Anybody ever used finance to buy pedals?

joetele

Just mulling over using finance to spread the cost of getting a Meris Enzo through an online retailer - interest-free finance seems the sensible choice over putting £320 upfront.

Anyone else done similar? 

EDIT: just updated the original post to state it's interest free I was looking at. 

cLepto-bass

Personally, if I have the money up front I'd buy outright. No real point in adding interest if you can stretch to it. 

joetele

cLepto-bass said:

Personally, if I have the money up front I'd buy outright. No real point in adding interest if you can stretch to it. 

It's an interest free deal

not_the_dj

If it's true interest free then go for it, as long as you can afford the payment, and for that sort of value they'd be pretty minimal.

There may be discounts available if you stump up the cash, but spreading the payments makes it very convenient. I've bought stuff from Andertons using a 9 month interest free deal before.

jpttaylor

I've not used it on pedals, but bought a synth using interest free finance, which spread the cost over 12 months. I was worried about the impact on my credit rating, but a good mate who works for a bank said it would only matter if you missed payments. 

joetele

not_the_dj said:

If it's true interest free then go for it, as long as you can afford the payment, and for that sort of value they'd be pretty minimal.

There may be discounts available if you stump up the cash, but spreading the payments makes it very convenient.

Yeah, at the moment it's only available online in one place and as a preorder in others. Apart from my local shop (who probably can't do interest free finance), I'm not sure any of them would do a deal on the RRP on such a new item. 

Gagaryn

As a general rule of thumb, retailers that are willing to offer goods with an interest free deal are willing to provide a discount for up front payment. If you can afford to do so, I would ask, suggest 10% - if you don't ask you don't get.

Personally if I could not afford to buy a pedal outright I would not buy it. But I'm old and boring now - done plenty of similar things when I was young and impetuous. :-)

Guitar_Slinger

Only when I was young and impetuous (lol @Gagaryn). I got a £1000 "car loan" in 1993 and bought a Les Paul, amp and Boss pedals. Luckily, I got in a band which had the unexpected bonus of earning the money back in 6 months, but it was a crazy young person thingto do.   I knew others my age who bought motorbikes on finance and were stuck with the payments after they'd crashed the bike!

Today, I would wait until I had the money up front but that's coz I'm old.

Johnnyseven

Make sure it's something you'll definitely want to keep. You won't be able to sell it until you've finished paying for it.

mattismetal

I have done it in the past but I tend to put down a bigger deposit than the 10%. Normally they let you put down 50% or so and i just think of it like a deposit. I try to stick to two rules
1. Don't get more than one going at the same time.
2. Dont do it on an impulse buy

I think you get the consumer credit protection as well which might be a bonus if anything goes wrong.

I've broken both rules before!
Looking at the Enzo myself

DLM

@Guitar_Slinger needs more Wow!s on his post, folks!

ICBM

I'm not sure I could imagine buying a pedal expensive enough to require finance... if I couldn't afford it I wouldn't buy it, interest-free or not.

Roysterdoyster

If you have the 10%, put £24 away a month for 12 months (or £32 for 9 months/£48 for 6 months). If you still want it, buy it, if you don't,then youd have to question, the sense in paying for it over 12 months in the first place. Direct Debits are the work of the Devil!  Any second hand options?

Yours Faithfully

Dad!

VJIves

I've gotten stuff from GAK, PMT and Andertons on finance over the years and never had any problems. It's always been something I'm damn sure I want and that has decent resale value. 

thermionic

ICBM said:

I'm not sure I could imagine buying a pedal expensive enough to require finance... if I couldn't afford it I wouldn't buy it, interest-free or not.

You'd have to run finance checks before buying second hand, in case there are outstanding payments on it. Madness.

joetele

ICBM said:

I'm not sure I could imagine buying a pedal expensive enough to require finance... if I couldn't afford it I wouldn't buy it, interest-free or not.

£320 is a bit of a hit in one go....and most of the pedals I like seem to cost that much! Which is why generally I don't own them. 

Roysterdoyster said:

If you have the 10%, put £24 away a month for 12 months (or £32 for 9 months/£48 for 6 months). If you still want it, buy it, if you don't,then youd have to question, the sense in paying for it over 12 months in the first place. Direct Debits are the work of the Devil!  Any second hand options?

Yours Faithfully

Dad!

I'm sort of adopting this approach - putting a bit away each month. Hopefully by the time I've saved there will be second hand options, or at least a slightly cheaper price. 

octatonic

Haven't done credit for a long time on audio gear.

Every time I did something would happen along the way (unexpected bills, car repairs) and I'd end up paying interest.
Now it is cash or nothing.

professorben

Wait 3-4 months and I’m sure there will be a few going s/h

otherwise, go for it. 

Gadget

At the risk of sounding old, my advice is to avoid buying music gear on credit if you can.

Once you decide borrowing is a good way to feed your GAS, £200 becomes £1000, becomes £2000, becomes £5000.... until you realise you a) owe a fortune beyond which you can easily repay (even the interest!), b) you realise you don't actually own any of that gear you bought, the bank does and c) you're probably going to end-up selling it again to clear the debt.

Lecture over, but speaking as one who's been there, shuffling bank loans and several credit cards...

chrisj1602

I got a Strymon Timeline on finance over 24 months, I didn't want to take the £400 hit in one go and I don't miss the monthly payment so it works for me.

Guitar_Slinger

Possible moral of the story @joetele ;: I bought a 2012 motorbike last year, thinking it would be cheap to run.  It was for the first 7,000 miles until yesterday, when the exhaust snapped.   A genuine Kawasaki system is £982 and  cheapest decent aftermarket exhaust is £300.  And I need the bike for the next 3 weeks, from Sunday night.

This is the kind of shit that you have to pay for when you're paying for other things on credit.