Cooking the Books podcast: How to stop ‘buy now, pay later’ unexpectedly trapping you in debt

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Each week BusinessDesk and the NZ Herald’s Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it’s how to stop debt becoming a problem. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Debt is one of those things that quite quickly becomes overwhelming.

You start off with getting a few extra things on credit, but get behind on the payments. Soon the fees and interest are spiralling, making you feel like you'll never get it paid off again.

In the last few years, increasing numbers of people are getting caught out in 'buy now, pay later' schemes like AfterPay, Zip and LayBuy.

‘Buy now, pay later’ is deceptively dangerous, because it’s less regulated.

That's right, there are lots of rules on your credit card, where the company has to check you can afford the debt you're taking on, and not sting you with fees that are unreasonable.

But 'buy now, pay later' has no such restriction. So increasing numbers of people are finding themselves in a hole, when $20 here and $20 there suddenly adds up to hundreds more than they had realised.

It hasn't stopped a boom in popularity for this form of debt though, with the numbers of people under 65 using 'buy now, pay later' going from 18 per cent in February 2021, to 30 per cent by March 2022, according to research by the Retirement Commission.

Well, whatever type of debt you're dealing with, there are ways to bring it under control, and pay less overall.

For the latest podcast I talked to Tom Hartmann from Sorted.

For the interview, listen to the podcast here.

• If you have a question about this podcast, or a question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here, and Twitter here.

• Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.