Fun Stuff > CHATTER
What seemed weird when I visited your country
bhtooefr:
You can get a line of credit attached to your bank account, and have overdrafts come out of there instead of having a $35 fee, but it's usually very high interest.
lepetitfromage:
Wow, May- that would have been amazingly helpful when I was a student. Instead, I paid a crapton of money in overdraft fees. Now, I simply see the word "overdraft" and get nervous. :-\
Maybe this is a reflection of how sad things are over here, but I actually laughed a little at this:
--- Quote from: Barmymoo on 18 Dec 2013, 13:33 ---Surely this is only true if you are intending to buy the car or house on credit?
--- End quote ---
I have never personally known anyone that bought a house with cash and the only people I know that bought cars with cash bought ones that were very inexpensive (and typically their first cars when they were teenagers).
bainidhe_dub:
And keep in mind that any car you can find for under like $2000US is probably going to be a piece of crap. Those challenges on Top Gear where they all go out and buy old-but-decent-enough-for-being-only-$1000 cars? Ain't happening here. I don't know if that's happening in real life in the UK but it definitely ain't happening here. On Craigslist the cars under $1000 right now are mostly late 90's 'mechanics special' or 'needs work but runs and drives' POS's.
bhtooefr:
--- Quote from: bainidhe_dub on 19 Dec 2013, 07:37 ---And keep in mind that any car you can find for under like $2000US is probably going to be a piece of crap. Those challenges on Top Gear where they all go out and buy old-but-decent-enough-for-being-only-$1000 cars? Ain't happening here. I don't know if that's happening in real life in the UK but it definitely ain't happening here. On Craigslist the cars under $1000 right now are mostly late 90's 'mechanics special' or 'needs work but runs and drives' POS's.
--- End quote ---
Because of our economy and transportation requirements, used cars are in much higher demand than in Europe, hence the higher used prices.
That said, you can reliably get to work for $1k, it's just it won't get good fuel economy. Add another $500-1k and then it'll get 30 miles per US gallon (not that that's good, but for the US it is), too, especially if you know how to drive a manual (which is a very uncommon skill here).
Barmymoo:
I think most people buy a house with a mortgage here, certainly. Not sure about cars but I have only heard about car payments from people in the USA. I've never bought either so I can't really say either way!
However, my point wasn't "as things currently stand, there is no need to have a good credit rating" but "if we changed the culture from Buy things on credit to Buy things with cash, credit ratings would be much less necessary".
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version