Hi Everyone,
Tomorrow afternoon I’m getting married. Both my fiancée and I are so excited we can hardly stand it. Friends have already started arriving and although it will be a small wedding it will be very memorable for both of us. Marriage is a big step for me and a major life event. As we’ve planned our wedding we’ve also been planning for some of the changes that need to be made to ensure that we have a successful, vibrant marriage and life together. Much of our planning has to do with financial matters and I’d like to talk about some of that planning.
One of the items on our agenda is remodeling the house. I’m still not sure if we’ll pay cash or if we will borrow to do our remodeling. If we pay cash we will have to save for some of the projects because their cost exceeds the amount we could pay for in a month. That’s where the credit union will come in handy. We’ll use certificates of deposit and our money market account to achieve the savings we want and earn a great rate on the money we save while we have it at the credit union.
If we decide to borrow we’ll definitely borrow from the credit union using either a home equity line of credit or a fixed rate equity loan. With a home equity line of credit we would be able to borrow the money as we need it to do the various home improvement projects around the house. The only disadvantage of a line of credit is that its interest rate is variable and as most of you are probably aware interest rates have been increasing. The other option we would have is a fixed rate equity loan. With a fixed rate loan the advantage is that the interest rate will remain fixed throughout the life of the loan. Right now the rate on borrowing for five years is 6.25%. The disadvantage is that we would borrow all of the money in one amount and have to start paying interest on the entire balance at once.
Decisions, decisions, savings or borrowing; fixed rate or variable rate. These decisions are just one part of the myriad decisions that we will make over the next few months and throughout our lives. If you are in the process of remodeling your house or doing some other big project that requires you to save or borrow come to the credit union. We’ve got products to help you at very competitive rates. They’re the kind of products that Mrs. Clark and I will use to assist us in building our financial lives.
Till Next Time,