Posted on 07/31/2015 11:02:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When you’re young and have no money or credit, you can’t avoid loans. No excuse later in life though for most people not being debt free.
Never had any debt. I pay my bills every month and if I want something, I save up until I can pay for it.
Of course, that means I don’t have much in the way of a credit score either, which I find completely backwards, but still, better than being a debt slave.
Sounds like she was the designated sucker born that minute way back when...
I have NO problem with a farm mortgage, or a mortgage on additional land - IF you can afford it on your wage.
Credit Cards, HELOCs, car loans, store credit cards? Nope.
But, that’s just me. Guess I’m, Un-American, LOL!
“Some debt is good, other debt is bad.”
Easy rule: if the debt can help you make more income, it might be good. If not, it’s bad.
“I can see having a 30 year mortgage and working to pay it off sooner.”
It’s amazing what a little extra thrown at the principle each month can do. :)
"In other words, you will pay for two houses by the time you are done."
Well, no. This is treating all dollars as if they were equal, but they aren't. It ignores the future value of money. A dollar you have now is worth more than a dollar you get in the future. When you take out a mortgage you are getting all the dollars now and paying back with future dollars, which are worth less. Hence the interest. In 30 years just trying buying a second house with the same money the first one went for.
Debt is a useful tool. It can be abused. That doesn't mean it's bad. My only debt is my mortgage, which rate is so low that it would make no sense to pay it off early.
I had some surgery a couple years ago. The hospital bill was $24000. The insurance company "negotiated" it down to $8000 of which I had to pay $2000. I don't know if that included the surgeon and anesthesiologist because they were on the hospital staff and were included in that bill or if they just got in after the hospital hit my out of pocket maximum and I never got their bills.
It has never made sense that hospitals charge triple what they expect to really get from most patients. It would be like having the typical new car costing $75k unless you are a member of a buyers' club that negotiates it down to $25k.
“The payment on $300k at 4% is only $1,432.20 a month. That’s less than renting in a lot of markets.”
Perhaps, but rent includes property taxes, and at least some utilities, as well as other services, like landscaping, common area maintenance, etc, that the homeowner would have to pay for. So you can’t compare rent to a mortgage alone, you have to total up all the relevant expenses.
Her first occupation was being on drugs and mooching off my parents. Then she married an abusive control freak. Great person but has no vision of the future. Everything is for the present. “I don’t need health insurance because I can’t afford to get sick.”
I already had the “I’m not throwing money at your problems” talk with her. My siblings are the reason that both my college-aged kids have been working since they turned 15.
Life has more possibilities without debt hanging over everything.
Exactly. Renting assumes all the risk. If you buy a house at $300k and the value drops to $180k, you can forget selling and moving for a better job.
And who set the table for this mess? Our lying, corrupt, greedy, incompetent, selfish, self-serving, ignorant, parasitic, spendthrift and hypocritical government politicians.
I have a 2000 or so balance. Bunch of medical and dental stuff hit. Now I am free I think, maybe by end of the month, pay it off.
IMHO, the first and third are investments and do not necessarily constitute "debt". Sure you owe, but in the end you should profit.
The fourth is the real issue, better defined later as this:
It has been estimated that 43 percent of all American households spend more money than they make each month,
That is the real issue, again IMHO
Indeed, even if you're up side down on a home, in the end you end up with something....renting, not so much.
Same here. I bought a house in a nice neighborhood I could afford. Paid it off in 8 years. Became 100% debt free in my mid forties.. Life’s good.. Ahhhhh!
Play their game, you can still charge things but don't do it until you have the money to pay for it. Charge it, then pay it off immediately.
I have a AMEX Blue Card that gives me 6% cash back on groceries, 3% on gas and 1% on everything else so I use it for those purchases and get cash back on every day expenses, pay it off every month and get money back on money I would have to spend anyway....makes sense to me and I have a 770 credit score.
Yeah, I suppose I could, but since I have little credit to begin with, they only offer me cards with ridiculous rates. So if I were to screw up and forget to pay once, I’d be getting bent over. No thanks.
Right now I get a great deal on rent so I don’t really need credit. Though when I want to buy something, I’ll have to get a card and do like you said.
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