Wow! You go away for the weekend and look what happens to a thread!

I have every symapthy with you Sanji - I work in a University and see many students who could be 'Pedro'. I agree that the banks do lend irresponsibly but I also blame the Government to some extent too - the whole shift from grants to loans and fee paying has made debt respectable. And the fact that Universities now have to charge market rents for their Halls of Residence doesn't help - the cost of a room in our halls is more than the student loan for the year. All together, even if they don't take out any further credit, students up here doing the traditional Scottish 4 year Honours degree end up with 5 figure debts unless they're parents can afford to help them be loan free. The result it that they get de-sensitised to debt. It's not just the banks that say get in debt and pay us back from your fabulous graduate salary - the Government does too! And the situation will only get worse if the Universities are allowed to charge even more than they do at present in top-up fees.

I never went into debt as a student - far from it. My grant as an undergraduate worked out at £35 per week for term-time with an assessed parental contribution that worked out at £1 per week and was duly sent to me by my Mum in the form of £1 postal order (remember them?) every Friday along with the letters (remember them too?) from the family. But my college digs cost only cost me £7 per week for bed, breakfast and evening meal in the week, full board at weekends. I was actually able to SAVE from my grant and because I'd worked for year full-time between leaving school and starting Uni, I had a full NI record and could claim unemployment benefit during the vacations. So I really cannot compare my experience with that of today's students and have no idea whether I'd have managed it or not. I think that I might not have gone to Uni at all because I too was brought up to avoid debt but in my family's circumstances at the time without the grant the choice would have been between getting into debt or not going.

In the end, I think that my Mum taught me a valuable lesson - that credit can cripple you but managed properly it can save you money. She watched neighbours permanently paying off the 'Provie Man' at extortionate rates of interest but she never got into that cycle because she had a sewing machine bought on HP from the Singer shop, paid off meticuloulsy each and every week and in effect paid for out of the money she saved by making all the family clothes. Granted she was an accomplished seamstress - I remember the 'safari suit' that she made my Dad in the 70s when they were the height of fashion - but I've been forever grateful that when I did get that 'gap year' job one of the first things that she did was to take me down to the Singer shop, help me choose a machine, act as guarantor, then ensure that I too paid it off week by week and then she taught me how to use it. It saved me a lot of money over the years and nearly 40 years later is still saving money for the friend I gave it to when I traded up to a better machine with more functions. He's never felt confident enough to make clothes but has made his own curtains and cushion covers etc with it.

So, yes, I do agree that easy, expensive credit is a burden to be avoided but think that there are savvy ways of using credit at reasonable rates of interest that can paradoxically save you money in the long run. The money saved for the new kitchen is not going to earn a lot of interest by staying in the bank for a further 12 months but it will be earning something while sitting there and while I just keep paying the minimum payments on the CC until the last statement date before the 12 months interest payment period comes to an end.

SM

When i first started work back in 1989 was when I opened my first current account and they wouldn't even give me a cheque guarantee card with my chequebook until they'd had 3 months of salary paid in.

Contrast that to my friend who went to uni with no visible income and she was given one straight away. Tsk.