Student loans...
don't count as real debt.

it took them almost a bloody year to start taking payments from my pay that were more than the interest they were charging me. Idiots.

As it is, I'm in a reasonably well paid job (civil engineer, not as highly paid as most think) as is my partner, we've bought a brand new flat in Exeter, have a reasonably new car and I am replete with almost as many surfboards and guitars as I could hope for.

If I were to be concerned with the £16k of debt that had been inflicted on me by going to university then my usual happiness would suffer.

Moral: don't worry about student loans
sub-moral: if you haven't yet gone to uni, let the thought of debt dissuade you from going and studying something useless like english, or history, or politics, or philosophy. you are just wasting your time and others. I still maintain that as happy as I am in my job I'd much rather have left school at 16 to become a blacksmith.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:55, Reply)

Ooo, debt fun.
For a long time, I was the world's worst person for looking after money. My dad died, my brother and I shared his estate. Within the year I was back on my overdraft limit. I was at university, parents paying tuition and rent AND giving me a monthly allowance to live on.

I spent 21,000 pounds in one year on absolutely fuck-all.

At the end of uni, it turned out that one of my uncles had made provision for me when I was born. At the age of 21, I was given 6 grand. Within the year, I was back on my overdraft limit.

I temped for two years after uni because of the well-known problem of finding a job when you have an Arts degree. Credit cards and overdraft took hammerings.

March last year I took out a loan to learn to drive, buy a car and pay off debts. Within the year etc etc.

I have long since lost count of the amount of defaults I have made on payments. The end result is that at 26, I am blacklisted by all banks, everywhere. The upside is that I can't get myself further into debt because nobody will give me credit. Not even store cards. I'm actually glad about this on one level because I'm now a lot better with money and am actually living within my means and gradually paying everything off.

So. I owe 3 grand still on my loan, 2 and a half on my credit card and 400 on an overdraft.

This time last year it was 4 grand over two credit cards, 4 grand on the loan and a grand and a half on overdraft.

I'm still impressed with myself, five years later, on the sheer amount of money I spent at uni. 27,000 with nothing to show for it. Makes you sick, doesn't it.

EDIT: In my defence, my main problem was not being able to find a job. An English degree is great when you're actually at uni, but afterwards it's a lead weight. My first full time job was at the age of 23 for 13,500 a year. Since then I've gone through jobs like water, never managing to get out of the probation period. The upside is that through all this failing at life, I've managed to swim sideways into IT, a job that I've always wanted to do. I'm studying for exams and finally cracked the 20 grand a year mark. This time next year, I'll be qualified and earning more.

Just goes to show, even if life seems like hell, keep your mind focussed on where you want to be and it'll eventually come together. I may be 26, debt-ridden and still living with my parents, but I'm more economically aware now than many people I know, I'm in the industry I've always wanted to be in and I'm making decent money with the promise of more to come.

Also, when I'm an IT director, I will make it my personal mission to hire people with no experience who want to get into the industry because IT is an absolute grade A bitch to break into.
( Kroney, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:53, Reply)

I owe you all
Do you want something to cheer you all up?

Last week I gave you chapter one in the moving story of Che and Ursula. Since then, I have written up chapter two, entitled ‘Meet the parents…and run’.

If I get at least five messages to my mailbox requesting this, I’ll post it, otherwise, I’ll keep it until a suitable question comes up. I ought to warn you though, it runs to two sides of A4 at 10pt Ariel.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:51, Reply)

Bastard Student loans
after avoiding the buggers for several years, they caught up with me, so i gave them £100 a month for about a year, then managed to conveniently vanish once again, so this time when they found me the bastards took me straight to court, and I've ended up paying out near enough every penny I'm getting in. so wages - bills = £400 so they then take £320 per month off me to pay it off. leaving me much less than you get from the dole to eat.

still come february the bastards are all behind me. (and it's my employers who are taking the money out so the student loans can't fuck up and take at least £900 more out than you owe, as they did to a friend of mine, then spend six months arguing about when they were going to give it back!)
(ceebs, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:49, Reply)

here in San Francisco
there is this stupid imperative that you must buy a house NOW NOW NOW before prices or mortgage rates go even higher. (I get to wait for my parents to die first.) People end up going into massive debt, usually with interest-only or negative-amortization loans and/or other methods of "creative" financing so they can afford the payments. That means they will possibly owe more than what the house is worth. Look out, here come the foreclosure fairies to take your house away!
( cynfulcynner ...another American nutter, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:47, Reply)

Japper!
Get GAP Insurance next time....

