jon86 - Best card for that purpose at the moment as far as i am aware is the Halifax Clarity Mastercard. Its interbank rate, but with 0% too. So completely "free" foreign spending. If you hold a current account with them it also pays YOU £5pm for keeping the account open. It is also only 12.9% with the same terms applying to foreign cash advances too.
wiping off debts
- Thread starter NoobieOCer
- Start date
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Nationwide - 1% fee, interbank rate. It's no longer the most competitive card, though - Halifax Clarity and Santander Zero both offer 0% with interbank rate as well. I have the Nationwide one as I took the card and FlexAccount last year for travel purposes. I suspect I will dump the card for something a bit more competitive once the FlexAccount 1% thing comes to an end.
1% though means I pay £10 in fees for every £1000 I spend abroad. The rest is entirely at the most preferential exchange rate a member of the public is ever likely to get.
Slighty off topic , but watch this short video (5 parts) about where money comes from
It gives an understanding of why in our system debt is so heavily pushed by the lenders, as in fact debt is actually essential to fuel the system of economy we have (capitalism).
Now, I understand peoples frustration when they see others in their same situation getting money (benefits)/goods/services "undeservedly" but really, its peanuts, and your anger is misdirected (imo)
What is far worse are the people at the top of the system who have all the wealth one could realisticly need and still scam more out of the system, MPs expenses, top tier tax avoidance, off shore accounts, embezzelment etc - and here we are talking about immense sums of money.
Yes, I work and pay taxes and I would rather my taxes get spent on paying benefits to the bottom part of society (Unemployment benefit, writing off loans etc) than being swallowed by the greedy b*****ds at the top, who have more and take more. Ofc, in an ideal society no-one would scam what they shouldnt receive, but, lets deal with the real world
And as correct it is to say "dont buy what you cant afford" - if we actually did this as a whole, our economy would collapse
Atm, the country is taking stock after this recession and we are saving less and using it to pay off debt, CCards/Mortgages ... and the economy is in trouble for it...because we arnt going out and consuming! Buying all this useless tat they try to sell us just to keep the exponential growth curve of capitalism growing forever
It gives an understanding of why in our system debt is so heavily pushed by the lenders, as in fact debt is actually essential to fuel the system of economy we have (capitalism).
Now, I understand peoples frustration when they see others in their same situation getting money (benefits)/goods/services "undeservedly" but really, its peanuts, and your anger is misdirected (imo)
What is far worse are the people at the top of the system who have all the wealth one could realisticly need and still scam more out of the system, MPs expenses, top tier tax avoidance, off shore accounts, embezzelment etc - and here we are talking about immense sums of money.
Yes, I work and pay taxes and I would rather my taxes get spent on paying benefits to the bottom part of society (Unemployment benefit, writing off loans etc) than being swallowed by the greedy b*****ds at the top, who have more and take more. Ofc, in an ideal society no-one would scam what they shouldnt receive, but, lets deal with the real world
And as correct it is to say "dont buy what you cant afford" - if we actually did this as a whole, our economy would collapse
Atm, the country is taking stock after this recession and we are saving less and using it to pay off debt, CCards/Mortgages ... and the economy is in trouble for it...because we arnt going out and consuming! Buying all this useless tat they try to sell us just to keep the exponential growth curve of capitalism growing forever
I behave in exactly the same way. Playing devil's advocate here - the cashback and similar perks are funded by the interest the CC companies other, less financially capable, customers do end up paying. In a way, are we not equally "playing the system" ?
[TW]Fox;17263402 said:
100% agree. What is even worse, is that now those that do try to save for things, including the essentials, like shelter, rather than impulse buy them on credit cards or 100%+ mortgages with crazy income multiples, are suffering from sustained negative real interest rates (at least if those savings are in £s, or pretty much any other fiat currency). If you haven't already, I would encourage you to visit www.housepricecrash.co.uk, although the name suggests a rather niche interest, the forums there concern a significantly broader range of economic and financial issues. My views were significantly changed and my understanding vastly improved. A warning though, as with any internet forum, there are a minority of nutters on there, who believe the end of the world is just around the corner - you'll learn to filter how they say things, so that you still get what they are saying ;O)
Meh, Housepricecrash forums were a joke the last time I looked (could have changed now). They had been harping on about a crash in the housing market for years. Big wow, it happened but that was always an inevitability in the housing market i.e. it was going to happen at some point naturally, not simply because they said it would
Really?
I think you mean it is yet to happen- the reduction seen so far is nothing like a crash.
I don't know, I don't read it really.... Lot of rubbish posted over there as well. But how can they do anything but fall from here?
Anyway let's not veer this thread off track. Start a new thread if you want to talk about house prices, and I'll drop in with my comments
Anyway let's not veer this thread off track. Start a new thread if you want to talk about house prices, and I'll drop in with my comments
The interest rates are so high because of the people who never pay off their credit card debt.
Yes, you did indeed miss the point. Probably deliberately.
[TW]Fox;17267828 said:
Would you like to read all of the post before replying? Your reply would make much more sense if you did that. It's much more effective than picking out a couple of words and making stuff up to suit yourself.
The lenders don't want anyone to pay off their credit card debt. It's much more profitable to have customers continually in debt. High interest rates help to do that. You have cause and effect reversed.
I agree with this....
Banks have to make reserves for every customer they have...
This is based on a scoring which is constantly updated. the higher your risk the more chance there is you will default. Say there is a 30% chance that all the customers in your situation with the same score will default. the bank will hold that 30% in a bank account doing nothing.