My father was an accountant and it’s thanks to his advice over the years that I’ve been able to retire early. However, if ever he could get anything interest-free over a few months, he would. That was mainly due to savings interest rates being a lot higher then so you could earn interest on the money that you would have otherwise spent in one lump sum.
It’s a habit that has stayed with me, even though interest rates are pathetically low at the moment
This has essentially been my mantra in regards to these things too.
It’s largely why I still do it now even with savings rates so low. I’m lucky to earn more than £2 over the course of the interest free period. But it’s a habit that’s stuck with me, and it feels healthy, or at least healthier than rewards points for spending, so I’ll keep at it for the foreseeable.
Again I think this is a slightly rose tinted view of credit products. There are always reasons to use them and to not use them. Let’s not pretend that credit is some consequence-less thing that is only of benefit to the consumer- it really is isn’t.
It’s there to make you spend more. If you can resist or manage that, that’s great, lots of people can’t though. I know you were talking about your own situation, still, I think it’s good to keep to language that doesn’t encourage credit use.
Of course, and like I said with regulation tweaks I don’t personally see any difference between them and a credit card - it’s all just credit.
I don’t think my post will make someone go into credit debt, so I stand by my thought process. Everyone is responsible for their own choices where credit is concerned.
If we have credit products, and things are explained clearly and crucially are fair then we have to accept some ability for humans to make decisions that are not good ones.
If we want to prevent it happening completely then we need to remove credit products completely. In my current life that would be an annoyance but I would survive.
I know for many people though, they would struggle. My friend used Klarna (or something similar) to buy a suit for a funeral for example.
I’ve seen both the bad and the good side of credit in my life so I don’t take it lightly; but I wouldn’t equally take it away from people as a choice.
@Chuits Please put the article you’re referring to in your first post. So that others (like me) don’t have to scroll half way through a discussion just to know what’s going on
I don’t use BNPL very often (as I have in the past been a bit of a magpie and got myself in to debt) but here and there it has made perfect sense. It will be excellent to have a regulated bank in this space.
I bought my husband a new Xbox Series X for his birthday and was offered a 6month 0% payment plan. So the money that I had set aside could stay in my savings earning a (teeny tiny amount of) interest.
Generally though I use the old school BNPL of putting it on my Amex to earn cash back and paying it off in full each month
This isn’t quite right. I bought something via Klarna a few weeks ago and there was an immediate hard credit check.
Klarna could have done better in alerting me it’s about to happen, though.
Sigh. This might be better for “the system” but not for the consumer. It’s more sucking up of data by private firms that have somehow become the arbiters of individuals’ most sensitive data.
I understand why the system pushes Monzo to use them, but it’s still not a helpful development, in my opinion.