Pays the difference between the amount it's worth and the amount you owe.

Apologies for sensible advice with no strap line
(Danny Fishcharge Half arsed, smart arsed, on & off a lard arse sinc, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:46, Reply)

Cash Machine Phobia
When I was a student I was as broke as bollocks. Obviously all my own fault of course. I remember one week I just had £5 to live on until I next got paid and had to eat baked potatoes every night.

Anyway, I got so sick of checking my balance on cash machines and being told by the machine that I was completely fucked that I developed a serious phobia of them. Even walking past them gave me the serious shivers.

It was years after graduating before getting over it.

Luckily I'm wadded now and checking my balance just confirms this and makes me happy! Yay!
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:42, Reply)

Oh yes,,
And when I was at college i used to put my bank statements straight under my bed without opening them.

Eventually I got a letter from Experian, the credit reference agency, saying I had been blacklisted over defaulting on a payment of £5.

Years later at a careers fair who had a stall there.. Experian! I ranted at the bastards and then threw one of their free pencils at them to teach them a lesson. But I picked it up and kept it, and took a balloon as well.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:41, Reply)

smug, satisfied glow of failure redux
Moral of the story? Don't listen to the lying scumbags who insist you need an education.

Don't listen to clumsyeloquence - I tried this tack and guess what? I'm in a deep hole of student and credit card debt, spent most of the 1990s unable to get any sort of job that wasn't as a kitchenhand, and am only just now finishing my undergraduate degree at the age of 34. Even that is only because the headshrinker that Centrelink assigned to me as a case manager because I'd been on the dole so long gave me a pitying look in response to my description of my career ambitions, and said "Get a degree."

I'd just like to thank Osama bin Laden for generating thousands of new security-related jobs over the last five years. That is all.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:22, Reply)

money
i am terrible with money.

i grew up in a large poor family - we never had much but there was always food on the table. as a consequence i am very materialistic and tend to get myself little presents to cheer myself up.

b3ta is bloody good cheap therapy!

i've always made good money - i just manage to spunk it away on things. last year was a total shocker for me - money and debt played a large part in why my marriage was failing. but, i saw the light and have now repaired my marriage and am taking steps to repair my finances.

currently i'm about 30k up the shitter - it's going to take a while to sort that little mess out - but it can be done. i've got a 100k house and a 45k mortgage, so that aint too bad.

credit cards are to blame. they were a good idea in concept but that concept failed to take into account that people are idiots. kinda like guns in that respect - helped us humans with the hunting initially, then turn out to be very good at endiing lives. kinda like a great tool in the right hands.

sobering thought of the day. the uk government owes £529 billion (£529,000,000,000) and that works out at about £8k per man woman and child. add that to your totals, b3tans!

lh
(localhost, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:17, Reply)

I'm so crap
HSBC wont let me have more than 10 quid as an overdraft, for the last 3 years I've been sans switch and after becoming a mature student this autumn, wouldnt give me a student account either.

might have summat to do with the occasional £1100 9 day benders but I can't be sure.
(luckymcdanger, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:12, Reply)

Ah, the smug, satisfied glow of failure
I dropped out of college at 17 due to immense boredom and got a shitty admin job.

Now, while all my friends who have been through/ dropped out of uni find themselves in up to £15k of debt, I am earning the average wage for a recent graduate, as an editorial assistant, and have around £5k in savings.

