Heavy Debt Levels
Posted: Fri 3 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism 1 Comment »I was watching a thing on Channel 4 the other night about people in debt, and I must admit that I really don’t understand how (as in the case of this one programme) someone can end up with debts of £65,000 over the span of six years. I just don’t get that mindset of “I want [xxx], but I can’t afford it, so I’ll just get it on credit”.
Personally, I also fail to understand how someone can run up debts like that, and even keep it secret from their partner. I just couldn’t handle that much stress or deceit, to be honest.
Denial and ‘addiction’. I’ve run up debts of a few thousand, so I can understand the mindset where each envelope that arrives is scary, each phone call is another stress not to be tackled. And that was when it was just me. I think if you have kids, and you lack the self-discipline/scepticism/intelligence to resist all the adverts that tell you what must have to in order to have any meaning in your life, and Christmas is coming, and the kids need new shoes, the pressures to spend are difficult to resist.
But it is worrying that people are able to run up that size of debt. I think I managed to get my credit card limit up to £6,000 when I was on about £30k. I know round here they get in with the loansharks – some of whom employ baseball bats, but even those that don’t are charging like 50% interest for a three month loan.
Or else people use their houses as security against a business, second mortgage, failing business. It’s a nightmare.