It's culturally frowned upon to buy expensive cars or other luxury goods on credit unless absolutely necessary.
My grandmother taught it to me this way: credit is for necessities; for everything else you save. Also: low quality products are more expensive than high quality products in the long run (because you have to replace them more often).
So as an example, if you're in a tight spot and an expensive household appliance (or your car that you need for your job) breaks, it's okay to take out a loan or financing. But if you're already good and it's just a quality of life thing (e.g. a bigger TV when you already have a working one) you save money until you can afford it.
That said, in recent decades a lot of young people have started getting financing for things like bigger TVs or mail order products. This is generally seen as a lower-class problem and has been prominently featured on TV programmes about indebted teenagers and such (a decade earlier when TV was more relevant).
I'd say lifestyle financing is a thing these days, but it's still frowned upon by most people because it's not considered sustainable and basically a form of delayed personal bankruptcy.
(A note on "lower class": the term probably has different connotations in different cultures (and even in different parts of society); I'm specifically talking about people from a low educational background who make minimum wage in low prestige jobs or rely on social welfare.)
> (A note on "lower class": the term probably has different connotations in different cultures (and even in different parts of society); I'm specifically talking about people from a low educational background who make minimum wage in low prestige jobs or rely on social welfare.)
"Unterschicht" (=lower class) is pretty similar in meaning to "trailer-park white trash" in American English.
My grandmother taught it to me this way: credit is for necessities; for everything else you save. Also: low quality products are more expensive than high quality products in the long run (because you have to replace them more often).
So as an example, if you're in a tight spot and an expensive household appliance (or your car that you need for your job) breaks, it's okay to take out a loan or financing. But if you're already good and it's just a quality of life thing (e.g. a bigger TV when you already have a working one) you save money until you can afford it.
That said, in recent decades a lot of young people have started getting financing for things like bigger TVs or mail order products. This is generally seen as a lower-class problem and has been prominently featured on TV programmes about indebted teenagers and such (a decade earlier when TV was more relevant).
I'd say lifestyle financing is a thing these days, but it's still frowned upon by most people because it's not considered sustainable and basically a form of delayed personal bankruptcy.
(A note on "lower class": the term probably has different connotations in different cultures (and even in different parts of society); I'm specifically talking about people from a low educational background who make minimum wage in low prestige jobs or rely on social welfare.)