My career is going swimmingly and freelance work has started coming in, while most of my friends left uni this year and are either still struggling to find work or have ended up at New Look.

Not bad for 18, I think.

Moral of the story? Don't listen to the lying scumbags who insist you need an education.
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:12, Reply)

Dads a tosser
Me dads had multiple credit card and loan problems. Buyin a new camera then realising he cant admit spending £1000 on a camera and then selling it for £300 the next day. Writing cheques to himself from credit accounts. faking bank statements so noone knows, re-directing the post, settling pension schemes early for bulk payouts. everything. Currently 60 years old with £100,000 of debt. Total amount of money paid out over the last 20 years - about £300,000. So to recap, my dads spent £300,000 on an air rifle, a bike, a camera and a pair of speakers.

the cunt.
(hatofjam built a friend out of lego on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:06, Reply)

Dear the police, this following post is probably a lie
I had a brilliant idea to make a bit of money at Uni financed by a student loan.

It didn't go well.

I suspect I am the only person EVER to make a loss from dealing.
(Throbbe, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:55, Reply)

You bastards!
Why is this question of the week here? I'm in my first year at Uni, have just come to terms with the obscene amount of money I'm spending, but am hoping that everything will be ok when I actually get a job. Instead I'm subjected to endless expositions on how in fact it's all going to get even more shit. Bugger.
(LickOutTheJamsMotherfuckers!, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:53, Reply)

Buying Cars with "optional final payment"
Anybody thinking about getting a new car on a "final payment" scheme, think first..

My beloved puma was getting onto 70,000 miles and was looking at some big servicing costs over the next year, so worked out that it would be cheaper to get a brand new clio over 3 years, on one of these "pay optional final payment to keep car or give it back and get another new one" type jobbies.

So, select a lovely clio for 10,000 squids, hand over the puma for 4000 part ex, leaves 3 years at 100 quid a month with optional final payment of 3000. ok so far?

All going well, another year left on car to pay when some facker drives into it and it gets written off. So the insurance offer me 4500 minus excess and that (book price). So i call up renault and are told that there is 4000 left on car to pay. FACK. So yes. I walk away with 500 quid after paying in 6000 so far, and still have to buy a new car, which ill need a loan for.

1)Never buy a new car
2)Never have an optional payment
(japper, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:45, Reply)

paragliding
Let me try and cheer this up a bit. How's this for loserdom:
When I was in Brighton I used to watch, awe struck, as paragliders would sail overhead from the Downs, right over town and land gently on the beach!
I unexpectedly got hold of some money, and decided that was the hobby for me. No - it would be a way of life. There was a great deal on at the local school; pay £2k up front, have free lessons until you were club standard, then you could choose £2k worth of equipment - a wing, helmet etc once you were qualified.
I paid up on my switch card, and on the first day I could I got down to Devils Dyke for my first lesson.
First up was putting on the helmet; I did that pretty well but then, being England, it quickly clouded over and so we had to call it a day.
The next week a letter fell through my door; the company had gone into liquidation. I would be entitled to money depending on everyone else being payed off first, and only after selling whatever stock was found on the premises. The letter went on to say that as the only stock was a telephone and a ball of twine, it was unlikely I'd see any money.
So to sum up, I paid £2,000 to try on a paragliding helmet.
Still, I see that having declared themselves bankrupt, Sky Systems is back in action again! Well done Michel, good luck with your next record-breaking adventure!!
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:42, Reply)

Ba...
just the usual really, moved to london with student debt and very quickly realised that the salary which I had been quite chuffed with when it were offered to me (I lived in Sheffield at the time) meant two parts of fuck all in London. Routinely paid my rent one or two months late by cheque which would send me crashing through my overdraft limit and out the other side. Had to borrow another £5k on top of my SLC loans just to live but was still regularly cleaned out by the 18th of the month, resorting to buying sandwiches from the petrol station with my credit card and borrowing my tube fair home off my boss.

