Samsung phones, watches, TVs, and tablets are pricey, but with Samsung Finance you can spread the cost of your purchase over 24 months. Here’s everything you need to know…
A brand new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra will cost you A LOT of money. How much money? Around £1329, to be precise. And that is a massive pile of money, even if you’re flush with cash. Similarly, the Galaxy S21 – the standard model – will set you back £769. Again, a pretty sizeable chunk of money.
So how do people with normal jobs and normal wages afford these phones?
Pay Monthly Samsung Finance
Simple: they pay for them on contract or they use Samsung Finance to spread the cost of the phone over 12 or 24 months. With Samsung Finance, you turn the price of a Galaxy S21 Ultra, £1329, into smaller, more manageable payments of £36 per month.
Go with a cheaper, but equally good phone, like the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G and you’re looking at even smaller monthly payments – less than £20 a month.
And it’s not just phones. Samsung makes a ton of different consumer electronics, from 4K TVs to Chromebooks, phones, and tablets. And you can get finance deals on all of them, allowing you to spread the cost of a MAJOR purchase over the next 12-24 months.
This is how I bought my last 4K TV, a 75in monster from Samsung. I used its 0% finance deal, rather than raiding my savings. This is why finance exists. Just don’t be stupid and order stuff that you cannot afford. If £50 a month is a lot of money for you, you shouldn’t be buying £1300 phones.
Work on your income lines, get some savings down, and then, maybe next year, you can think about treating yourself to an ultra-expensive phone.
How Finance Works
With finance, you’re effectively borrowing the money – Samsung Finance is uses third-party companies for this in the UK and USA – and pay it back, bit by bit, over the course of your finance period. Again, it can be 24 months or 12 months. You also want to look out for when Samsung is running 0% interest on its finance deals; this way, you’ll only pay back what you borrow – no extra interest on top.
You can check out Samsung’s latest finance deals here – as well as whether its 0% finance is active.
Can I Get Approved For Finance?
Even if you can afford the monthly payments, you will still have to be approved for the finance in the first place. And the only way to do this is to apply for financing on a Samsung product, the Galaxy S20 FE 5G, for instance. Once you’ve done this, and filled out the requisite forms, you’ll be notified about whether or not you’ve been accepted for finance – it usually only takes a few minutes.
If you have poor credit or a bad credit rating, you probably will not be approved. Similarly, you could be a multi-millionaire, but have no credit history, and not get approved. Welcome to the crazy world of credit! If you’re bought stuff on credit before, or you have current finance plans in place, like PCP for your car, you should be fine. All the lender needs to know is that you’re good for the money.
You’ll also have to be over 18 to apply for Samsung credit. If you fit all of the above criteria, you shouldn’t have any issues getting approved for Samsung credit. I do want to emphasis this point though: finance is a long-term commitment, so DO NOT undertake anything that will stretch you too far. If you’re constantly in your overdraft and concerned about your job security, taking on more debt is not a good idea.
What Happens If You Miss / Fail To Keep Up With The Payments?
Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to happen, should you miss or fail to keep up with payments:
If you pay the full promotional balance before the promotional period ends, the deferred interest is waived. If you do not, the deferred interest is charged. After the promotional period ends, the standard APR applies to any remaining promotional balance and the charged interest until these amounts are paid in full. The minimum monthly payment is based on the standard minimum payment for the account. If you do not make at least the required minimum payment by the due date, you will be assessed a late fee. Minimum payments will not pay off the balance on time. You must make larger payments to avoid the interest. For this type of offer, advertised monthly payments, if any, are greater than your required minimum monthly payment and excludes taxes, delivery or other charges – Samsung
Don’t Forget About Samsung Trade Ins…
If you’re going to go the Samsung Finance route, make sure you take advantage of Samsung’s trade in program. With the trade-in program you could get quite a bit discount on your purchase. How much will depend entirely on the product you’re looking to trade in and its condition. But it is definitely worth doing nonetheless.
Samsung Trade-In will take Samsung phones, tablets, and smartwatches. You can then use the trade-in money to offset the price of a new Samsung phone, tablet, or smartwatch. For instance, if you bought the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and you want to swap it for the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, and you kept the phone in good condition, you would almost certainly get around £300 off the Galaxy S21, bringing the total RRP down to less than £1000.
Or, you could use the trade-in money to put towards a Samsung smartwatch, picking one up for around £200 when it normally retails for almost £500. These are all super-handy buying tricks that, sadly, far too few know about. It’s a bit like refurbished phones in this regard; if more people knew how good they were, more and more people buy them and, in the process, save themselves a lot of money.
