I did the same as Jason - rang my bank and got a 4 year loan. Repayments worked out noticeably cheaper than the quote the dealer found me (which was over 5 years!)... My credit rating ain't too hot!

Mine initially was just three years, but

Apart from the mortgage on the house, I haven't had one penny of debt in all my life. My motto has always been, "If I can't afford it, I won't buy it."

So am I doing something wrong here, or is there actually a way of earning money on consumer loans?

(As an aside: in Holland you do make money on a mortgage, as one may deduct the interest from the annual income tax.)

So am I doing something wrong here, or is there actually a way of earning money on consumer loans?

I wouldn't have thought so, unless it involves the use of a false name and identification!

I had the, quote, "If I can't afford it, I won't buy it" philosophy for a while, but then I went to uni and ran out of cash... :( Had to do the student loan thing for the last year and graduated with nothing. ( except my car )

With you all the way Mattijs - never had a loan other than a mortgage all my life.

It used to be possible to kind of make money on mortgages - the interest used to be tax-deductible, but that's been stopped now. The only way it really helped was by keeping you in a lower tax band if you had a big mortgage though, and the only way you could be said to be making money was if you had a bigger mortgage than you really needed and spent the money on something else.

Some people a few years ago did invent a system of revolving credit card loans whereby you could effectively get free money on loan - but you always have to pay it back in the end.

Originally posted by Dutch4x4 in this post

Apart from the mortgage on the house, I haven't had one penny of debt in all my life. My motto has always been, "If I can't afford it, I won't buy it."

So am I doing something wrong here, or is there actually a way of earning money on consumer loans?

No, you're not doing anything wrong, and it is very admirable... But for some people, myself included, having a personal loan to finance a car is the only way to drive something that will pass it's MOT every year without too much problems. As we all know, life is very expensive here in the UK, and not everyone is able to save up enough money every month to pay for the car upfront.

Q.

Originally posted by ncarring in this post

It used to be possible to kind of make money on mortgages - the interest used to be tax-deductible, but that's been stopped now.

What? Do you mean there's been a government brave enough to have actually done that?

In Holland, the debate about abolishing the mortgage-interest tax deduction has been going on for decades but no-one's had the guts to actually do it - it's a virtual guarantee for losing half your votes.

And how did they solve it? Has there been some kind of interim solution for people caught in the middle?

Originally posted by Quinten in this post

As we all know, life is very expensive here in the UK

So it's actually expensive for you as well, and not just for us poor fellow EU members from the continent? I thought it was just the exchange rate...

Once a year I spend five days in the UK, coming over for one of the Goodwood events - the costs equate to a fortnight in Belgium or Germany. The prices you charge... Everything costs twice as much! :eek:

And you know why things are expensive? Because we pay lots of tax which goes to the EU, of

which we receive very little back!

Apparently...

Rob.

Originally posted by Dutch4x4 in this post

So it's actually expensive for you as well, and not just for us poor fellow EU members from the continent? I thought it was just the exchange rate...

Once a year I spend five days in the UK, coming over for one of the Goodwood events - the costs equate to a fortnight in Belgium or Germany. The prices you charge... Everything costs twice as much! :eek:

Yes, life is expensive for everyone here, not just tourists. Although I'm getting paid more than I used to get in NL, and I pay less taxes (income tax), the cost of living makes up most of it :(

Q.

Cost of living = price of petrol, right?

Originally posted by robmawer in this post

And you know why things are expensive? Because we pay lots of tax which goes to the EU, of which we receive very little back!

Applies to the Netherlands as well - so false argument there

And your tax is actually lower...

Originally posted by devonutopia in this post

Cost of living = price of petrol, right?

And pints of lager.

Oh, and fags, of course. (But I stopped smoking a long time ago, so shouldn't complain.)

And restaurants.

And B&Bs.

And all the touristy things.

You should be invading the continent by now! Swarms of Brits should be waiting at every Channel crossing, fighting to come over! :p

Really, everything is half the price over here...

Originally posted by Dutch4x4 in this post

And your tax is actually lower...

Ah, but which particular tax? VAT? Income tax? Stamp duty (which is pretty hard to avoid paying with house prices being what they are!)? Duty on fuel, tobacco, alcohol? National Insurance?

I'm sure there are others too...

Rob.

I'll be fighting to get over the channel when my month in S.France starts. I can't wait to get away from the UK for a month - It'll be easily my longest stint away from "home".

Originally posted by robmawer in this post

Ah, but which particular tax? VAT? Income tax? Stamp duty (which is pretty hard to avoid paying with house prices being what they are!)? Duty on fuel, tobacco, alcohol? National Insurance?

Let's start with those first two and work our way down from there...

Dutch VAT: 19%

Income tax: stacked at 32% (first stage), 40% (second stage) and 50% (third stage)

(And that's after a very recent tax cut: used to be 37/50/60.)

As I said elsewhere - Holland's always seemed very expensive to me.

Mattijs,

Do you pay separate National Insurance? (contribution to pensions, state health scheme etc)? Ours is about 4.5% for individuals, 12% for employers.

Do you pay local taxes? We pay ours as "Council tax" (used to be "rates"). Deals with street lighting, refuse collection, local contributions to education, emergency services, etc. Runs at about 120 pounds a month for me IIRC. Must check sometime.

Roughly 80% of the price of our fuel, alcohol and tobacco is Excise Duty.

Our national insurance is roughly 25% - part of the first-stage income tax. Pension premiums are separate, because of our unique pension fund scheme.

Local taxes amount to 80 to 100 euros a month, so not so bad.

90% of our petrol price is tax...

Yes, tax-wise we are expensive. There's a lot in return, of course, in the form of excellent social security. (Which our recently appointed government wants to tear down completely, but that's another point.)

But cost of living entails net income after taxes minus consumer expenses - and in that respect it's not so bad. Even with the recent euro-driven price increases, our consumer prices are lower - not as breathtakingly low as in Belgium or Germany, but still lower.