House of cards

barbara9999 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:46:03 -0400

It all boils down to greed. You can blame Wall street, you can blame banks that over-lent, you can blame whoever you want. You can take ownership only of your own borrowing practices. The variable rate loan deals are actually a pretty good tool. It gives you a chance to buy a home. If you kept it simple, borrowed as little possible, bought a decent house as reasonably as possible, kept your credit up, you can refinance now at a decent rate and live comfortably. If you had to have the biggest, best house you could possibly get, if you had to have SUV's and boats and toys, all new furniture, and borrow to get them, chances are you are going down. This is the real world, most people can not have it all, and bad things happen to everyone sometimes. We have a society that thinks of choices as big, bigger, or biggest. What about, I really don't need it right now, wait until I can afford it?

And the amazing thing is, it's happened before. People learned nothing from the early 1990's, as soon as they got a little money they did it again. As soon as gas prices stabilize for six months, people will go right back out and buy bigger SUV's. Do they really think gas prices won't go high again? Do they really think houses won't go low again? This is where individuals drive the market - as long as we demand as much as possible, we keep losing it.

Credit at this point is a great deal if you are smarter than the card. You can get a reasonable loan, buy a simple house for a good price, you can take advantage of great credit card deals to make repairs or improvements on your existing home. To not overextend, you have to stop and think about what can go wrong, and make allowances. "If I lose my job, can I make these payments on less money." "If I have to sell my house, can I do so and still pay off what I owe?" "Do I really have to have an SUV that gets 12 miles to the gallon, or can we fit into one that gets 25?" It all comes down to "Am I willing to go without this to have that?"

It bothers me when I see people who have worked hard and gone without to get what they have, and compare it to people who had the best of everything and don't have the sense to keep it. Of course some people, just in the course of life, have a lot of bad things happen and can't hang on. These people have my sympathy. To those other people, stop doing it!

A House of Cards (Credit Cards Mostly)

David Balshaw — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:20:42 -0400

This is the first entry in what I hope will be a discussion forum about topics including the housing market and how it affects regular Joe and Joann; personal credit issues such as REALLY understanding how smart the credit card companies are and what you need to know when considering taking them up on their many offers to make your life easier and how in general to build your personal credit profile to be attractive and ultimately save money because you know how to handle money.

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House of cards

A House of Cards (Credit Cards Mostly)