Whatever ever happened to saving up for what you want?

[gemfyre]

Yeah that. Tonight was a thing on one of the Current Affairs programs about low income people complaining about how much they end up paying in these "buy now, pay later" schemes. One example was a family who had their gas and water cut off because they couldn't pay off a home entertainment system.

Fuck, if you can't afford it, WHY DID YOU BUY IT?!! No-one NEEDS a home entertainment system. Right now we're managing on a TV that must be at least 20 years old. And if we can't afford something that's not an absolute neccessity - we don't buy it!

There are loads of nice things I want, I have a long list, but you know what? I do that old fashioned thing called SAVING UP. Then when I've saved enough money, I get the thing I want and start saving for the next thing. It makes it a lot more rewarding AND I don't have to worry about paying it back at a later date and interest and all that crap.

I am so glad that BankWest just came out with their debit card - so I can purchase online and book things and do all that stuff that requires a credit card, without actually spending any money I don't have.

If you're on a low income, don't go buying luxury items you can't afford. Or if you do don't cry about it when you can't pay it off.

Comments

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

Heh, and I had the problem of them NOT letting me do this because they wouldn't count my pension, which is far more suitable as an income when it's gauranteed for 5 years and not really likely to have gone away after than anyway (and didn't). I did however just get my parents to buy my fridge interest free thingy and when the interest free period was up, they paid it all off and i just paid them back what was owed in the end.

I'm glad for this as it would have saved me around $500 in interest, on a $650 fridge.

I did however get a bank loan for $5k when i moved over here from NAB. It was a student loan with 3 years without need for payments and no interest. this was great until i decided not to pay any of it back for the first 2 years and then found i couldn't pay it off and ended up borrowing $6k to pay it off after the interest was killing me. definitelly a learning experience I wish I'd missed.