Delayed Interest Lines of Credit

[TubaTodd]

So I sold my tuba to get out of credit card debt and now I'm out of credit card. I also have no tuba. My wife is selling her flute so that we'll have funds to purchase a tuba without......putting it back on the credit cards.

Sooooo, I had a thought of a compromise. I've purchased things before with "no interest for x months" credit lines. (The last one was a $1500 ACL surgery for my dog. Thank you CareCredit). Is there such a thing for instruments? Is there a particular card company that has an offer like that? With a situation like that I could make rather sizable payments each month and with or perhaps without the sale of the flute, I would have it paid off.

I'm still a little skittish about this, but with the no interest part, I believe I can make it work. What does the TNFJ have to say?

[TubaTodd]

What is the Annual Percentage Rate?
The Annual Percentage Rate is 19.99%. The Minimum Finance Charge is $2.00. Of course, you can choose to pay your entire balance by the payment due date and not incur finance charges."

How does this work and how long can you defer? Unfortunately the vendor I'm looking to purchase from does not take PayPal.

[Rick F]

Don't do that **** anymore. Pay cash. No borrowing.
Don't have the cash? Take a part time job, sell stuff, whatever it takes.

You paid off your debt for a reason, do not succumb to the notion
that you can go back into debt and miraculously avoid paying interest.
The odds are against you, and REMEMBER HOW HARD IT WAS
TO GET OUT OF DEBT TO BEGIN WITH!!!

And as my friend Wade says, that is all

+100!

[bort]

Not a great idea. I'm curious how it might affect your credit score, even if you do pay it off in time.

[TubaTodd]

Points taken....

[bort]

On the other hand, if you are going to make money playing this tuba and can pay it off more quickly, then it could be okay. Creditors like to see loans paid off, and early is even better than on-time.

[cjk]

Some people are blessed with jobs that pay pretty well, and these people can fork out $4000 for a horn.

I kinda take issue with this statement but not the rest of your post. Considering a good paying job a blessing belittles the hard work and common sense (not to mention other skills) it might take to get a good paying job.

Having $4000 of disposable income or not having it is more about how one lives his or her life and what gets prioritized, not necessarily how well his or her job pays.

[PMeuph]

I kinda take issue with this statement but not the rest of your post. Considering a good paying job a blessing belittles the hard work and common sense (not to mention other skills) it might take to get a good paying job.

Having $4000 of disposable income or not having it is more about how one lives his or her life and what gets prioritized, not necessarily how well his or her job pays.

+1

[bort]

James, what you describe does sound a bit extraordinary, but not totally out of possibility for being a new teacher. There's a big reason why so many teachers quit after 1 year, and why even more quit after 3 years. It's hard. The hours and the money stink. There's not always a lot of support from the administration. But people teach for the same reason you play tuba -- they can't imagine doing anything else.

There's a bright side in that it gets easier every year. It'll never be an easy job, but it does become a little better, if not at least more expected.

[TubaTodd]

In my situation, I work as a computer programmer making nearly double what a starting teacher might make in my state. (Glad I switched careers. That is a different topic) My wife is NOW (NOW=as of 2 months ago) a nurse making double what her last job paid. We had gotten ourselves in a hole previously (private school teachers together making less that what I bring home now......and making dumb purchased. BOTH we problems) that kept hurting our bi-weekly income. After using the tuba money to pay off those debts, we've continued to make smart purchases (ie only what we need to survive) and for the first time in a LONG time I can look in my bank and account and go "damn.....I'm doing pretty well for myself." Before digging out it was a paycheck-to-paycheck hell.

Back on Topic:

The genesis of my original post was to find a way to accomplish 2 things...

a) purchase a tuba sooner rather than later. Buy it now while waiting on the sale of the flute.
b) Improve my sad credit by making a purchase that gets paid off in sizable chunks.

I'm still waiting on the flute sale at this point.

[bort]

Can you pay like half (or whatever you can do now) cash up front and charge the rest?

[PMeuph]

a) purchase a tuba sooner rather than later. Buy it now while waiting on the sale of the flute.
b) Improve my sad credit by making a purchase that gets paid off in sizable chunks.

Would sooner rather than later include a time when you could pay for a good part of the horn (say 50%)?
Would you have the possibility of getting a lower interest loan?

Without being too paranoid, the problem that I have with one of those high interest loans (Credit card or other) is that if something does happen (i.e. Medical bills, house repairs, car break down..etc) you might not have the money to pay your loan? Therefor you'd have to pay the high interest rates? On a purchase like a tuba, 20%APR is quite a lot of money.

As mentioned, do you have any upcoming paying gigs that would justify/help pay off the horn quicker?

One more caution, I have a friend who purchased a horn brand new while the Canadian dollar was really strong (vs the USD). He bought his F tuba(a firebird) thinking that it would be easy to sell his other F tuba. He ended up taking $2000 less than he wanted(and had paid) for his other F tuba. Plus he had to pay interest on the money he borrowed to get the second F tuba( it took him at least 1 year to sell his second tuba). Although he saved a decent chunk on his purchase, I'm not so sure that he wouldn't have been better off to wait for his first tuba to sell and then buy a new one (even at a more expensive price). Indeed he could have paid up to $2500 for the firebird and ended up in the same financial standing.

[TubaTodd]

I figured I'd follow up on this thread in case someone sees this in the future. Ultimately I purchased a tuba that I could afford.

Afford = I can pay for it in cash NOW if I want to.

The reality is that I paid with my credit card via Paypal. It gave me little flexibility to pay it off after my next paycheck. I have scheduled a payment to pay off the entire balance. This is an achievement that I am very proud of.

EDIT: Oh yeah....and we did NOT need to sell the flute to make this possible. BOO YEAH!

[bisontuba]

Excellent!!
mark

[Heavy_Metal]

EDIT: Oh yeah....and we did NOT need to sell the flute to make this possible. BOO YEAH!

Yes, we have to keep our wives/fiancees happy......

Glad to hear you got past this. Credit cards do require discipline- pretty the only reason we use them is because it can be dangerous carrying cash in Baltimore.....

[Tubaryan12]

Are you eligible for this?

+1