But through about two years of really bad switch and cheque behaviour, HSBC never once told me off, they just sat back and reaped the rewards on the fees that I racked up - funny, eh?
(numbbum, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:40, Reply)

My mum as well
The wife and I have a mortgage and credit cards but its not unmanagable, we're both working so we'll be OK in the long run. My mum's a bit different though.

Like scentless_apprentice, I too had a few afternoons hiding from knocks on the door in my youth and finding demands of payments in the washing pile, so I suppose I should have seen it coming.

My dad died suddenly 9 years ago when I was 24, and it hit us hard. As he was working, he had various pension schemes / trust funds etc. to provide for this eventuality. The mortgage on the house was paid off and we think my mum then got around £250,000 to set her up for life. She could have invested it, bought property, divided some between the kids (there were 5 of us) or just put it in a bank and lived off the interest for life. I don't know the full story as my mums unable to tell the truth, even to solicitors and advisors.

Basically the money pissed through her fingers. Spending on meals out became weekends out with 'friends'. Loans of £200 became £2000 and providing a new kitchen to a couple that we know of. Christmas for the 3 grandkids was like walking into a toystore and she'd spend her early days addicted to QVC and buying anything and everything from it. Some stuff is still stacked in boxes in the front room. We think most of the cash went when she was spending 4 years working for a one man applicance centre, when she wasn't taking any wages and supporting the business herself which was hemmoraging cash, which we only found out after it closed down because my mum had run out money.

I'm not upset that we didn't get any money (it would have been nice) but at the fact that she had no self control whatsoever, covered it with lies, pretended all was OK and more than happy to help out others rather than her family, or more specifically my dads children. My dad spent 30 years of his life working so hard, up at 6 and biking to work, where as my mum had part time jobs getting taxi's to and from work. When the money dried up, so did the friends, and genuine frieds that tried to talk to her about it got shut out.

Now she's broke on a state pension living out her twighlight years doing a few hours cleaning for a fiver an hour, providing her with enough money to buy 2 litre bottles of wine to numb the pain each night that she spends alone in front of the telly.
(wez, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:34, Reply)

well...
I'm at uni...
(mr.BIG I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:19, Reply)

i never had that much luck with money, really.
to give you some examples of how well i did:

* got a summer job while at uni in malvern. unfortunately, it paid me less than the living costs, meaning that every summer i ended up losing money, and that sucked.
* managed to convince my bank to up my overdraft to almost 3k while at uni.
* first job, got a student loan, and started renting an unfurnished house. which meant that having taken out one loan to cover my already existing debts, i now needed more money to buy furniture.
* first job paid well - massive monthly bonuses. so i started spending a bit, took out a short term loan to cover all existing debts, paying back large sums each month, and then the company killed the bonus scheme. and started making people redundant. which left me with massive loan payments to cover and little to no income to do it on as the basic wage wasn't great.
* end up using credit cards to pay off debt before reshuffling to get to a reasonable monthly outgoing level. manage to convince student loans that i can't afford to pay them back at the moment, so things start looking up.
* need to rent a new place to live. housemates on dole, the only way forward is to pay six months rent up front. bugger.
* end up needing transport, so end up with a car. and all associated debts to do with that.
* reverse car into post within six months of buying it.
* get girlfriend. in another city. cue lots of transport costs.
* she drives car into back of someone else.
* add repair costs to debt.
* find another job just before company permanently closes. slight increase in wages, so all is good. until i move nearer to girlfriend, and house gets raided by police looking for drugs, which means moving all over again at more and more expense.
* at this point, i reshuffle debt, take out a long-term loan, and things look a bit smoother.
* get engaged. so i have to buy an engagement ring. and those buggers aren't cheap.
* she moves in. bit later, she wants a house. so we buy a house.
* cue another debt reshuffle, and things look a bit more balanced.
* new company makes me redundant.
* drunk driver comes wrong way down motorway and writes off my car. and buggers up my back.
* house needs decorating.
* boiler dies a death and needs replacing.
* while that's being replaced, find a leak in the bathroom which means that the bathroom needs to be gutted and replaced.
* on the bright side, i do find another job on more money.

