The thought of getting into credit card debt for bike related parts is insane.

So a 0% over 12 months on purchases card is used to buy a 5k bike. I keep my 5k in the bank and either use it against my offset mortgage (at about 3%) or earn 3.1% in my savings account. Thats 150 quid. Doesn’t seem insane to me.

And the credit card gives you some protection too.

glitchy double post

Credit cards are for people who don’t know how to control themselves. That’s where the problem lies

And for people who now how to use them.

The thought of getting into credit card debt for bike related parts is insane.

Even if it is just for protection of purchasing online its worth it,

EDIT: was going to say something along the lines of toys19

I bought a Giant29er in Sept and a Bionicon this month…..

Enough debt is the answer :)….

Or… more than the wife thinks 🙂

All oh so sensible. Am I the only one who uses their CC to buy stuff they can’t afford?

Even if it is just for protection of purchasing online its worth it,

There is a difference between using it for protection and getting into debt. The OP was stating they have £1700 of debt.

0% is fine, as long as you pay it off after the period, which most don’t – hence why the banks keep offering you it!!

0% is fine, as long as you pay it off after the period, which most don’t – hence why the banks keep offering you it!!
Not to mention 3% transfer fees

Plenty of cycling debt here but I guess I’m pretty materialistic and get enjoyment out of the stuff I buy. It’s all serviceable debt anyhow not like a student getting into a £10k hole when let loose with a CC for the first time. I’d rather die broke having enjoyed buying/using bling stuff than try and take it with me (I don’t have any dependants though which probably gives me a different perspective than some :p ).

Not to mention 3% transfer fees

Only on balance transfers, not on purchases.

made my mistake & learnt my lessons. got a 0% 12 month CC bought a meta 5, had a budget and a payback plan. should have been £2500. by the time it was built it was £2700 (forgot about cables, innertubes and helitape on the build :roll:) payback plan never quite went right and i ended up paying about £3k back in total.

the worst bit – i never liked the bike – replaced the frame (£850) with a £150 456 and sold the frame for £300.

don’t do that anymore. next build took me 5 months – i bought a few bits each month until the parts pile totalled a bike.

Credit cards are only an issue if you have no self control.

They can actually be better than cash. For example the 0% ones let you mangage cash flow keeping the money in your account longer. Mine gives me points for flights. We get about 4 return flights (to Jersey to visit my brother in law) a year by putting everything throught the credit card. You can get cashback on plenty, nectar points, clubcard points, airmiles, give to charity etc. etc. This is not to mention the extra protection they offer when buying online (which was very useful with the old CRC shenanigans a year or so back). They are not just a method of borrowing money.

Also, does it count as debt if you spend on bikes rather than paying off your mortgage early?

I’m amazed so many live in their perfect little debt free bubbles! Not what national statistics would have you believe. 🙂

All of my bikes get put on credit, usually 0% but not always, I like the protection it offers (and have had to use it on more than 1 occasion) and also I’d rather earn on my savings or save more, than pay up front.

To the point that now the interest I earn feeds my bike habit, but still use that to pay off my 0% card. Last time round I had about £3k of bike and parts on 0% over 6 months, savings matured week before 0% ran out paid off! Credit companies secretly hate me.

I’m in about £500 worth of bike debt, although thats commuter/road bike debt not strictly MTB.

That includes a load of kit, panniers, rack, mudguards, commuting clothes etc.

I’ll pay it all off before the 0% runs out and it’ll still cost me less than getting the bus every day (and be 35 mins faster)

I’m amazed so many live in their perfect little debt free bubbles! Not what national statistics would have you believe.

All oh so sensible. Am I the only one who uses their CC to buy stuff they can’t afford?

+lots – well said.

We have a bunch of general do-gooders methinks 😉

All my bikes and bits have been bought cash. In a triggers broom style, parts are generally swapped and upgraded around a decent frame. Though when feeling sorry for myself, I did bang a trip to Morzine I couldn’t afford on the CC. Good job I was heading to a destination renowned for being cheap and cheerful eh? 😀

I can’t see why some people are getting all preachy about not using credit though. Good bikes cost serious money. So if you can take advantage (properly) of a cheap finance deal, or 0% CC, then why the hell not?

I wonder how much debt a young privateer wc racer would rack up in a season. Must be loads.

I’m amazed so many live in their perfect little debt free bubbles!

Notice hardly anybody replied to my query about whether they had car loans.

😉

Don’t drive (and never have, so no car loan). Lots of student loan (about 18k and climbing), quite a bit of that has gone on bike bits (check my recent buying history for proof of that).

My first (and only tbh) new MTB was a Saracen hardtrax from Halfords, bought by my Mother on finance for me, and I paid it off.

When I was 18 I was in a car accident from which I got 10k insurance payout, this was free money (as in not allocated or needed for anything) that I spunked up the wall. This ran out and I got 2 credit cards to fill the void.

I ended up having to go to my parents after about a year of living with 2 maxed out credit cards that I could only just afford to pay, so it was a vicious cycle that left me depressed and in despair.

Over a decade later, I have 3 credit cards, 1 has £0 on it, the other is a 0% balance transfer from an old student related debt, and the new one has been set up with a 0% balance transfer to sort out my SO’s finances. I’m basically doing what my Father did for me all those years ago.

I think I’m getting better. As for bike stuff, other than the student loan thing, I usually do the buy/paypal route. If I do need to use the credit card I use the one that is set for every day expenditure that get’s cleared at the end of the month, it’s only used to give me a better credit rating.

Good to hear mate

I’m not a banker …. Quite the opposite. I clear up after the bankers. I’m a regional manager of a debt recovery agency with a studio engineering side hobby (which brings in zip nowdays)

All my cash seems to disapear into cyberspace. My payslip says one thing, my bank balance on the morning of payday says another. 

