Credit where credit is due

I'll admit, the title is almost completely unrelated to what this post is going to be about, a lot like the posts of Dave Williams of mylifeisdaverage would be (in case you were wondering, he did not go AWOL, he just defected to tumblr, just like every other teenager with too many thoughts and feelings that can only be expressed by pictures or quotes.). This post is about credit but not the good kind of credit, it is about money lending.

I am of the rather traditional view of "if you don't have money then don't spend it" which if everyone shared rather than the typical DFS "buy now, pay later" mindset, we would not still be in economic meltdown. Big businesses and banks have taken advantage of the human nature to spend what they have, in fact Parkinson's second law is "Expenditure rise to meet income", present a man with £100, even if he has to give it back in the future, that money will be spent and he must recover the money in order to give it back or face the consequences.

Obviously there is a need to borrow money to buy a place to live and this is done by a long term mortgage from the bank, details are set out, conditions put in for loss of job or unexpected problems and eventually the money is paid back with interest. A newer form of borrowing money is in the form of the credit card, this short term lending causes all sorts of problems, unless incredibly strict on yourself, you will spend stupid amounts of money you don't have. This is obviously a bit of a pickle when it comes to paying off that credit card, yeah, you have to give back all that money you spent plus a little bit extra to pay off that kind, lovely company that let you use their money. It gets pretty nasty when you don't pay and the interest really kicks in, plunging you further into debt without you having a penny to show for it.

What I really hate are the new short term lending companies such as QuickQuid, Wonga and countless others, they focus on people struggling to pay bills with payday just too far away to wait it out and charge stupidly high interest rates in exchange for the speed and ease you can borrow money. Here is my message to the world: don't use these companies, short term lending is a terrible idea, if you have bills that need paying but payday is still a week away, phone the electricity/water/phone company and ask nicely for an extra week, they are human and will understand! Not to mention that most companies give you the option of what day of the month to pay your bills so it can be shortly after payday.

Sorry this one hasn't been hilarious, I am quite passionate about this.