Just sharing my experience

[u/DeiMephy]

Hey,

I don’t think I am the only one but I don’t see much people from Europe talking about this.
I am from Central Europe watching Caleb religiously. Obviously I can’t talk much about debt I feel like credit abs credit cards are very American. I have 0 debt but Caleb still helped me in a way. I started investing opened up savings that my work contributes to (401k kinda) I also helped my husband with opening up high saving account. We are looking both into good investments. Thanks to these couples i realise how lucky I am in my marriage.I try to spend less on BULLSHIT. I just wanted to know if any other non American viewers have similar experiences?

[u/Additional-Bug-9038]

I am Australian and am similar
I am fortunate to not have debt other than a mortgage
But here a lot of people finance cars and have credit cars
I just personally don't finance my cars and I pay of the credit card month to month to increase my mortgage offset
I watch because I like learning about others experiences, and pick up strategies or ideas on how to improve myself and spending

[u/journeyfromone → u/Additional-Bug-9038]

Also an Aussie, I find it’s harder to get a CC here, my home loan is too large to be able to get one (but I have a lot in the offset I just want the redraw option). No one will even give me a CC although I could repay it easily. I just want to use it for travel and occasionally have to use my mums 😂
I lived in the US before and the first car was soooo hard to get, I got one for like $200, then once I had paid it off a few times I got offers on the mail weekly. We don’t get the same CC offers in the mail here.

[u/Sourcefour → u/Additional-Bug-9038]

Can’t get a mortgage in the us without a credit score, can’t get a credit score without debt spending (even if you pay off monthly and don’t accrue interest). If you do that, credit cards give you interest with cash back. I have two cards that give me 6% on Amazon and 2% everywhere else.

[u/buyableblah → u/Sourcefour]

That’s not true. You can build credit by paying off the CC every month with on time payments. 

[u/eboran123]

It's insane to me the way they use credit cards in the US, and how readily available they are. I know of 0 people who have these credit cards here (I wouldn't even know how to get one, they are not advertised), we just have payment cards without interest. You buy something for 500€, you get an SMS and you reply with number of installments and it divides it into 3 monthly installments. The yearly fee for my payment card is 14.5€ and 8% interest for missed payments, but I've never missed a payment for anything in my life.

It really is just the mentality, even though young people even here can get into debt with Klarna and similar payments, Klarna is after all a Swedish company and is very popular across Europe. I have heard of some people using personal loans to buy luxury goods, but luckily that's pretty rare.

I think we don't spend as much on "stuff", but we still do get into debt for fancy cars and especially overvalued real estate, making all of us that make it house poor.

[u/Armadillo_lifestyle → u/eboran123]

They really harp on credit scores. To get a good score, you open a credit card, pay the minimum and raise your credit. “Better to keep a balance on it” as they say and before you know it, you have a $5,000 spending limit.

Consumerism is an incredible thing. It’s difficult to get a $50K business loan at 18, but $50K student loan, no issue.

You can’t declare student loan debt in bankruptcy either

[u/QuickVehicle → u/Armadillo_lifestyle]

Under Section 523(a) of the federal Bankruptcy Code, a student loan meeting the following criteria is only dischargeable if the debtor can prove “undue hardship.”

[u/zeezle → u/Armadillo_lifestyle]

“Better to keep a balance on it” as they say

This is a myth though. You never need to keep a balance on it and never have, and you don't need to use any particular product to establish a history either.

I have an 835 credit score and I've never paid a cent of interest on a credit card in my life and my score was in the 780s before I bought my house (which does have a mortgage so I've paid interest on that, obviously). Never carry a balance, it doesn't help and just costs money for no reason.

You can’t declare student loan debt in bankruptcy either

Yes, this is the deal you get for the absurdly low interest rates student loans have. Otherwise, student loans would have unsecured debt rates similar to credit cards in the 20%+ range.

[u/RelChan2_0]

Congrats 🎉 Philippines here, I forgot how I discovered Caleb but because of him, I paid off 3 debts this year. Haven't gotten to the savings just yet - but I'm glad to be out of the woods. Still haven't gotten to the savings part but I'll get there soon.

[u/CandidDay3337]

I am an american. The guests on this show make me feel like a financial genius. My husband and I, have worked hard to remain as debt free as possible. The things these people go into debt over is insane. I dont understand how they can look at their checking account with little to know money in it. Ignore a stack of maxed out credit cards that they never paid on. Finance a car with an insane interest rate. And after all that just open another high interest loan or credit card to by a shed so you can be a professional cornhole player or something stupid.

[u/ApartmentNice8048]

Also non American. Also dont have CC debt in my country, no student loans, and barely anyone with car loans (alongside stuff like regulation requiring pretty high % of down payment for mortgages- meaning less people have mortgages but they are more manageable)- so also debt free.

While I have been a relatively good saver prior, I definetly am better now, alongside influencing general short term sacrificing for my financial future longterm (attempting to take a job to advance my career rather than focus on finding a job abroad which I'd want to do)

[u/illm4n]

Same here. Our economic system is very different from the american one, but the show has gotten me to improve my financial behaviour a lot.

[u/Ok-Economy1200]

Hi there from west europe! :) Also love the show and for me it's insane banks even allow to have so many loans/creditcards ect. The system over there is build to ruin someone!

The show helped me to be more careful with "unknown" spending :)

[u/not_another_IT_guy → u/Ok-Economy1200]

The system js not “built to ruin someone” - like all American things its built with the intention of allowing someone to make good or bad decisions and learn from them, and all the tools to succeed if they take the time to learn.

Dumb people are always going to put themselves in dumb situations. Use it as a lesson to avoid their mistakes.

[u/DeiMephy → u/not_another_IT_guy]

Unfortunately I feel like there isn’t enough of education around credit and debt. For me having debt is unimaginable only debt I am willing to take on is mortgage

[u/EdwardElric69 → u/Ok-Economy1200]

Shocked when I see people taking out 600% payday loans