not exactly the best situation to be in. put on top of that the usual 'being clueless with money' and the odd unnecessary purchase here and there, and my current debt stands somewhere in the region of 35k or so, not including the 80k mortgage. on the upside, though, after covering my debts each month, i now have a bit of money left over, so that's nice.

when i realised this, i treated myself to a full sleeve tattoo ;)
(blades is looking for a brain, any brain, at, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:18, Reply)

I discovered
That even when at my overdraft limit I could still use cheques gaurenteed with the card.

So I did. A lot. And somehow managed to spend over £1000 on fuel, munchies, beer and fags, in about a month.

In addition to my existing £1000 overdraft.And £600 credit card debt.

I've only just started paying it back.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:17, Reply)

And another thing
It looks like, from what people are saying, that the SLC threshold for repaying is 15 000. I took out my loans in the early 1990s and shouldn't have to repay a penny until I'm on at least 25 000 (hasn't happened yet).

So the expected earnings for a graduate have dropped ten grand since then - and house prices have gone up 300%??? FUCK THAT!
(frankspencer, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:16, Reply)

As a student with a weed habit
My worst financial offences were comitted in 1999 when my dealer lived around the corner from a 24-hour Spar shop. I'd go in and buy some chewing gum and get £40 cashback (despite being heavily into my overdraft), and nip round his to buy skunk.

After about 6 months of this, the bank called me in. I didn't go to the branch where I opened the account, but they sat me down and handed me a telephone with my account manager on the other end. She said: "Take out your wallet. Take out your Switch card. Give it to the man sitting opposite you. You have lost your Switch privileges."

Took me about a year to get them back as well.

[edit] last week I got a letter from Honours Student Loans confirming that I have paid them off and no longer owe them anything. I may have it framed.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:11, Reply)

Student fucking loans
Those of you with the SLC, consider yourself lucky. They sold my account to a rapacious collections company ('Honours Student Loans' of Rotherham - you cunts) who threatened me with prison if I didn't start repaying immediately - despite me being unemployed and receiving no benefits at the time (couldn't claim for a number of complex reasons). I had zero income and zero savings and they forced me to repay. I had to borrow.

I, too, live in low-quality rented accommodation with my wife. We're treated like shit by the landlord and we share the building with a variety of Bulgarians, Indians and Poles (not to seem seem racist, but we are reduced to living like economic migrants because we have no credit rating and earn too little to get a mortgage). We never go out, have no TV, no pension and no savings.

I'm 34 and have two first class degrees. This country is fucking shite. If I had even a little bit of money, I'd be out of here as fast as a lie off a politician's tongue.
(frankspencer, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:09, Reply)

Picture the loan? No thanks.
All I've ever wanted to be was financially secure. I have a mortal fear of debt. I was brought up to never spend what I haven't got, and had it drummed into me from an early age that the only debt you should ever concede to having is a mortgage.

I am, therefore, the dullard that pays off her credit card every month by direct debit - probably because I'm too tightarsed to pay more for something than it cost in the first place. I didn't go to university until I was sure of what I wanted to do in my career and worked full-time while I did it - the real up side to that one is you can usually get your employer to sponsor it too (they paid 75% of my tuition fees).

The only petrifying time I had this year was when my employers tried to get rid of me cheaply by manufacturing an absurd case against me instead of making me redundant. Bad on many levels - not least because I am the main breadwinner in our household, and we can't pay our mortgage without me - especially if the stigma stopped me getting another job.

I fought them tooth and nail, and walked away last month with 6 month's net salary severence pay and a clean reference. Next month I start a fantastic new job on a bigger salary than before.

The moral of this story?

1. Always fight unfairness, and never let big corporations bully you and wear you down. They are often in the wrong and can be easily exposed as being so by the "little guy".

