Borrow Wisely

How to Borrow Wisely

BY the banker
25 jan 2020

                                       Borrowing makes a lot of things possible. But borrowing can be expensive, and it can even ruin your finances. Before you get a loan, get familiar with how loans work, how to borrow at the best rates, and how to avoid problems.

Borrow Wisely

Loans make the most sense when you make an investment in your future or buy something that you truly need and can’t buy with cash.

Some people think in terms of “good debt” and “bad debt,” while others see all debt as bad. It’s easy to identify bad debt (Vacation funded entirely on a credit card), but good debt is more complicated

Before you get into the nuts and bolts, it’s important to evaluate exactly why you’re borrowing.

Education expenses have a fairly good reputation: You’ll pay for degrees and skills that open doors for you professionally and provide income. This is mostly accurate, but everything is best in moderation. As student loan defaults reach all-time highs, it’s worth evaluating how much you pay against the potential payoff. Choose your field of study wisely and keep borrowing to a minimum.

Home ownership is also seen as a good use of debt. Still, home loans were responsible for the mortgage crisis of 2008 in USA, and homeowners are always relieved to make their last mortgage payment. Home ownership allows you to take control of your environment and build equity, but home loans are large loans.

Automobiles are convenient, if not necessary, in many areas. Most workers need to physically go somewhere to earn a living, and public transportation might not be an option where you live. Unfortunately, it’s easy to overspend on an automobile, and used vehicles often get overlooked as inexpensive options.

Starting Or growing a business can be rewarding, but it’s risky. Most new businesses fail within a few years, but well-researched ventures with a healthy injection of “sweat equity” can be successful. There’s a risk and reward tradeoff in business, and borrowing money is often part of the deal — but you don’t always need to borrow large amounts.

Loans can be used for anything else, (assuming your lender doesn’t restrict how you use the funds). Whether or not it makes sense to borrow is something you’ll need to evaluate carefully. In general, borrowing to fund your current expenses — like your housing payment, food, and utility bills — is not sustainable and should be avoided.

Costs and Risks of Loans

It’s easy to understand the benefits of a loan: you get money, and you can pay it back later. More importantly, you get whatever you want to buy, such as a house, a car, or a semester at school. To get the full picture, keep the drawbacks of borrowing in mind as you decide how much to borrow (or whether or not a loan makes sense at all).

Payments: It’s probably no surprise that you’ll need to repay the loan, but it’s challenging to understand what repayment will look like. It’s never fun to make loan payments, especially when they take up a large part of your monthly income. Even if you borrow wisely with affordable payments, things can change. A job cut or loss in business or change in family expenses can leave you regretting the day you got a loan.

Cost: When you repay a loan, you repay everything you borrowed — and you pay extra. That extra cost is usually interest, and with some loans (like home and auto loans), those costs aren’t easy to see. Interest can be baked into your monthly payment invisibly, or it can be a line item on your credit card bill. Either way, interest raises the cost of everything you buy on credit. If you calculate how your loans work (described above), you’ll find out exactly how much interest matters.

Credit: Your credit scores rely on a borrowing history, but there can be too much of a good thing. If you use loans conservatively, you can (and probably will) still have excellent credit scores. However, if you borrow too much, your credit will eventually suffer. Plus, you increase the risk of defaulting on loans, which will really drag down your scores.

Flexibility: Money buys options, and getting a loan might open doors for you. At the same time, once you borrow, you’re stuck with a loan that needs to be paid off. Those payments can trap you in a situation or lifestyle that you’d rather get out of, but change isn’t an option until you pay off the debt. For example, if you want to move to a new city or stop working so you can devote time to family or a business, it’s easier when you’re debt-free

How Loans Work

Loans may seem simple, you borrow money and pay it back later. But you need to understand the mechanics of loans to make smart borrowing decisions.

Interest is the price you pay for borrowing money. You might pay additional fees, but the majority of the cost should be interest charges on your loan balance. Lower interest rates are better than high rates.

Monthly payments are the most visible part of a loan — you see them leave your bank account every month. Your monthly payment will depend on the amount you’ve borrowed, your interest rate, and other factors.

The length of a loan (in months or years) determines how much you’ll pay each month and how much interest you pay total. Longer-term loans come with smaller payments, but you’ll pay more interest over the life of that loan. Even if you have a long-term loan, you can pay it off early and save on interest costs.

A down payment is money you pay up-front for whatever you’re buying. Down payments are standard with home and auto purchases, and they reduce the amount of money you need to borrow. As a result, a down payment can reduce the amount of interest you’ll pay and the size of your monthly payment.

See how loans work by looking at the numbers. Once you understand how interest is charged and payments are applied to your loan balance, you’ll know what you’re getting into.

• See how amortizing loans get paid down over time (most auto, home, and student loans)
• Use a spreadsheet to calculate payments and costs for a loan you’re considering.

How to Get Approved

When you apply for a loan, lenders will evaluate several factors. To ease the process, evaluate those same items yourself before you apply — and take steps to improve anything that needs attention.

Your credit tells the story of your borrowing history(By giving your past loan tracks). Lenders look into your past to try to predict whether or not you’ll pay off new loans you’re applying for. To do so, they review information in your credit reports, which you can also see yourself (for free). Computers can automate the process by creating a credit score, which is just a numeric score based on the information found in your credit reports. High scores are better than low scores, and a good score makes it more likely that you’ll get approved and get a good rate.

If you have bad credit or you’ve never had the opportunity to establish a credit history, you can build up your credit by borrowing and repaying loans on time.

You need income to repay 

So lenders are always curious about your earnings. Most lenders calculate a debt to income ratio to see how much of your monthly income goes towards debt repayment. If a large portion of your monthly income gets eaten up by loan payments, they’re less likely to approve your loan.

Other factors are also important. For example:

• Collateral can help you get approved. To use collateral, you “pledge” something that the lender can take and sell to satisfy your unpaid debt (assuming you stop making the required payments). As a result, the lender takes less risk and might be more willing to approve your loan.
• Loan to value ratios on your collateral are important. If you’re borrowing 100 percent of the purchase price, lenders take more risk — they’ll have to sell the item to get their money back. If you make a down payment of 40 percent or more, the loan is much safer for lenders (partly because you have more skin in the game).
• A cosigner can improve your application. If you don’t have sufficient credit or income to qualify on your own, you can ask somebody to apply for the loan with you. That person (who should have good credit and enough income to help) promises to repay the loan if you fail to do so. That’s a huge — and risky — favor, so both borrowers and cosigners need to think carefully before moving forward.

Over all taking a loan is like see saw so take care of balance.

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