00:00People are put under a lot of pressure and it doesn't just come from Black Friday sales
00:07and advertising. Around Christmas time there's always a lot of opportunity to spend more,
00:13whether that's on gift or going out a lot more as well with Christmas parties and so
00:18on. It can get really, really difficult to stick to the budget.
00:21We've just heard how much people are projected to spend over this period. I think it's
00:276.8 billion dollars in four days, just over $800 per person. How much of that is going
00:35on credit? I can't say exactly how much is going on credit,
00:41but we certainly do see credit rise during this period. A lot of the products that people
00:46are using, such as buy now, pay later and credit cards to pay for these sale items or Christmas
00:52in general are designed to delay. And so what we find is that there's this creep of debt,
01:00so it might be just one thing that's being missed to start with. But then what we find
01:07is that this just continues to build over time and sometimes people end up being in a debt
01:13spiral where they're actually borrowing credit to pay for credit.
01:17So are you finding, what sort of percentage of people are you finding who are putting,
01:22uh, delaying the debt? So say come, you know, in the first quarter of next year,
01:26January to March, how many of those find out they're in debt that they cannot repay?
01:32So what we do know is that year to date on the national debt helpline chat, we've had 7.4% of people
01:41who've engaged with us who are using buy now, pay later and are in trouble with that. Um,
01:47so that just gives you an example of, um, how wide the issue is and that's just for buy now,
01:54pay later. Can you give us a sense of who is doing the spending when it comes to age,
01:59gender or demographics? We're finding everybody. It doesn't seem to be one cohort that is finding
02:08themselves in debt. Um, and it's, the debt is happening for a number of different reasons.
02:14It could just be that people are over committing and, um, don't have the capacity to repay what
02:20they've borrowed. Or it could be other pressures such as potentially someone's lost their job or a
02:27separation, divorce, um, big life events like that, that can make a really big difference very quickly.
02:33And so the average spend we're hearing is $800 per person, but just how much debt are some people
02:39getting themselves into? Uh, there are a lot of people who are getting themselves into much,
02:46much more debt than, than that. Um, as, as an example, we see people who've, who've maxed out
02:53credit cards, five, $6,000 is not uncommon. We also see a lot of people with multiple buy now,
03:00pay later products. And although there is legislation, um, for buy now, pay later now,
03:08it's still quite an easy form of credit to get. And you can get amounts up to $2,000, um, for,
03:16from companies quite, quite easily. And, and that just adds up. And when you think about people also
03:24might have buy now, pay later on top of their credit card, on top of their mortgage, maybe they've got a
03:30car loan as well, it, it's really easy for people to find themselves in trouble.
03:35So in the last 30 seconds that we've got, uh, Deb, what are options for those people who find
03:40themselves in a debt trap? And what's your advice to people at this time of year?
03:44My, my advice to people is if you are finding financial pressure, then please reach out for help.
03:51The National Debt Helpline is free, independent, and confidential, and can be reached at 1800 007 007.
04:00Or the website also has a lot of information, which is ndh.org.au. Um, it's never too late to reach out for help.
04:09Deb Schrute, thanks for joining me. Really enjoyed the chat. Thank you.
04:11Deb, thanks for having me.
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