Are prices like this everywhere?

[MossRoad]

That's not how it works.

Everyone on planet earth would have good credit by those metrics on their own self worth.

That is how it works if you pay it off each month.

Carrying a balance means you're spending money needlessly on paying interest. Paying it off each month shows you're a good risk.

 

[MossRoad]

You have no activity of credit. It's like you ignored the "as long as you have some activity on your credit"

You're all cash.

Again, I do have activity on my credit. I charge it. They bill me. I pay if off before any interest accrues.

 

[MossRoad]

Was actually referring to Moss’s post. The Midwest is pretty low COL.

Yes it is very affordable. And I like the change of seasons here as well.

 

[MossRoad]

It worked.

Good. Now you can reconsider all those nice comments you gave in the past once you get to know a person.

 

[MossRoad]

...

I think Ramsey has generally good advice but not the path I followed... especially his Real Estate advice...

...

I think Ramsey is there to get you out of the hole you're in, so that you can start fresh and accumulate enough money to then make some smart investments. But you have to get out of the hole first to have bit of security to begin with.

 

[Oaktree]

That is how it works if you pay it off each month.

Carrying a balance means you're spending money needlessly on paying interest. Paying it off each month shows you're a good risk.

That's how it should work, but that's not always the case. An example...maybe 5 years ago my wife wanted to get a newer car, she found the make/model she wanted at one particular dealer. Went thru all the negotiations, when it came to the credit check it turned out she'd locked her credit history and the password was at home (a couple hours away). OK, we'll just get the loan under my name instead. My credit score is well into the 800s, but the outfit they used (one I'd never heard of) showed it in the mid-600s because (1) I wasn't carrying a balance and (2) I had no history of a vehicle loan (nope-last car loan I had got paid off in 1973) so we didn't qualify for a lower interest rate. If it were me I would have walked out then and there and never looked back, but she had her mind set on getting that car, and it just wasn't a battle I wanted to fight.
She still loves the car (Buick Regal), but we both agree that it will be a cold day you-know-where when we EVER patronize that dealer again.

 

[MossRoad]

...

I was young with no debt other than mortgage and able to throw every penny of income into making it work and ate a lot of Ramen along the way and moved into some very dilapidated properties in some sketchy neighborhoods...

One thing I had to consider was I was getting married when my then fiancé and I bought our fist house. I wasn't going to put my wife in a sketchy neighborhood. So we bought on the EDGE of a sketchy neighborhood. It served us well for 11 years, but when our child turned 3 we saw the neighborhood getting rougher, so we moved.

Now some would say the neighborhood we moved into is sketchy, but it's not. It's lower income, but very little crime. A good mix of adults of every ethnicity. Can't say I ever see teenagers out and about anymore.

We thought about keeping our first house as a rental. Instead, we put it in a blanket mortgage with this house to get over 20% equity in the total so we could buy this house with no money down and no need for the mortgage insurance. Then we sold that 1st house and put it all down on this house, which gave us about 60% equity in this house, which we would have paid off in 5 years, had my father not passed away. He left us enough to pay it off 2 years early, so that was a nice 2 year boost in savings.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not cut out to deal with renters due to my past experiences helping my father manage and liquidate the units his parents could no longer manage due to bad tenants.

I have no regrets on that decision and neither does my wife.

About the only regret I have is not purchasing a duplex or triplex in Lafayette, IN before my kids went to Purdue! Had I known both of them were going to go there, it would have saved $80K in rent over 9 years, plus the other tenants would have helped towards the purchase cost, plus the housing market went nuts right after the last one graduated, and we could have made a small fortune by selling it.

Ah good old 20/20 hindsight.

 

[lman]

We bought a new car a couple of years ago and a promotional rebate was only available if it was financed, so we financed it and paid it off a couple of months later. I believe our score was around 850. We had not had any debts for several years before that. Credit card is paid off monthly.

 

[jyoutz]

Yes it is very affordable. And I like the change of seasons here as well.

We definitely have 4 seasons where I live.

 

[MossRoad]

That's how it should work, but that's not always the case. An example...maybe 5 years ago my wife wanted to get a newer car, she found the make/model she wanted at one particular dealer. Went thru all the negotiations, when it came to the credit check it turned out she'd locked her credit history and the password was at home (a couple hours away). OK, we'll just get the loan under my name instead. My credit score is well into the 800s, but the outfit they used (one I'd never heard of) showed it in the mid-600s because (1) I wasn't carrying a balance and (2) I had no history of a vehicle loan (nope-last car loan I had got paid off in 1973) so we didn't qualify for a lower interest rate. If it were me I would have walked out then and there and never looked back, but she had her mind set on getting that car, and it just wasn't a battle I wanted to fight.
She still loves the car (Buick Regal), but we both agree that it will be a cold day you-know-where when we EVER patronize that dealer again.

Bummer.

I check our credit rating quarterly just to see if anything has changed. Rarely does more than a few points in either direction.

When my wife wanted a newer car, we went to a local dealer that deals in mostly former rental and off-lease cars. We told them what we wanted, they drove over to Chicago, picked one up, and brought it back for us to test. We liked it, so we agreed on a price. Went inside and they started looking up payment options. We gave the salesman the needed info, he plugged it in, and then sat back in his chair with an odd look on his face. He said "You've qualified for less than 1% financing. I've never seen that before. How do you do that?" He called another guy over to double check. He said they couldn't finance it themselves at that low of a rate and gave us some options of local credit unions. We said thanks, but we'll finance it ourselves.