Had the £1700 debt for about 8-9 months now so I’m paying a fair bit of interest – not cool but that’s the reason for my post. 

Ps no car loan. Company

does cycle2work scheme count?

Have a total aversion to debt.. so never had any, and I mean ANY (mortgage excluded).

Even paid the mortgage off 10 years early because I didnt like the thought of it hanging over me.

The result of a childhood spent hiding behind the settee from debt collectors I suppose 🙂

“does cycle2work scheme count?”

I’d say yeah! Sure as hell does

Nah, c2w is like anti-debt!

If i’m ever to get a motrgage in the future, then i need to build some kind of credit history….

This is what bugged me many years ago, you can’t avoid the debt-trap temptation test! When I wanted a mortgage I had to get a credit card and use it a lot over a year or so to get any kind of credit rating, as I’d never had any credit before. Talk about temptation / testing my attitude toward money! ) All good though, just use it in place of your debit card and paid it each month on direct debit, same spend, no bother, pretty fast / good credit rating. I realised I actually fear debt and feel safer with a bit of savings.

Credit cards are a good idea for some and a nightmare of consumer pressure and debt-traps for others. I think they should be more tightly regulated, now you see ads for ‘writing off your debt’ there must be a lot of people who lets face it aren’t intelligent enough to understand basic finance well enough to avoid getting tehmselves into a mess that some won’t accept responsibility for. Maybe they have a point.

I spent a lot of $ on a bike a while ago, all on a credit card – I got a better exchange rate than with my debit card, it saved me enough for a nice Thomson post for the frame.

No MTB debts, but my car is 14 years old 😉

And with a 0.5% mortgage I’m not particularly bothered about paying that off either.

it’s a great time to be overpaying your mort. – chipping away at the capital.

mort rates won’t stay low forever and when they go up, you are gonna be paying more for longer.

When I was young (and naive), I thought nothing of buying bikes on finance. £100 a month here and £100 a month there seemed like a small amount to pay.

Unfortunately, due to nothing more than my complete stupidity, I ended up in something like £24,000 worth of debt. This was 10 years ago.

I’ve struggled ever since then. About 4 years ago, my then girlfriend bailed me out and paid everything off for me, in full (out of some of her inheritance money). I then had to pay her back but this was much easier than trying to pay lots of different loans each month.

I’ve spent the past 3 years of my life paying her back virtually every spare penny that I have after I’ve paid my rent etc., just so I can get myself out of the hole that I got myself into.

It’s been very difficult and there have been times when it’s got me really down, but I’m almost there now. Just £250 to pay next month and I’m debt-free. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy this makes me!

I’m 31 now and because of this debt I haven’t been able to save any money, nor have I been able to pay any money into a pension fund. But the most important thing for me is that I’m now debt-free, and can start saving.

I know what I’ve said sounds like an introduction at a therapy meeting, but I don’t care. I’m very proud of myself for being able to pay it off in such a short space of time, considering that I don’t earn a big salary either.

To anyone thinking about getting things on the never-never, just be careful. You can never truly afford as much as you think you can.

I’m welling up 😉

Bike on finance? People surely must be joking right. A house on finance ok. But that is about it. Anything else shouldn’t be on finance. Actually it shouldn’t even be allowed. No wonder the economy is screwed up… No one as any sense of money any more.

I think I’m about to…

I have a very poorly frame and no money 😥

Still have my SS though, so its not all bad!

crotchrocket +1

Excellent time to overpay the mortgage.

Never.

Most stuff gets paid for on the CC, which is linked to my current account by a DD as I couldn’t even get a mobile phone contract with absolutely no credit history!

Only ever had debt in my student loan which I don’t count as:
*Repayment is linked to income, so more like a tax
*As an ‘investment’ the payback time was a little over a year, so it could be paid off in 12 months and I’d still be in profit

I wonder how much debt a young privateer wc racer would rack up in a season. Must be loads.

Zilch? Maybe they save up beforehand over the winter, do their national series most weekends, then the 3 or so European rounds of the WC can be your annual holliday. And a lot seem to work as guides or in biking companies anyway.

No, I’ve never been in debt due to bikes, and I cant see that changing any time soon.

To be honest, the only reason I buy bikes and riding kit is because I’ve got so much money I dont know what to do with it all!

Bought one bike on 12 mths interest free and second on cyclescheme – with the cost of a well specced bike approaching the price of a nice 2nd hand car it makes sense. Far better for the money to stay with me for longer

Sod the holier than thou mentality, just get what you want, you’re a long time dead

I say something similar to myself everytime I want to buy something. I always end up being beaten by my sensible boring side though.

I wish I could stand by my convictions.

I don’t buy bike related things that I can’t afford.
Mtb however has caused me to have a number of injuries which have prevented me from working.
At various times when I have been self employed this has caused me to go into lots of debt to support myself through these periods.

I’m genuinely shocked over the mature and sensible attitude of most posters.

I thought we all had some debt as the economy is in this position due to over extending ourselves financially as a western world economy. 2 generations ago debt was frowned upon. Now days we receive a sublimal message to consume “it makes you happy” … We all know it doesn’t of course. I watched a great documentry called the history of self. It was commissioned by Sigmund Freuds nephew after the second world war

Bike on finance? People surely must be joking right

With mid range bikes costing as much as 2nd hand cars and people have always put cars on finance, not everybody running around on £3k bikes had the cash up front to buy it, i’m sure of that.

I don’t see a problem with credit cards. I’m sometimes happy to pay a little extra to have something straight away. It’s when you spend faster than you pay off that there’s a problem.

$hit loads!

I’m crap with money. But I have a lot of fun! Paying stuff off at a decent rate at the moment. Sometimes I care – most of the time I don’t really.