I'm still convinced these people are crazy.

whywait wrote:
Years ago, pre-2008 in fact, I posted something that lighted a firestorm of indignation - I questioned the sanity of people who buy new RVs and amortize the purchase over 20-25 years. I had been to an RV show where I saw lots of people happily signing purchase contracts and wondered how these young families were able to pay $20-25K for a new trailer. Then I read the small print which stated that yes, it's only $120 per month but that's because it's amortized over 20 years! Lets do the math folks - $120 per month at 6% for 240 months means your actually paying nearly $15K in interest, or 75% of the original purchase price of the trailer. In 20 years I imagine most of these trailers would be worthless for consideration of resale or trade.

When times are hard they can drop back to the minimum payment.
In good times you can make triple payments.
I would always advise to go big and go long at time of purchase because you will never get the same deal as during the initial transaction.

And nothing wrong with paying that loan off in 12 to 36 payments instead of 240.
And I agree that home equity generally should not be used for toys, cars or vacations etc.

Nothing wrong with cash either. But I don't always like telling the dealer I have a big bucket of money.