Originally Posted by
genejockey
So I went to the dictionary, or at least the online equivalent of it. Here's how it (Merriam-Webster) defines "Affordable":
: able to be afforded: having a cost that is not too high
Which really doesn't definitively fall down on either side of the tastes great/less filling "financing makes things affordable/no it doesn't" argument. If you define "able to be afforded" as " can afford to make this payment every month for the life of the loan", then, yeah financing makes it "affordable". It doesn't make you more able to pay the full price up front, so arguably it DOESN'T make it "able to be afforded", and with the exception of situations where the rate of interest is below the rate of inflation, financing will make the item more expensive in real terms.
Personally, I don't believe in financing something that will likely be or become worth less than what I'd owe on it. That way, madness lies. And I wouldn't ever see a bike as an "investment", unless we're talking about a collectible, and even then, collectibles are risky investments. Then again, I already have several bikes and none of them were financed.
So, the first definition of "afford" is "have enough money to pay for." To go back to the same well again, in the absence of financing, I might not have enough money to be able to pay for a bicycle. With financing, suddenly I
do have enough money to pay for the bicycle. Therefore, financing makes the bike more affordable (albeit with the aid of borrowed money).
I think a few older people in this thread are hung up on the fact that when I use financing, I am temporarily borrowing money in order to make the purchase affordable. Their old-world views tell them that using credit is always bad, and they ignore several important points about why using financing can be a great idea, especially when the purchaser has motivation to hold onto their cash instead of significantly reducing their reserves. When used correctly, credit lets you keep your cash and enjoy and make use of what makes you happy today, all for the small premium of a nominal interest charge. Worrying about the few dollars per month of interest charges on an Affirm loan seems silly, given all the benefits provided by taking the loan in the first place.
To put this in real-world context: we are in the middle of a pandemic. I would much rather use the financial strategy that lets me keep my cash, in case calamity strikes. If I have cash, I can still buy necessities and pay rent. If I trade my cash for a bicycle, then I will have that much less cash to help in the event of misfortune. It's really a no-brainer why someone would choose financing in today's market.