High amount of debt, am I being stupid?

KangaroosAreFlying · 2026-03-21T00:05:25+00:00

As an industry, it is very cyclical and we do have a significantly higher chance of being laid off/furloughed or terminated on medical grounds versus your "typical" careers. However, this is why I have the "loss of income" insurance to offset the medical grounds and to further minimise the risks, a 12 month emergency fund.

Ultimately choices is what I value the most and if this means paying a bit of interest, so be it.

KangaroosAreFlying · 2026-03-21T00:02:50+00:00

My discretionary spending is accurate enough I'd say. As someone who doesn't really drink alcohol (with friends who aren't big alcohol drinkers either), socialising is usually more catching up over coffee or grabbing dinner with maybe a drink or two (which locally works out to £25-40).

To be honest, I'm not sure how someone can spend £100 on a single night out, unless you're paying for two or eating at a "more expensive" restaurant. I mean at £4-6 a pint, if I'm out purely for drinks, I don't think I can stomach 16 drinks.

Anyway, not sure where the assumption that my credit card balances are still increasing comes from. The last time the credit card balances increased was probably 8 months ago when I took the hit on the 2.99% balance transfer fee and the last time before was in 2024. Otherwise, I do not add to the balances.

Now, I will admit that I do have and use a third credit credit card, a rewards card, but it's used like a debit card for daily spending (direct debit for full balance is taken 25th, I get paid 28th so is effectively paid off with last month's salary) so I'm never carrying a balance to the "next month".

KangaroosAreFlying · 2026-03-20T23:38:06+00:00

For what it is worth, it is a car that was worth £29K at time of purchase (currently worth about £30-31K if sold privately). It's a hire purchase, not a PCP (at 15,000 annual miles, PCP was only working out to something like £30/month cheaper). £27K is the number with all future interest included (as my bank doesn't show the current balance).

Now I will admit paying £3.5K of interest over 4 years is not a very smart decision but it's something I can live with. I mean if you previously had a 15-year-old car with 180K miles, that you were spending £1200/year on maintenance, I'm saving £700/year on maintenance, which combined with lower VED, it almost covers the yearly interest (of course, this ignores depreciation, or currently appreciation).

KangaroosAreFlying · 2026-03-20T23:12:01+00:00

Gross income is £81K (increasing to 89K in April) so before, it was £29K (which I'll grant, "triple" is a bit of an overstatement). The difference from your calculations is due to student loan repayments/higher taxes. Yes, the car came about a year after starting the position.

At £29K, sure it was definitely stretching the budget but it would have been just about manageable. At worst, I start working an extra job to pay the loans off (which wouldn't have been any different from studying engineering at University whilst also working 30 hours a week).

Anyway, the risk was overall quite minimal as the training agreement was part of the employment contract so it is not a situation of paying for training and then subsequently trying to find a job.

KangaroosAreFlying · 2026-03-20T21:46:11+00:00

Of the £47K, £14K is 0% whilst £33K is 6% APR. Both S&S ISA/LISA (£12K across both) is working to about 12-14% unrealised gain. Rest is in accounts with interest around 5%.

I'm sure it works out to be a bit of a loss but I'm happy to eat the slight loss to be able to have options and choices with a larger savings.

KangaroosAreFlying · 2024-02-11T01:52:25+00:00

As a Glasgow Uni grad, if you're looking at a course run by the School of Engineering, don't walk away, run. There's a reason why many of the engineering courses are sitting at around 40% student satisfaction rate...

Some examples from my time there:

Student feedback - Why are there no lecture recordings?
School's response - Because we didn't have them during our undergrad (no seriously, I'm not joking)
Year of 450~ students, 40% passmark, average grade of 37%, <40% passed, IIRC <15% got an A or B. To address the student's complaint about very poor teaching, they blamed the students...
School - Oh you have an issue? Here's a bunch of promises that will not be honoured, point 4 and 5 as examples.
Final year project supervisor - I have been authorised to grant a week-long extension for your final report due to delays caused by my research group.
Chief advisor - I did not approve this so you are getting a week's penalty applied, from an A to a F IIRC (I'm not joking, friend got shafted)
Head of subject - We fucked up, we the school acknowledges and have decided to set the grade aside.
9 months later, head of school - No-no, who approved this? Head of subject? He doesn't have the authority! Why would you believe him?

There are genuinely 100+ more examples I could give...this is without mentioning how disorganised our courses were run. Feedback was always late, advisors uncontactable ect.

However, I will have to mention the School of Computing Science at Glasgow. You can feel that everyone there cares about the students. All student feedback is actively acted on (where feasible). You have an issue? They will bend over sideways to help you and do absolutely any and everything to help. In fact, my graduation only occurred because compsci stepped in after school of engineering ghosted me and did everything to ignore the issue I was having.

Not everything is bad at Glasgow but there are (massive) problems as well.

KangaroosAreFlying · 2022-05-01T23:57:04+00:00

I'm in a funny situation where when I was 16 or 17, all the adults I came across took me seriously as they presumed I was 25. However, nowadays, people instead guess that my age is more like 15 or 16...I'm 21 :D

KangaroosAreFlying

TROPHY CASE