How WeMoney helped Emily refinance a car loan she could no longer afford

Emily's story at a glance

• Member: Emily, 28 (QLD), an early childhood educator in Brisbane who shares an apartment with her best friend
• Before WeMoney: a dealership car loan taken on a five-year term, costing close to $400 a fortnight, with her total outgoings running above her wage
• What she refinanced: the car loan, plus about $2,000 on top as an emergency buffer, through a lender matched in WeMoney
• How WeMoney helped: let her compare matched lenders on their fixed rates and apply without assembling a file of paperwork first
• Her experience: two phone calls with the lender, one to talk about what she needed and one to say she was approved
• After: $179 a fortnight, over a longer term, so the repayment is lower and the loan runs longer
• Next: the things she had stopped doing, starting with the band she joined

Before WeMoney

Emily is 28, has worked in childcare since she was 16, and sings in a band that plays corporate events around Brisbane. She had always been reasonably careful with money: separate account for bills, a rough weekly budget for groceries and going out.

Then she got promoted into management, was doing well, and bought a brand new car. She took the finance the dealership offered rather than looking around, on a five-year term, at close to $400 a fortnight.

Two years in, it stopped working. Her costs had risen and the repayment had not moved.

"My output of money just from bills was higher than my wage. So I was just losing money."

She asked the finance company whether she could extend the term to bring the repayment down. They said no.

So she went to her own bank, where she had been since her first job at 16. Two meetings, a long list of documents, and she had been knocked back there before on her credit score. She stopped halfway through, expecting the same answer. What stayed with her was a suggestion one of them made.

"They said, can you just pay less rent? And I was like, no, I can't. Are you going to talk to my landlord?"

By then it was affecting more than her budget. She was anxious, her mental health was poor, and outside work she was not doing anything.

How she found us

An ad brought her to WeMoney, and then she stopped for a few weeks, because she had never heard of us and it sounded too good to be true.

She read reviews from real members, and she asked ChatGPT for evidence that we were reputable and read the pros and cons it came back with. What convinced her was other people's accounts.

"It was mostly the reviews and stories I read."

Emily's own feedback on that is worth keeping: the hard part was finding enough about WeMoney to trust it in the first place.

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How WeMoney helped

Once she applied, WeMoney showed her the lenders she matched with. She looked into the top few, compared their fixed rates, and chose OurMoneyMarket.

The contrast with the two applications she had already been through was the thing she noticed.

"I didn't need to be researching and going through all old paperwork and finding evidence of this and that. It was just simple."

There were two calls with the lender: the first about what the loan was for and what she needed from it, the second to tell her she was approved and explain what happened next. The lender paid out the car finance directly, and Emily now repays the one loan. The lender remained responsible for the credit decision, the contract and the payout. WeMoney's role was to show her the matched options and let her compare them before she continued.

She also took about $2,000 on top of the payout as an emergency buffer, because she had nothing behind her.

After WeMoney

The repayment went from close to $400 a fortnight to $179.

It is worth being straight about how: the new loan runs over a longer term, around seven years. A longer term lowers what leaves each fortnight and increases the total interest paid over the life of the loan. That was the trade Emily needed, because the old repayment had become unaffordable, but it is a trade and not a saving.

What it bought her was room to live.

"I'm just living life now instead of not being able to."

Her mental health improved, and so did her work, which in her job is not a small thing.

"Working with children is a hard job. Having to be on and happy and positive while you aren't feeling good yourself is a real struggle."

Under a year ago she joined the band. She says she would not have been able to before.

She is honest that she has not explored the budgeting side of the app; a friend built her a spreadsheet that does the job and she has stuck with it. And she has a clear view of why the earlier applications went the way they did.

"There are real people that are struggling and if they're given a chance, I can pay back the money. I just needed a bit of help first."

Check what refinancing would actually cost

If a car or personal loan repayment has become unaffordable, refinancing can bring the periodic repayment down, usually by extending the term. Connecting your accounts in WeMoney can show your loans and repayments together, and you can then review options you may be eligible for and compare the rate, term, fees, repayment and total amount repayable, so you can see both what changes each fortnight and what it costs overall.

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Emily's rate, repayment, term and timing are her individual experience. A lower repayment over a longer term generally increases the total amount repaid. Eligibility and outcomes vary by member and lender.

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