Home Equity Loan – Not just for home repairs, and tax deductible, too!Written by Charles Essmeier
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makes them pretty hard to beat. But do you have to use a home equity loan to improve your home in order to qualify for tax deduction?
Many people do not realize that improvements on your home are not necessary in order to take tax deduction. While home improvement is probably most popular reason for taking out a home equity loan, many people use them for any one of a number of other reasons -- buying a boat or RV, taking a dream vacation, or even just using money for to debt consolidation. The relatively modest interest rates charged for home equity loans are far more favorable than 20% or so charged by many credit card companies, making debt consolidation a pretty smart use for a home equity loan.
Whatever reason for taking out a home equity loan, be it home improvement or otherwise, tax deduction makes it a pretty good way to borrow money.
©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including End-Your-Debt.com, a Website devoted to debt consolidation information and HomeEquityHelp.net, a site devoted to information on home equity loans.
| | Paying off Credit Cards With Minimum Payments?Written by Johann Erickson
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If you are charged interest with adjusted balance method credit card company will subtract any payments you made from your previous balance before calculating your interest charge.
Okay, if your balance credit card company is using to calculate your interest charges is $2000, they will take that figure and multiply interest rate or APR, if we say APR is 17% then we are at $340. Then this figure is divided by months in a year or 12 months. So, that amount would be $28.33.
Now, in beginning, you paid minimum payment of 2% which was $40 on $2000, and then credit card company added interest rate of $28.33 to your balance. So, your new balance is $1988.33. So, really you are only paying $11.67 against your balance rest goes for paying for interest. So, paying back your debt of $2000, at this rate will take you 172 months, or a little over 14 years.
As you see, if you only make minimum payment each month you will be in debt for quite awhile according to what your debt is. It would be wise to pay extra each month to ensure that your balance does go down instead of staying close to same after they had interest. Try to calculate and add into your budget interest rate and pay that along with your minimum payment amount if you really want to see a decrease in your balance due.
For more information about credit repair tips or money saving tips, please visit us at Helpful Home Ideas.
Johann Erickson is a contributing writer for sites such as Helpful Home Ideas. Please include an active link to our site if you'd like to reprint this article.
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