Finance

The Danger of 12 Months No Interest Financing for Appliances

When we decided to start a kitchen remodel, we knew we would finance our appliances in some capacity.

We could make up many reasons why that was the case, but the simple answer was that the appliances we wanted were expensive (read: ~$25,000 in total) and we didn't want to blow through our cash savings to buy these outright.

So when it came to looking into financing, we considered the spread of options be it putting them on a credit card, taking out a home equity line of credit (HELOC), and 12-month, no-interest financing from the sellers.

Ultimately we went with the zero-interest financing from the retailers because 0% interest sounded pretty good to us. But this comes with one big caveat that is often not discussed but really needs to be addressed- that “12-month term” is disingenuous at best!

  • Note: We are not financial planners. This article is more about conveying our experience in taking 12 months same as cash financing and is purely anecdotal. Your mileage may vary. When in doubt talk to a financial planner before making any major purchase decisions. 

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How We Paid Off $50,000 in 33 Months with a Debt Avalanche

There is one thing that pisses me off about financial savings articles, and that is the recap of a saver's journey.

The articles generally start with the person in question sharing their debt load, the plan they followed, and skips to the fact that they became debt free because of it X years later. That's great, but what is missing is the many years of hard work and commitment that it took to make the goal become a reality.

When boiled down to 500 words it sounds amazing that someone can pay off a big debt in a “short” period of time. We could do this in talking about how we paid off $50,000 in student loan and car debt in 33 months, but there is a little secret no one ever shares: those months or years in the middle suck.

While articles tend to shrug this off as being part of the very nature of this method (which is true), a period of several years is still a huge chunk of time. And that in-between time does not go by as quick as you'd like while large sums of money disappear every single paycheck.

But I am here to tell you today to not get discouraged- it is worth it. You just need to know a few things along the way that others are not so eager to tell you about.

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