Bicycle repossession. Is it coming?
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I was talking about consumer loans, not houses. It's pretty clear this thread is about consumer spending, not anything with tangible value. Housing certainly is one area where I'm never paying cash, but it's not a $10000 bicycle either. My insistence on buying bikes with cash limits me to $3000 bicycles, plus or minus.
We have plenty of investments and are also debt free, the kids made it through college without taking any loans and that combined is probably worth at least another $50k in stress reduction and happiness to me. And that's a very generous estimate of what I might have made with the money had I engaged in debt arbitrage.
We have plenty of investments and are also debt free, the kids made it through college without taking any loans and that combined is probably worth at least another $50k in stress reduction and happiness to me. And that's a very generous estimate of what I might have made with the money had I engaged in debt arbitrage.
Good work on the tuition pmts. Same for me - I started saving for it when my daughter was a fetus. I now work with (among other things) a college’s financial aid data, and some of it is pretty shocking.
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All bike shops I know of in the UK offer finance, usually at 0%. It’s the only way they are going to sell high-end bikes to younger people. With the high cost of living, they simply don’t have the savings to buy big ticket items up front.
If I was going to buy a £10k bike I would prefer to pay it off over 3 years for sure, even if I did have the cash. They don’t offer any discount if you pay up-front and there is no interest on the finance. So there is really no incentive to pay the full amount on purchase. All these loans are unsecured, so there is not going to be any re-possession if you don’t make the payments.
If I was going to buy a £10k bike I would prefer to pay it off over 3 years for sure, even if I did have the cash. They don’t offer any discount if you pay up-front and there is no interest on the finance. So there is really no incentive to pay the full amount on purchase. All these loans are unsecured, so there is not going to be any re-possession if you don’t make the payments.
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I was talking about consumer loans, not houses. It's pretty clear this thread is about consumer spending, not anything with tangible value. Housing certainly is one area where I'm never paying cash, but it's not a $10000 bicycle either. My insistence on buying bikes with cash limits me to $3000 bicycles, plus or minus.
We have plenty of investments and are also debt free, the kids made it through college without taking any loans and that combined is probably worth at least another $50k in stress reduction and happiness to me. And that's a very generous estimate of what I might have made with the money had I engaged in debt arbitrage.
We have plenty of investments and are also debt free, the kids made it through college without taking any loans and that combined is probably worth at least another $50k in stress reduction and happiness to me. And that's a very generous estimate of what I might have made with the money had I engaged in debt arbitrage.
It’s also pretty clear that this thread isn’t about your random $3,000 bike limit or your personal $50k stress reduction factor yet you felt the need to include them.
Carry on.
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and often debt can be renegotiated such that only a fraction of the actual cost is actually ever delivered. It is very common to renegotiate a debt packaged at 60% on the dollar so that one actually never even pays the interest and sometimes not even the full principle of the loan (especially with unsecured credit -- go into default and watch the offers develop. Surprising the deals one can broker when one is not afraid of using default as a mechanism))
If there is one thing that this thread has demonstrated, it is that, for many people, debt represents much more than a mere "financial mechanism." Those folks have different values, and there's nothing wrong with that, objectively speaking.
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I was talking about consumer loans, not houses. It's pretty clear this thread is about consumer spending, not anything with tangible value. Housing certainly is one area where I'm never paying cash, but it's not a $10000 bicycle either. My insistence on buying bikes with cash limits me to $3000 bicycles, plus or minus.
We have plenty of investments and are also debt free, the kids made it through college without taking any loans and that combined is probably worth at least another $50k in stress reduction and happiness to me. And that's a very generous estimate of what I might have made with the money had I engaged in debt arbitrage.
We have plenty of investments and are also debt free, the kids made it through college without taking any loans and that combined is probably worth at least another $50k in stress reduction and happiness to me. And that's a very generous estimate of what I might have made with the money had I engaged in debt arbitrage.
Homes, major house repairs, education loans for a purposed degree, medical; [something of need & not a want [should it come down to it] , & potentially a business loan are types of loans applied for... Unless you have that much bankroll under the mattress, I dont see how the "average" American could do it without being questioned. Sure, an inheritance could provide such money to avoid needing credit, but that to me is not likely to happen on "average" . ymmv
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Only to a very few that qualify and if the debt is not fully paid in that period they litigate quickly. A good many people that use Synchrony to finance bikes don't seem to be able to hit that 12 month window. If it is less than $1k they only go 6 months.
Disclosure: I have worked with Synchrony and many clients over debt issues.
And fwiw, they are getting pretty good at turning unsecured credit into secured liens through the court systems when people default. Negotiation is the key.
Disclosure: I have worked with Synchrony and many clients over debt issues.
And fwiw, they are getting pretty good at turning unsecured credit into secured liens through the court systems when people default. Negotiation is the key.
Either way, the fact that a certain % of people default on all types of loans really isn’t pertinent to this rambling discussion, as telling someone with poor finance habits what to do is like pissing in the wind. It doesn’t mean that people with good credit should not take advantage of it.
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For everything else, like a bike, or other consumer items I pay cash or use a credit card, which is paid in full each month.
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And like you, I pay "cash" for day-to-day things. Use my REI credit card and pay it off in full each month. I don't think I have paid credit card finance charges since my mid-20, and even then it was only for a couple of months when I needed to buy a lot of stuff to start life after being a student. When I bought what I hope will be my last road bike in 2016 I paid with a check and got a 2% discount from the builder, which is twice what I would have earned had I put it on my REI credit card.
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But I doubt bike finance has quite got to that level yet. They are usually simple 0% interest deals over a few years to encourage consumers to go large on their specs. It’s much easier to convince a 20 something professional to buy a £10k S-works if you turn it into a monthly £278 payment and don’t charge any interest.
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Even with 0% interest it still makes no sense to me to be putting yourself into unnecessary debt by purchasing a bicycle on credit. Why add unnecessary monthly payments when you don't really have to ??
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If the purchase doesnt overextend the income, puts a load of risk on other debit, & it's bought with realistic expectations; The payment can be justified for some. It's not my money someone is spending when they put that McDonalds purchase on a credit card, nor is it my luvhandles that those buns are going to be absorb into...
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Why pay the whole amount up-front when you can pay exactly the same amount in smaller regular payments? Let's say you are buying a £10k bike and you have £10k sitting in cash savings. Is it smarter to pay the £10k straight away or pay the same £10k in monthly payments at 0% interest, while you keep the balance in an interest earning savings account or some other low risk investment? Why give away all your cash up front when you don't have to? Obviously this requires some level of discipline that some people clearly cannot handle.
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Because you can take the lump sum and get return on it that’s greater than 0%. Monthly payments are not inconvenient to some. With that said, I personally wouldn’t do it for any type of bike that I would buy. Car is a different story.
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It frees up money over a 6 or 12 month period that can be invested in a 401k or IRA which has, on average, a 10% or greater return rate.
It would be nice if our public school system educated people more on economics and finance.
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There's a part in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" where the protagonist attempts to explain inflation to a medieval peasant by showing him that although he might be getting more gold than he would in another area, things also cost more, so the net effect is that he has less money. The peasant cannot or will not comprehend.
I'm just mentioning that for no particular reason.
I'm just mentioning that for no particular reason.
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