Can you afford car finance?

Can you afford car finance?

Having previous bad credit should not mean you are unable to get car finance from lenders. Go Car Credit can help as we are an alternative to banks and payday loans.

We can take extenuating circumstances into account when you apply with us including CCJ’s or other factors that may have contributed towards a bad credit history. We believe this shouldn’t prevent you from obtaining car finance. Here at Go Car Credit we make sure you can afford the repayments by looking at your income and expenditure.

Our affordable loans are as transparent as possible and we can help our customers get back on track and re-establish their credit ratings.

We regularly finance people who are self-employed, we might ask you to provide some documents such as proof of income for example bank statements for the past 3 months, but this will be explained to you by our team.

If you think you want apply for car finance, make sure you can afford the repayments as well as your current outgoings and other credit commitments. Work out if you can safely manage extra credit by knowing exactly what money you have going in and out every month.

Budgeting for car finance

A “household budget” is an ideal way to see if you can afford the monthly car finance repayments, put together a list of monthly expenses in order to calculate the amount of money you have left once all your living expenses and bills have been paid.

What to include in your car finance budget

If many of your bills or expenses don’t go out by Direct Debit it can be easy to miss them out of your budget, here is a list of costs to consider:

Your home

• Mortgage or rent
• Council Tax
• Water rates
• Home and contents insurance
• Gas
• Electricity
• TV licence
• Telephone, mobile and internet service

Existing debt

• Credit and/or store card repayments
• Loan repayments
• Hire purchase or in-store credit agreement repayments (for example for furniture or a TV)

Travel

Fuel
Car insurance
• Car tax
• Vehicle maintenance
• Car finance repayments
• Other transport, such as train or bus tickets

Essentials

• Food shopping
• Clothing
• Toiletries and cleaning products

Other personal

• Pension contributions
• Life insurance premiums
• Other insurance, such as critical illness or income protection cover

Children

• Childcare costs
• Maintenance payments
• Clothing
• School trips
• Private tuition/schooling

Entertainment

• Eating out
• Drinks outside the home (including coffees and alcohol)
• Gym membership
• Hairdressers
• Lottery tickets
• TV subscriptions (eg Sky)
• Magazine and newspaper subscriptions/purchases
• Trips out (for example to the cinema or events)
• Holidays
• Hobbies

Please don’t treat this as a complete list as every household is different and think about specific costs that are unique to you or your family.

Bank statements and credit card statements are a good way to start with your household budget list. By looking over the past 3 months you can record any quarterly bills making sure you get a true reflection of your monthly outgoings over a year.

Once you have worked out your exact monthly spend you can see if you can safely afford to take on your chosen car finance commitments.