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North Central Illinois | You are absolutely correct. For some reason over the last several decades young people have come to believe they need to spend everything they make. I don't get it. I suppose some of it is availability of cheap money. You can buy anything on credit these days. I see some places are stretching car payments out to 72 and 84 months. That is nuts. You can also buy boats, snowmobiles, four wheelers, motorcycles, and a lot of other things that are financed by the manufacturer or dealer. It used to be if you wanted to buy any of these items and didn't have the cash you had to go to your bank and apply for a loan. I think in many cases the bank would sit down with people and review their circumstances and deny the loan or strongly discourage them from taking on the debt even if they qualified for the loan. I remember a few times as a young man sitting down with my banker to discuss borrowing money for one thing or the other. The conversation went something like this. "I will loan you the money because you qualify and I believe you can pay it back but I really don't think it is a good idea. Why don't you go home and think about it"? | |
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