had lived in Victorian times they would have been the sort to say gruel was too good for the workhouse children. How must they treat people in 2026 who need to claim benefits?

How about we continue to choose how to spend our income which we’ve gone out and earned and you decide how to spend your earnings. Myself and DH didn’t get this far, build up what we have and raised the happy healthy children we have (without family or other support) without having a fairly good idea of how to budget and prioritise. We’ll do what works for us and you do what works for you

Given that the median household income in the UK is only apparently around 37k then I doubt the majority of young UK students are not eligible for the full or nearly full maintenance loan. That aside if my DH decided to take in even more work, lets say an extra weekend a month, which he would have to work away for and he earned 5k (£416 a month) pre tax, after mandatory deductions for tax, NI, student loan and the child benefit higher income charge, he would take home £138 of that £416. Not the £250 you are assuming. Given the fact that he already works 2 weekends a month (plus in the week) and I work another and I’m completely unashamed to say we are completely maxed out and exhausted with having a one year old at present plus older children, £138 really is not worth it for us at have virtually no time at all together as a family, even less time to support me in caring for the house and family either and would not make a significant difference to clearing 8k of debt above us just e.g pausing pension contributions or waiting until DSC have finished uni.
Just to fill you in with regards to tax, the kick in the teeth is a lot more for families with young children who earn 100k with the withdrawal of the funded hours and TFC and those earning 125k have their basic personal allowance equivalent taxed at 40% so no it’s not just a case of only having to consider paying 45% tax after 125k
You are the one using the emotive term ‘nasty’ government and banks, repeatedly, I’m merely stating how it is, I would be a turkey celebrating Christmas if I was cock a hoop over the bank upping interest rates and the government continuing to penalise families as they do

Well funny I’ve also got a card with a 12k limit plus another card, neither of which have had their limits rediuced, plus a mortgage which was renewed at a favourable market rate last year, so your point is???

Clearly not as they would have reduced my credit limits

Ah I thought your DH earned a lot less than £100 from your other posts.

Your comment about the median HH income is misleading; for starters that's across all households in the UK, but in fact certainly many HHs with students at uni do not have any much younger DC (I know a lot of families with student DC and none of them have any other DC younger than about 14 – I realise you do!) so it's pretty likely that they will have two parents working in a lot of cases. So their HH income will be higher. I imagine that median HH income figure is skewed by the number of HHs where one parent does not work or works PT and earns a low income bc they have younger DC.

HH income has to be < £25k for a full loan, not £37k. That is not very many households (after all, it's less than one FT minimum wage). Certainly nothing like the majority. Like I say, I know lots of people with student DC and I only know one who got a full loan. And that was about six years ago; the level of HH income has not gone up (or not much) so maybe even they would not qualify now.

Where has 6 years come from? I bought a pair of work shoes from Clark’s 5 years ago which lasted 5 years, yes glad of the money I spent on them

Apparently 50% of 14 year olds in the UK do not live with both birth parents so your idea that most teenagers are going off to uni reside in a house with both parents let alone both parents earning a professional full time salary is highly unlikely. Also
apparently only 55% of couples whose youngest child is 16-18 both work full time. Therefore I very much doubt the median average household taxable income for most families with a teenager is 60k compared to the UK median of 37k. More likely you only associate with a rather homogenous group of people and you are assuming that is the norm.
The student maintenance loan is only slightly reduced if the students household income is at the level of 37k, which is why I stated full/nearly full
loan as compared to being reduced by several thousand for a student who comes from a household with an income of 60k+

We can make more money but then we’ve found most of it goes in tax
I mean that’s just not true. The highest tax rate is 45% so less than half and that only applies when you earn £125k which I infer your DH does not.

Plus, that rate is only on the income in that band.
You still have your personal allowance, and then the basic rate of tax for the next band of salary, and then the higher rate for the next band before you hit this band. No-one is paying 45% on all their salary.

Nor is anyone on £100K 's net income as low as you are trying to imply.
The fact he has commitments that he pays before you see what is left of his salary is NOT the fault of the tax system.

As per my post above, gaining only £138 (completely excluding any influence on student maintenance loan assessments) from additional £416 earnings is just not worth it to us for the huge impact on our family wellbeing and stress levels.
You and I can disagree on whether the tax system is unfair particularly toward families in my view, we both have a vote at the next election

Sorry but with average of 2800thp a month pretty aure your dh doesn't pay 40% tax. And IF he does by very odd chance, it's on tiny proportion of his salary anyway.
You are massively misunderstanding something about your own situation

You’ve obviously read that figure from someone else’s post as my original post states that is after tax NI, SLC and the parental contribution he pays to top up our 2 DSC student maintenance loans

Had another look at the options tonight and doesn’t look so bad, have one balance that I always pay off in full at the end of every month and just double checked and the APR on purchases on that is only 13%, not 25% as had thought, so actually can just use the money we normally use to pay off that to pay towards the other balance

We’ll be saying on childminder costs by then so the savings from that should offset suitable coats, field trips etc

Head. Wall. Bang.

You said “everyday essentials”

So presumably one would be “desperate” for the credit if it’s needed to buy essentials!

13% is pretty horrific but yes… it’s certainly better!

Having credit at a low interest rate has helped us over the years, e.g can buy a decent pair of shoes that lasts 5 years rather than 6 months so costs less in the end

Without credit you’d have had to buy very cheap shoes that would have lasted 6 months. Presumably you’re now going to have to do that in future until credit eases up?

No, it has just made sense for us to contribute to our pensions to the maximum level our employers will match, in that way we’ve built up 70k of extra pension savings. Obviously we could of just put that money on everyday essentials instead and not had to use any credit

How many times do I have to say, no we wouldn’t have as we would have just contributed less to our pensions. 8k over the last 10 years is £66 a month, we’ve contributed several hundred a month to our pensions over that time, to the tune of building up 70k in extra pension savings

I think what Op means is that to avoid paying further higher rate tax and to qualify for free child care hours they have been topping up their pensions which is taken pretax ,NI etc
However this and mat leave left them with little money for essentials so they used CC for this spending at 0% and just switched when that rate came to an end.

However they didnt always pay it off so a balance has accrued but now down to 8K

Is this correct @winterblues25 ?

Maximum being 3% 5%?

How much are “field trips”?! Mine are at private and the most I’ve ever paid for a “field trip” is £30. That was the most I’ve ever paid. Usually £10-£15.

You need a financial advisor (although you’d have to pay!)

because paying all the interest on your £8k debt but instead overpaying pensions… when you have so many young dependents, is…. Odd to say the least