I just refinanced my car with PeopleFirst Bank. I'll end up paying the car off within the next couple of years but I refinanced to give myself some financial freedom on my monthly payments. I refinanced to drop my monthly payments (from $330 to $203). I got a low interest rate also.
Anyone interested go to: PeopleFirst.com

You may be able to get a low rate of 4.5%

Just thought I'd put this info out there because I think some of you peeps can save a lot of money on your payments.

 

Good info Deez.. I think I'm at 6.9, I'm gonna check when I get home.

 

Not bad. If I were not planning on paying off my car within the next few months I would be all over it but it is cool that some people can save over 100 bucks a month like you. Adds up fast.

SuDZ

 

Thanks Deezo - my rate is (gulp!) 14.5%. I only agreed to it at the time because I knew I could pay $1000/mo towards the loan. I'm prepaid for 2 more years, but it'd be nice to save the extra a lower rate.

(Don't you just hate being cornered into a bad car deal by the sudden loss of your previous vehicle and the need to get to work the next day? Sign here for the Max, buy a Honda, or walk to work. What a freakin' choice. )

 

Just signed on the dotted line - Saved myself $3500 over the remaining life of the loan. Took 5years at 14.5% (330/mo) to 3yrs at 5.9% (227/mo) and reduced the total payable from 12,000 to 8,500.

Woohoo!

 

A common mistake is that people do not keep the maturity the same. Meaning, maybe a dude has a 3-yr loan. I year later he gets another 3 year loan. He actually takes 4 yrs now to pay it off. My coworker refinanced his home when the rate dropped less than 1.5%, and he told me he saved $650/month. I was like WTF, $650 a month? That's a no-brainer. yeah, he was already 11 years into his mortgage and he stretched it another 30 years. Old people aren't as open with the info, they toss numbers around but when you do a reality check they sometimes leave out major details!

I don't think a person should borrow too much for a car, but what do I know. I mean it takes on average 40 grand cash to buy a house, that's just average. Realistically a nice house is around 58 grand minimum cash. You can't finance 100% like you do a car. And what would be the point, if you put 5% down your insurance and payments would be out of this world, even Trump couldn't afford the payment. Life is tough, it's good when people step up and share ideas on how to save the coyne.

 

I see what you mean in the scenario about the maturity of the loan.

I have only taken out one loan so far, the one on my car. Now say you refinance the cost like Deezo was able to do ... do most places let you keep the same maturity? So that it would still be paid off at the same rate (3 years) instead of adding an additional 3 years to the total?

If I worded this wrong let me know and I will try to explain it differently if needed.

 

With Peoplefirst you can choose to have your maturity date stay the same, extended up to 60 months (IIRC) or shortened to as little as a few months.

 

You can pan it out to how long you want it for. I just wanted to lower my payments bigtime so I can have more money for my home.

 

good looking out!

 

Exactly why I don't like leases!

 

Frank you are exactly right! The reason people go upside down on their cars is because they either, don't put much down, or set their car payment over to long of a period of time.

IMHO... If you can't afford to pay the car off in 3 years, then you can't afford the car.

 

Gotcha.

Thanks

SuDZ

 

My philosophy is this:
Buy liabilities
Finance assets



and no, a car is not an asset.

 

Nah, I wasn't saying you worded anything wrong, it just made me think about this guy that I work with where he only told me what he was saving every month. Then when I used a spreadsheet to amortize his loan I could not see how he saved $650/mo if he had 19 years left on his mortgage....

They used to say that if the mortgage rates dropped 2% it's time to refinance, but now things are so creative some people are doing it with only a 1/2% drop. But what I find interesting about life is that no matter who you are, money doesn't grow on trees! Probably because everybody buys a house that they grow into, meaning if you're young you're counting on your salary to go up over time so you spend a little more than what's ideal. That's ok with a house, but imho not a car.....

 

I just want to borrow enough money to get out of debt.

 

Good post Deezo. I paid off my car using a AT&T master card. The car was @ $8000.00 and paid that off in 7months. It was a balance transfer for 4.9% APR until I paid off the card. The good thing is that I saved many car payments and started slapping $1k every month.

 

Another thing that I've heard people do is take out a home equity line of credit--I'm gonna guess that'd be 4%. thing is the interest would be tax-deductible. In your case you paid about $130 in interest so you'd only save about $40 in taxes. But not everybody can do $1100/mo which is what you must have done to get rid of that thing in 7 months. Say you took 24 months to pay 8 grand @ $350/mo, you'd save about $150 by doing the home equity gig. Every little bit helps, because the more you borrow the more these principles save money, esp. once we get married and the gals start doing the home improvement and new furnishings routine (one of my buddies jost spent 7500 on a bedroom set, his girl has to have top-notch)!

 

The problem is say perhaps you loose your job. It happens.

Car loan not paid = bye bye car...
Home loan not paid = bye bye house... Hello back seat of Maxima!

 

Think about what you just said.

I want to borrow enough money to get out of debt? Err... How does borrowing get you out of debt? <shrugs> A better rate perhaps, but ultimately borrowing just make the other party money and takes yours away.

I keep hearing on the radio about title loans. "Short on cash, sign over your car, jet ski, house, anything with a title and then buy your loved one a nice Christmas present!" Oh ya that's a great idea? I'm broke so I'll trade my car title for expensive Christmas presents!

 

Looks like the lowest rate is 5.5% for a refinance of 36 months.
>36 months is higher rate.

4.5% is only for dealer purchase 36 month or less.

Still decent rates though.

 

I'm not going to say I wish I didn't have my other expenses so I could pay the car off faster but I like playing with the banks. They think they have the hold on you as if you have to stay with them forever.

Next month I'll be putting both mortgages into one. I got the second mortgage to avoid paying the bank insurance the money they would have loaned me for not putting down the full 20%. The second mortgage covered the full 20% but the interest rate is a crappy 9%. The first is 6.24%. I'll refinance and get around 6% for both. The banks can kiss my ***.

I'm glad this post could help some of you guys.

 

That's good!!!!