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I recently married (similar to engagement), planning our wedding and starting a new life with my spouse.

Where we live we use two currencies, the GBP and a local one (XXX) that is getting harder and harder by the day to convert to GBP, as it's losing value, currently GBP:XXX 1:3.5

Recently, my job at a local bank allowed me to get an easy access personal loan through it (in XXX), at a lower interest rate (than I would get as a normal borrower in my country with any bank).

Over the recent years (before this job), we had kept safe savings in GBP, to retain the value of our savings so that when this wedding came, it would be easy to pay up providers.

Noting the growing instability of XXX, we're thinking this might not be a good time to use our GBP savings, as we may need them if the situation with XXX gets worse and also if GBP rapidly gets stronger than XXX in the immediate months to come. We don't want our wedding to wait, though. We want to get it done!

Ever since, we have not been the likes who naturally use debt, as we were not particularly acquainted with the art of it; but we need to start now, taking out good risks.

Questions

  1. Generally, is it profitable to use a loan versus using savings?
  2. Should my spouse and I use our GBP savings or take out a loan in XXX, use that for the wedding?
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    I don't see the need for secrecy. Unless you're the only British couple in the entire country? It just makes the question less answerable. So, after we peal away the layers, you essentially are asking whether you should take out a loan in order to speculate on the stability of some unnamed currency your entire income is in. I'm going to guess that your shouldn't. – Nathan Cooper Jan 24 at 13:24
  • How about you just have a much cheaper wedding so it's not an issue? Too many spend too much money on one day when what really matters is the rest of your lives together. – topshot Jan 24 at 20:44
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It's not possible to give a proper answer without more details on the currency, loan interest rate, inflation rate of the currency, your income and prospects for future income, etc.

In general, no it's not a good idea to take out debt when you have savings. In the case of an unstable currency and a fixed interest rate loan, that tilts it toward a possibility. Mostly because in an unstable currency, there's a good chance of higher than average inflation. Higher inflation means the loan payment will be easier to pay back in the future as long as it doesn't go so high that it causes the economy and your income to be threatened. That all also depends on the interest rate. The bank knows the currency is unstable so that's built into the rate. If your lower rate is still relatively high it may not make sense to take the loan.

And in an unstable economy it doesn't make sense to spend a bunch of money on a wedding in any case. But you do have to live life.

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    I'd always recommend to spend your money not on the wedding, but on the marriage. – gnasher729 Jan 24 at 1:45

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