2. Never fuck with a HR person. We may be dull, but we know our stuff.

Apologies for length and lack of funniness. Fiscal pain remains the only thing that I have a total sense of humour failure about.
( weebear1974 discovering the joy of cat rape since, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:09, Reply)

Frank Ababio
I'm fortunate enough that Mrs. Spoon (Hmm... I should have chosen a better name - poor Mrs. Spoon) has parents that own a house in the outskirts of London. For years they'd let it out to studetns at the nearby University, and they always kept their information.

Once the Uni started to shut down that campus, and tehy couldn't get any tennants, in move myself and Mrs. Spoon. After a couple of months we start getting letters addressed to Frank Ababio. All the other details are correct on the address so we check with her parents... No Frank Ababio has lived there while they've had the house, and that's 27 years.

After a few more months of these vaguely threatening letters, more post starts arriving for Frank Ababio, friendly yellow envelopes that look like birthday cards. I know it's illegal to open other people's mail, but by this point I'm getting curious about Frank... I open one. It's a bailiff saying they're going to come round and take stuff / break stuff unless Frank pays them x amount of money yesterday.

Not a problem thinks I, and ring them up. Yes, we've never heard of him, no, we don't have a forwardin address as he's never lived here and so on. Yet we still get the letters... So far I've counted eleven different bailiffs / outstanding debts for Mr. Ababio, who, again I remind you, has NEVER lived in this house.

Frank Ababio, you are a debt ridden, spendaholic cunt of the highest order and I hope the bailiffs find you one day (presumably in a palace made of gold, diamonds and third world children) and give you the kicking you so richly deserve.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of Frank Ababio, click 'I Like This'.

This is the first time I've had to appologise for it being too long...
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:04, Reply)

Jesus
Now I see why Gordon Brown's job is pointless....
(destrasinistra, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:53, Reply)

Student fucking loan company
what a fucking shower of shit they are.

having racked up about £5k in student loans for my 3 years at university i was looking forward to the low interest rate of the SLC and the defered payment until i was earning a decent wage.

fast forward a couple of years and i'm sending my wage slips to them as proof of earning so that i can defer for another year, then i get a letter from them saying i'm not paying, explain about deferment, they never got my paperwork, ok i'll send it again, then a couple of months later i get a letter from a solicitors saying they are chasing payment, What the fuck? phone them and they say it's been sent back to the SLC, phone SLC, didn't get my paperwork. now one time is unfortunate, twice, well it can happen, the postal service isn't flawless, but they then 'didn't receive' my paperwork a third time. this has now taken a total of 6 montths to get to this stage, i ended up having a 'quiet word' with some phone monkey who says that it has been accrueing late payment charges as well. that sent me over the edge as did the fact that in the six months it had taken me to get to this point i'd since had a payrise that took me over the threshold for paying back. the SLC said that they would want £250 a month (quite a lot when your only on just over £15k), but once they had reassesed it they would be looking for a more substantial figure as i had been late in paying.

CUNTS! big bunch of cunts, i had tried to do it the proper way, i did all the paperwork how they said, but they had royally shafted me.

anyway i was due a trip to see my folks and i decided to ask my mum and dad to take out a loan, i'd pay then a standing order each month to cover it and i'd use the money to get the SLC off my back. my mum said o.k. happy days! the loan repayment was nearly half what the SLC were wanting.

within a week i had the money in my account and you will not know the joy of phoning up the SLC and telling them i wanted to settle my account with them and then paying of £5+K with my switch card and hearing the woman on the phone saying 'that payment has been authorised' we'll send you a letter confirming the closure of your account with us.

SLC, bunch of cunts in my opinion.

length? yes it did drag on for months and i was almost at my wits end.

i also took an £11K loan out with my bank, but thankfully i was able to pay that off early and i didn't have any hassles with it as i always made payments, and my credit card is 0% APR until September, so that's good as well. Thor is more financialy savvy nowadays.
( Thor_sonofodin has done things, terrible things on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:46, Reply)