We, at Thyme Financial, wish all our readers, clients and referrers a happy and safe holiday season and a tremendous 2017.
Christmas is now a distant memory and not long after the left-over prawns, turkey and vegetables are consigned to this year’s last rubbish collection, you will be faced with paying for all the presents, feasts, department store binges and other financial follies that we allow ourselves this time of the year.
These payments are brought into a stark reality by way of a credit card bill. Which is no biggie for most of our readers as they simply clear the credit card debt at the end of each month. Good practice as you don’t want to be paying 20% or more for credit card debt.
However, not everyone can afford to clear this debt in one go. While there’s no magic bullet to clear debt, there is a cheaper option that we have been referring some clients to during the course of this year. For example, if you have a good credit record and simply want to pay a lower rate, there are options available at around 5%.
These are unsecured personal loans. Which means you don’t need to own a house to get access to them. Of course, this does not mean that you should start accumulating credit card debt again – there’s no law against it but it’s just bad financial discipline.
Other clients go a little overboard with how they want to surprise that special someone. If you surprised someone with a new car this year and acquired it with the limit on your home loan have a chat to us. There are leasing options available which means you will pay off that dream car a lot quicker. Sure, the repayments will be higher but do you really want the car debt to hang around for 30 years?
Or perhaps your surprise of choice was a VVS 3 carat diamond ring with matching earings. Now that you have to pay the bill your surprise might be soured a tad. Don’t panic. There’s usually a much better solution than trying to pay off a credit card with minimum monthly payments.
Whatever, your financial hangover, there’s usually a better way than what you’ve been used to. So why pay 20% plus when you could be paying a lot less?