Borrowing money

Before you consider borrowing money, think about any other options you may have. This could include:

• making sure you are getting all the income you are entitled to, including any benefits;
• budgeting and saving money, if possible
• claiming on insurance and pensions, if you have them
• using money you have saved for an emergency.

It is also important to make sure you can afford to pay back the money you plan to borrow.

If you already have debts

It is usually not a good idea to borrow more money to pay off an existing debt. You could talk to a trained debt adviser first about options for paying back your debts or credit commitments. You can speak to one by contacting StepChange Debt Charity.

We have more information about managing debts.

Paying back the money

If you borrow money, it is important to work out how you will pay it back. You could use our budget planner [PDF, 47KB] or an online budget calculator to help you.

It is important to understand the difference between secured and unsecured loans.

• A secured loan is money that is secured against something you own, for example your home or your car. The lender can take (repossess) it if you cannot pay the loan back. A mortgage is a type of secured loan.
• An unsecured loan is not secured against something you own. This means there is not the same risk of your property being taken (repossessed) if you miss payments. But the interest rates may be higher, making the loan more expensive. If you do not keep up with your repayments, this could damage your credit rating.

For more information about borrowing, contact StepChange Debt Charity, Citizens Advice or the Money Advice Service.

Your credit score is one of the main things lenders use to decide how likely you are to keep up with repayments. Things that might affect your credit score include:

• how much debt you have
• if you have a bank account
• how well you have kept up with credit payments in the past
• whether you pay bills on time – for example, your mobile phone bill
• how much of your available credit you are using – this is money you can borrow on a credit card or store card.

Your health does not directly affect your credit score. But your credit score may be lower if you have:

• had to stop working because of health problems 
• a lower income
• already borrowed a lot of money.

If you have a low credit score and the lender decides you are high risk, they may refuse to lend to you. Or they might charge you an interest rate that is higher than average. This means the loan will be more expensive.

Your credit score is not looked at for loans that are:

• from your local authority, which is called welfare assistance
• made through Universal Credit, which is called budgeting advance.

This means you may qualify for these if your income is low and you are claiming certain state benefits. We have more information about Universal Credit.

We want everyone affected by cancer to feel our information is written for them.

We want our information to be as clear as possible. To do this, we try to:

• use plain English
• explain medical words
• use short sentences
• use illustrations to explain text
• structure the information clearly
• make sure important points are clear.

We use gender-inclusive language and talk to our readers as ‘you’ so that everyone feels included. Where clinically necessary we use the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ or ‘male’ and ‘female’. For example, we do so when talking about parts of the body or mentioning statistics or research about who is affected.

You can read more about how we produce our information here.