The very word “debt” is enough to bring fear to a great number of people, suggesting as it does a range of worries from being unable to make mortgage payments, keep a car on the road, take holidays and even, for some people, to eat three good meals daily. There are of course several different kinds of debt, and it is not necessarily a given that debt will always lead to financial meltdown. The key thing to remember is that debt should always be manageable. There are […]

Most of us, at one time or another, have looked at an item and thought “That would make my life so much better – now if only I had the money to buy it“. Credit is the solution used by many people in this dilemma. In many ways, it is as though a bank were saying to the person “No problem, you can have that item. I’ll pay for it now, and you can pay me back over time”. In this, the bank is acting as the […]

It is always difficult to live frugally when all around you seem to have more possessions, more money and simply more fun. There are few people in the world who do not enjoy having new, enjoyable possessions which can make life easier, more varied and overall just more fun. The risk of seeing life in this way is that it can make people go to extreme lengths to keep up. No small amount of the financial turmoil that is seen on an individual basis very frequently happens […]

It is a certain fact that where credit used to be the preserve of a few people with major disposable income, now loans and credit cards are common parts of life for most sections of society. This has led to situations where it is assumed that the less well-off are the people who like to take out credit and get into difficulties, believing that society cannot do anything about it. However, it seems clear now that even billionaire and trillionaire banks have been just as slack in […]