Santander: What does an emergency mean to you?

How many of us have credit cards? Do you use yours on a daily basis or save it for an emergency? And if so what do you class an emergency? Santander asked me this recently and it resulted in quite a lot of different answers when I asked my friends!

A lovely friend I meet up with for coffee for example puts ALL of Christmas on her credit card and classes that as an emergency credit card. She then spends the whole year paying it off but hey her kids had those amazing presents in the top ten Christmas wants and her family and her have had their perfect Christmas and that to her is by far the most important thing.

To me that doesn’t quite class as my idea of an emergency and yet I have another lovely friend who has a credit card she doesn’t use UNLESS she’s sale shopping and sees something which in her words “is too good to leave behind” That’s her definition of an emergency. Fair enough and yes there are times when I’ve really had to drag myself away from another pair of boots I needed (and honestly they were gorgeous! Suede, deep red, just beautiful!)

Saying this though I remind myself of a real emergency we had and boy was I grateful I hadn’t bought them as we needed the credit card. We’d just sold our house and all our spare change was tied up in solicitors, deposits for the new house and paying the government for the privilege. Then horror of horrors the boiler in the house we’ve sold but not completed on breaks! And leaks through to the ceiling below, in February which left us without hot water and heating just at the start of a weekend and a hole in the ceiling.

Unfortunately home emergency couldn’t do anything until Monday morning but they’d be happy to reimburse us the costs…..Hmm how to pay the costs for a hotel for four of us over valentines weekend! Roll out the emergency credit card!

The one tucked away at the back of the wallet for an emergency! Plumber on a Saturday, warm hotel which hot water on tap for us and Tuesday when the survey was due everything was back to normal – phew!

Now for some reason we in our house don’t view loans as the same, perhaps because the APR is lower and I don’t think you can really get a loan as quickly as whipping out your credit card. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe not. A loan to me is something which you might need in a less dire emergency i.e. you might need a new car or you’d like a conservatory added or a new boiler and you can justify the monthly pay backs etc. I suppose an emergency to me means something urgent and needed there and then.

How about you? What do you class as an emergency and would your help of choice be a quite instant credit card or a loan? I guess it depends how good you are at monthly repayments and what you class as important to you and fundamentally what the emergency is.