CapitoliaTwo hundred euros overdrawn, for ten days. Everyone has done it at least once.
It is the most ordinary debt there is. It is also, by far, the dearest.
The interest: eighty-eight cents. Almost nothing, and that is true.
And one intervention fee: eight euros. That is the legal cap, and that is the price.
Eighty-eight cents of interest, eight euros of fees. The ratio is one to nine.
Eight euros and eighty-eight cents, for two hundred euros over ten days.
Now stretch that over a whole year.
Two hundred euros is little. And that is the problem: a flat fee does not divide.
One hundred and sixty-two per cent. The law caps the overdraft rate, not the fee.
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That is why it is legal and dear: what costs you is not what is regulated.
Revolving credit. One thousand euros, eighteen per cent.
Ninety-one euros and sixty-eight cents a month, twelve times.
One hundred euros and sixteen cents of interest, for one thousand advanced for a year.
You did not ask for it. It came attached to a store card, and it renews on its own.
Whatever you repay becomes available again. That is its principle, and that is its trap.
The tied consumer loan. Ten thousand euros, five per cent.
Two hundred and thirty euros and twenty-nine cents a month, for forty-eight months.
One thousand and fifty-four euros and six cents of interest, all told.
Tied means linked: if the car is never delivered, the loan falls with the sale.
One hundred and sixty-two, eighteen, five. The three rates, on one scale.
That leaves paying in instalments. Free for you, and that is true.
The seller pays the provider. And they had put it in the price before displaying it.
Free does not mean costless. It means someone else paid, with your money.
And the student loan. Fifteen thousand euros, taken on before earning a single one.
It is the only debt on this list taken on to raise what you will earn.
Eighteen per cent guaranteed against seven per cent hoped for. That is not even a comparison.
Repaying expensive debt is the only investment whose return is written into the contract.
So you start there. Always. Before opening anything else at all.