need to understand how finance calculation work
We want to buy a fifth wheel, and we need to trade a travel trailer that has no equity. Is there a step i can follow so i dont get taken advantage of or tricked into a bad deal?
Forum Discussion
lj2654 wrote:
Well many of us are upside down on home mortgages because of the bank and mortgage companies greediness a few years ago. I have lived in my home for 12 years and am still upside down and will never have equity in it.
Sorry to hear that.
You however should consider yourself lucky to still have your home, I personally know a few people that lost their homes after the variable rates (which allowed them to afford the house) went through the roof.
Not ALL the blame is the greediness of the bank, the home buyers had a hand in that too by buying homes which were more expensive than they should have bought.
It is very easy to get sucked into a deal which is on the bubble of not being to make the payments..
When I bought my home I intentionally looked at homes which only ONE our two incomes could afford. Yes, that meant I was not getting the big fancy lakeside home with a flat yard..
Instead I got a SMALL home 50ft from the center line of a busy road. Additionally I did not get my flat yard, no, instead I have better than 1 (out of 1.7 Acre) acre of extremely steep hillside. So steep I cannot mow it..
But the upside was that I was able to buy the home on a 15yr mortgage and paid it off in 11yrs. Been mortgage free for at least 20 years!
Since it has been paid off, I built a new living room on the side of the house(paid for with cash saved that would have gone into the mortgage payment) AND a three and a half stall garage (also paid cash saved from not paying a mortgage).
We are far from being rich people in fact both of our incomes just barely keeps us just above the poverty level..
By buying smart and paying off debt early we CAN afford to do things like camping. We don't get a lot of time to camp so we even buy very old TTs (for cash) and fix them up to suit us just so we don't have a monthly payment on something that gets used a few weeks out of the year..
Not many would care to go my route, instead, instant gratification rules and they don't care what it costs to have it now... Pay me now or pay me later.
