Definition of the week: NECESSARY EXPENSES Necessary expenses are the minimum expenses you need for living. You need to declare these expenses to the credit provider, so that they can use them in your affordability calculation. Necessary expenses exclude monthly repayments for existing debts. There are seven categories of necessary expenses: accommodation, transport, food, education, medical, water and electricity, and maintenance.
In today’s lesson, we have a checklist to follow when you apply for credit, to ensure you are making the right decision when borrowing. Use the credit application checklist below to help you to make a responsible decision:
![Compuscan: Knowing Credit: Credit Applications [Part 5/6] Checklist for Credit Application](http://dev.blog.mccb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/checklist.png)
Helpful Hint: If you only ticked a few boxes in the checklist above, then taking out credit might not be the right decision for you at the moment. Instead, use the checklist to help you improve your credit score by addressing each of the unticked boxes.
Come back next week to learn about the pre-agreement statement and quotation, as well as the different types of costs and fees a credit provider may charge. 
