I can't tell you how many times my Dad has been beating this into my head. Mortgages locked in at 2.85% is free money almost lol. Same thing with many cars these days. My mother could have paid cash but locked it in at 0% for 3 or 5 years? I forget which, but again it is FREE money. He makes the minimum payments and has no interest in clearing that debt currently. Much smarter to pay off the 5-8% loans or reinvest it clearing 7-15% and turning a profit. Paying off cheap debt is essentially saying you think your money is better off in someone elses hands than in your own. I have government loans at 7.9% for my education that I plan to not pay off anytime soon as working public health you can get them wiped clean. In fact, I'm taking the max allowed which is beyond what i need to live on. It's free money for me to use how I see fit once I get started into real life and have wiped clean for me later. My first two years of grad school have been refinanced privately to cut the interest in half (ended up being the biggest mistake I have made to date) but taking out extra these last two years should help me eat up the difference and pay off the private one with whatever is left over. The best way to acquire debt is to have someone else pay it off for you lol.
That's great if you have the cash in hand to pay it off, you start acquirung risk when you don't. That's why I was talking about capital earlier. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk
Definitely risk involved with any debt, however I just feel it is pretty minimal in our local housing market IF you can be patient and buy good deals. We have yet to have a house go more than 24 hours without being rented again in the past 5 years. These same houses seem to be bringing 10-20% more than what we gave for them 5-8 years ago. You need SOME cash to float this type of operation incase shtf (or atleast access to cash with a line of credit), but capital is accrued pretty fast in real estate on 15 year notes in our current rental market in Bowling Green. In the case of my student loans, government wipes clean anything remaining after 10 years of payments (on a 15 year loan, this essentially wipes clean all interest accrued over life of loan using rough math) and many clinics are offering $20k/year lump sum payments towards education loans until they are gone. It would be beyond dumb for me to leave money on the table currently KNOWING I am going this route with my career. If things change down the road, I can always refinance at that point or start paying them off at a faster rate...
I invested in a house in chitagoland. Wasn't even anything too risky. Bought a 115K house when I was qualified for a 400K one. In a couple of years the value went up to 210K. At that time I split from my ex who hadn't had a real job in two years. He wanted to keep the house and swore he come up with a way to get financing. He ****ed around for two years before he finally gave up. The market had crashed. There were 700 foreclosures in the neighborhood when we listed the house. Dropped the price to just over 100k and never had a single offer. With no money from the sale of the house I had no hope of paying all the bills from the marriage (I paid off his cc and was even paying his health ins. Not to mention part of the house payment and taxes... and i had my own place to pay for.) I emptied my roth ira to pay the bills during that time. Eventually I had to declare bankruptcy. That really hurt because I had an awesome credit score. So anyhow real estate and crummy divorce lawyers can sink you pretty fast. My investment advice is if you're going to get divorced, hire a cut throat lawyer or see to it that your spouse has an unfortunate accident. Kidding! A little. So anyhow. I'm back on track again. Kendall and plan to get rid of all debt 'cept the mortgage this summer. Hopefully start putting some decent money into savings. And for investments... mostly guns and ammo. :-D Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
I still have reservations but check out the write up on bit coins in the NY Times today..might be right up your alley.
Humana stock is on a rocket. I'm in at 38 and still holding. Very nice solid stock if your looking for long term. IMO
I would steer clear at this point. It currently has an RSI value of 81.3 which would indicate it has been overbought. Even the most recent analyst activity suggests a sell. I think it would be a better time to take the profits than it would be to gamble on further gains. Its been driven by a bullish market, not so much by financials. I might be more inclined to buy a put option.
You and me both. I bought oil properties in KS, TX, and OK back when oil was $21 a barrel. One of my better financial moves for sure.
Is there never any fear in the stock market? Anyways I just put in 3500 into GE. But I'm holding off until October to do the bulk of mine. I've also committed to staying long term and something that pays some kind of dividend. Last time I didn't buy because of they go away in may which totally did not turn out to be true. This time I hope it is.
The thing about stocks is that you can lose it all. The thing about real estate is that you can lose it all and then some. Stocks don't have people knocking on your door to get mortgage payments if there are no renters. Also Im talking about just stocks not options or shorting.
