Paying credit card off completely

[z31maniac]

I've done this with several items. What's not awesome about paying cash over time? My last car was at 0% for 60 months. I love free monies!

Or buying a house with an interest below the historical rate of inflation.

Credit is the debul!

[kung fu jesus]

^See...........then, uh, don't buy a huge place?

The wife and I bought a house that we could EASILY afford on one income. Even with a track car, car payment on the DD, bills/mortgage, etc..........I still put more money in MY savings account every month then our mortgage. And she is able to do the same thing in her account, and that doesn't include our retirement contributions we also make. While still getting to travel, go to concerts, frequently eat at nice restaurants and buy good booze for the house.

But it's hard for most people to live in an 1100 sq ft, 40 year old home, when they could go sign up for a "McMansion". We will also have the house paid off by the time I'm 40, and I'll be done working by 60 (if not sooner)........while most of the other schlubs are still working to pay their mortgage and truck payments.........while not having put nearly enough into retirement.

^that.

I'm 40 and have owned 4 different homes. The last one I owned in SOCAL, I lost money on. I took to freelancing when my department folded in '10 an my wife and I refocused on getting ourselves out of debt and back on to a plan that allows us to do what we want, when we want. Our current home is 1100 sq/ft, our smallest to date, but if fits our style and activities so much better than the 1500 or 2200 sq ft homes we had.

We are on the verge of being financially fluid AND owning a home that is good for us, yet unique and a great investment (NOT in the suburbs, NOT a cookie cutter home). Moving out of CA to NC put us in a mild climate with a sustainable, growing economy. I now head my own department, from my home, with my employer in NY. It works because their helathiest sales growth is in my region. I visit their NY location about once every 2-3 mos. My wife's career has skyrocketed since moving here too.

I had to put my racecar plans on hold, but temporarily. I figured in about 24-30 mos we will be at a place, financially, where we can finally do what we always wanted to...and with less income.

[Cletonius]

Or buying a house with an interest below the historical rate of inflation.

Credit is the debul!

You know it! My mortgage has been at 3% for years now...

[Todd Black 88]

:

^See...........then, uh, don't buy a huge place?

The wife and I bought a house that we could EASILY afford on one income. Even with a track car, car payment on the DD, bills/mortgage, etc..........I still put more money in MY savings account every month then our mortgage. And she is able to do the same thing in her account, and that doesn't include our retirement contributions we also make. While still getting to travel, go to concerts, frequently eat at nice restaurants and buy good booze for the house.

But it's hard for most people to live in an 1100 sq ft, 40 year old home, when they could go sign up for a "McMansion". We will also have the house paid off by the time I'm 40, and I'll be done working by 60 (if not sooner)........while most of the other schlubs are still working to pay their mortgage and truck payments.........while not having put nearly enough into retirement.

Good for you.

Again though, it's market dependent. My house is 46 years old, and was all original inside when I bought it in 2005 for $635,000.

Now, $650,000 will get you a 600 square foot apartment in downtown Vancouver.

It's the main reason my wife and I are looking to move over to Vancouver island. Property is much cheaper, not cheap, but cheaper, and with what we will get out of our present home will leaves us with a sub 100k mortgage, if not mortgage free.

[z31maniac]

:

Good for you.

Again though, it's market dependent. My house is 46 years old, and was all original inside when I bought it in 2005 for $635,000.

Now, $650,000 will get you a 600 square foot apartment in downtown Vancouver.

It's the main reason my wife and I are looking to move over to Vancouver island. Property is much cheaper, not cheap, but cheaper, and with what we will get out of our present home will leaves us with a sub 100k mortgage, if not mortgage free.

Crazy, just went and read an article about the housing market there.

Seems as though Vancouver is sitting on a precarious housing bubble based on foreign investment.

However, your market is definitely an exception.

[Todd Black 88]

That's been my belief also, but this market seems to keep going, albeit slowly, up, when all others seem to drop. We had what I would call a market correction about 1.5 years back, when property values dropped about 4 %. This year they have risen 10% again.

I spoke to a friend of mine in the industry about this, and the majority in his clients in the last 10years have been foreign purchasers, (he is Persian, and that is his buisness though) and his explanation was;
"its a place that a lot of people in the world want to live. The climate is mild, the political parties are stable, there is lots of foreign investment opportunities, and it's a very liberal, multicultural city. Plus, it's beautiful."
He also said that, although the real estate is expensive to us, on the world market Vancouver is a cheap place to buy when using foreign currency. Try to buy a 600 square foot apartment in Tokyo, London, Paris, or New York.



This is all a million will buy in my neighbourhood.

[mrsleeve]

Crazy, just went and read an article about the housing market there.

Seems as though Vancouver is sitting on a precarious housing bubble based on foreign investment.

However, your market is definitely an exception.

Ours is much the same, lots of wealthy peoples vacation homes, and Alberta oil money drive our real-estate market much higher than what most people who actually live in the area can afford. Unless you want a cookie cutter home in a development on .3ac...... Even thats going to be pushing 175k in most cases. Yes we have some stuff thats sub 100k but those are 800sq/ft condos from the 80s or pure shit boxes and your buying for the lot....

[evandael]

This is all a million will buy in my neighbourhood.

do the M3 and cabby come with it? :mrgreen:

[Q5Quint]

Moving out of CA to NC put us in a mild climate with a sustainable, growing economy. I now head my own department, from my home, with my employer in NY. It works because their helathiest sales growth is in my region. I visit their NY location about once every 2-3 mos. My wife's career has skyrocketed since moving here too.

I had to put my racecar plans on hold, but temporarily. I figured in about 24-30 mos we will be at a place, financially, where we can finally do what we always wanted to...and with less income.

Horay for NC!

I am sticking around here because all my buddies that moved out west are now coming back 5 years later.

I rock about 10 credit cards and have the most amazing credit score ever. I pulled out about 5k from my savings to buy my truck and the lady was like 'oh shit you need to talk to loan guy, since % are the lowest ever in the history of the world'. Loan guy at my bank.

I am anywhere from 0-20k 'in debt' every month but always pay it off- multiple cards and multiple accounts- I use whoever is best that month. Had a paypal card for years but it has shit interest so I pay it off every month, but I get a $100 gift card every 2 months or so. I get to buys/ships a lot of neat things and I just use it to buy gas/food and pay my normal bills.

If the interest thing works out I am about to pull out a 20k personal loan at like 4% interest to pay off all my cards, pay off my student loans (anywhere from 3-6% currently), and finish renovating my house. Sure it will be like $250 a month, but the bank sees how much I deposit each month so they know I can handle it.

'Debt' is a odd concept. It is essentially an 'I owe You' type situation, but many kids sign up for free cards and just charge them up... forgetting that they do actually have to pay back + 10-20% interest.

I am actually almost scared to have a savings because if anything happens to the economy it could become worthless, where as rental property, steel, fire arms, ammo etc are very liquid. Even if my house lost 1/2 its value I would still be making $800 a month off the folks renting it. You just have to position yourself so you don't take one in the butt if anything goes wrong.

One feller was telling me how he took out the max amount of student loans, got a job, and invested all the money in different items while he was a student. back then the rates were only like 2-3% for the loan, so he was investing like 10k a year since he was 19, and getting around a 10% return rate. Asshole pretty much MADE money just off getting loans to go to college. Why didn't I think of that?