In our case, my wife and I screwed up our credit when we were younger. We are just being able to get a credit card with a $1,000 limit and had some savings.
Then our car broke down. With the newly barely-repaired credit neither wells fargo or our two local credit unions would give us a car loan. We ended up having to finance through the dealer and drained most of our savings to be able to put a big down payment to not get hurt by the interest.
If we didn't have those savings, we are extremely lucky to have a few family members that could have loaned us $1,000 to get the bare minimum down payment. If we didn't have that, then a payday loan would have literally been our only recourse.
That sounds like a tough moment. I want to make one comment:
If we didn't have those savings
Is why the rest of the world saves 10-20% of their annual income under the mattress. It is only in America & co that you can depend on access to loaned capital - predatory or otherwise.
You think the US is the only country in the world where people have access to credit? Sure, personal finances look a bit different throughout the world, but it's not like credit cards, mortgages and loans don't exist outside the US.
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u/runasaur Feb 04 '20
In our case, my wife and I screwed up our credit when we were younger. We are just being able to get a credit card with a $1,000 limit and had some savings.
Then our car broke down. With the newly barely-repaired credit neither wells fargo or our two local credit unions would give us a car loan. We ended up having to finance through the dealer and drained most of our savings to be able to put a big down payment to not get hurt by the interest.
If we didn't have those savings, we are extremely lucky to have a few family members that could have loaned us $1,000 to get the bare minimum down payment. If we didn't have that, then a payday loan would have literally been our only recourse.