**BigT’s **point is that when the wife said she only had to make the minimum payment, it’s possible she was merely commenting on the size of the absolute minimum payment they’d need to make.
The difference between, “Well if we’re in a pinch we only need to come up with $25 to maintain our account in good standing” vs. “Well we never have to pay more than the $25 minimum ever.”
In other words, it’s possible the wife really was commenting on the bank’s minimum being the minimum, not her personal maximum that she felt she needed to pay.
It wasn’t the clearest wording ever but I think it was pretty clear what **BigT **was saying. I don’t see any reason to be condescending and assume **BigT **doesn’t understand just because you had a difficult time understanding the post.
This is a difference in financial philosophy and I disagree with you. I think that it’s definitely bad and irrational to buy luxuries like a larger tv with a credit card unless the interest is very low. You said that it can be risky and a road to financial troubles and that, by definition, is bad and irrational. How about puttingmoney aside until you have enough saved and paying way less for the item? We can all construct hypotheticals where is might be a reasonable strategy but for nearly all cases, it’s a terrible way to conduct your personal business.
Well, a good part of the point is in your last sentence: it is personal business and not necessarily yours or mine.
In a more general sense, though, I completely agree; I’d bet that careful analysis would show that 90% of items bought on credit (vs. saving for them) are dispensable crap.
In that middle ground, though, is all the things that are too expensive to buy for cash, working down from houses and cars and up from, say, urgent expenses. Who’s to say where the line is? Should it be $100? $200? $5,000? $200,000? Should there be no consumer credit as we know it? You can’t say, at all, except for yourself and someone whose situation you know almost as well as yours.
It comes down to the other gist of this thread: personal finances demand individual decisions, but should be based on intelligent understanding of what’s involved and far more rationality than most people are willing to bring to the task. Being surrounded by the unending shriek of marketing and drive to acquire crap makes it harder, but not impossible. What’s impossible is to say that someone buying a TV on credit is an absolutely bad thing.
As I said, we can construct all kinds of hypotheticals where it might be a reasonable thing to do and of course there’s a middle ground. A bigger tv when your regular one works fine seems to me to be something to save for and not do with high interest loans. I certainly wouldn’t buy a car on a credit card especially given that car loans come at way, way less interest in nearly all cases and given that a new car as opposed to an older car is way more likely to make financial sense even when buying on credit as opposed to a nicer piece of consumer electronics.
As for the personal business thing, the OP put this item up for discussion so it’s fair game for discussion. I am certainly not going to subject my opinions to someone at the Best Buy who may be using poor financial planning for a new Bravia. Frankly, it’s people spending beyond their means that keep our economy humming.
You have *no *idea how much we agree. I do draw the line at judging personal decisions and in any way trying to legislate or enforce “common sense.” I do put much stock in all forms of economic education and promotion of sensibility that runs directly contrary to 99% of what consumers are bitch-slapped with every waking moment.
BLAMMO! Center-ring shot. Now to pick a worthy target.
