Borrowing and debt Lesson 8 of the adult life course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: the lesson at school .
0 Debt is money that has been borrowed and is still owed. 1 Most adults have some, like a mortgage or a car loan, and planned debt can be fine. 2 Borrowing always has a price called interest, so the total paid back is more than the price tag. 3 Debt becomes a problem when the repayments are more than the family can afford. 4 Lenders make borrowing look easy: "Cash in minutes!", "Buy now, pay later!". 5 The easiest money is usually the most expensive kind. 6 Example: in a flat in Dublin, a letter arrives with red writing across the top: "Final demand." Dad goes pale, then picks up the phone and rings a free debt charity. 7 By the end of the call there is a plan, and he says, "Right. 8 We can do this." 9 Debt is common and can be sorted. 10 Sorting it is the grown-ups' job, not the child's, and asking for help early is the sensible move. 12 A credit card bill shows what was spent that month; paying all of it means no interest, paying part makes the debt grow. 13 The minimum payment barely covers the interest, so paying only the minimum keeps a debt going for years. 14 A loan means borrowing a set amount and paying it back in fixed amounts plus interest, so the total cost is more than the price. 15 Interest is the price of using someone else's money, and a small charge every year adds up to a lot over many years. 16 A payday loan is a small short-term loan with very high interest, and people can get trapped borrowing again to repay it. 17 Buy now pay later splits a purchase into instalments; it is still borrowing, with charges if a payment is late. 18 A credit score is a rating of how reliably someone pays; missing payments lowers it and makes borrowing harder and dearer. 19 A final demand is a warning that a bill is very overdue and stronger action will follow, so acting early is easier. 20 Bailiffs can collect money owed only after a court decision and many warnings, under strict rules, and cannot take essentials. 21 Debt advice charities give free, private help to make a plan for paying debts back at a pace the family can manage. 22 Lending money to friends can cause arguments, so many grown-ups only lend what they could afford to lose. ← previous Cards, banks and appsnext → When money is tight↑ back to Adult life This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/8-borrowing-and-debt/