There’s a lot of ways in which debt can be regulated. The companies that lend money should be more responsible for people getting into debt. They should consider the salary of the person wanting to borrow money and give them a maximum amount for a certain number of years. This would reduce the likelihood of someone borrowing more money than they can repay and therefore this would reduce the number of people in debt. People who are already in debt should not apply for any other loans or credit cards, as if they do, probably they will not be able to pay back the previous and current debt, as well as that- interest grows fast too. Lessen the unnecessary waist of money- it might mean refusing the Starbucks and making coffee in the office instead, or taking a packed lunch to work. It could mean doing some jobs yourself like washing the car by hand or even growing your own vegetables in the back garden. Set up savings, in the future there could be unplanned expenses, such as medical issues, car might brake down or any other problems that might appear, therefore you will not be able to pay for those expenses. Make sure you do organise your money, set up a book or diary, where you will put down your income, bills, savings, money you can afford to use for your own needs. Finally shop smarter- instead of buying the item straight after you liked it, think about- do you really need this. If you do, there's the mysupermaket.com website from the people behind moneysupermarket.com which compares the price of goods in a trolley with four major supermarket chains and then lets you buy the trolley which is the least expensive. You can sign up for discount alerts with a number of money saving websites and even use voucher code sites to get money off items by entering a code on the web store's checkout page.
Credit cards and loans are not always a bad thing; it can be very useful in some life situations, of course if you are able to pay it back in time. As well as that, credit cards are much easier to use than cash, however the problem is that most of us do not organise our spending and getting into a long chain of debts. According to that- UK’s current situation is ‘credit crunch’, job availability and whole country is in recession. I think that it would be very beneficial for more people to be educated in the problems of debt, and how to manage their money more sensibly so that they do not get easily seduced by clever marketing.
Dovile Lydekaite- AS student 2009/2010