No matter whether you think short term or fail to read some fine print, you may get into a debt trap while taking out a loan.
Loans are an inevitable part of our modern life, whether they are consumer loans for a house, a car, a student loan, a credit card debt, some kind of credits for business or short term personal loans.
Still taking out a loan is not always good, and some individuals dealing with debts, know it very well.
Let’s look at the most usual mistakes in the borrowing process.
Failing to Read the Fine Print
People often just sign the documents they are given without reading them carefully, just taking the salesperson’s words for granted. However, the small print usually has important information to know and to consider. Studying the passages in the fine print you insure yourself from troubles in the future, such as balloon payments or interest rates growth. Having signed the document, you confirm that you know all the terms and conditions of your loan.
Borrowing for Someone Else
Co-signing is already a mistake, still, some individuals make things even worse taking out a loan for someone else, children, family members, partners, or friends. Once the person you borrowed for stops the payments, you will have to cover the obligation yourself, without damage to your credit score in the best case.
Not Thinking in the Long Term Perspective
Any loan taken becomes a part of your budget for a certain period of time. Some bankers even compare it to the relationship you involve yourself in. So, before committing yourself, study all the terms, conditions, rates, and fees carefully. In case you badly need money right now, be even more careful while considering your loan in the long perspective, because it will influence your monthly expenses. Always think of the possibility of low loan payments as possible.
Allowing Emotions to Define your Borrowing Amounts
It’s a wide-spread mistake. When people are in urgent need of money or passionate about something, they try to get a loan to improve the situation. There are people borrowing for a date, a casino game, a plastic surgery, whatever and they seldom think of their future life burdened with the payments for their one-minute whim.
Bungling the Paperwork
There is often a lot of mistakes in a loan requesting process; most of them are because of a lack of preparation. The bank staff makes their best to help consumers in making the minimum mistakes, still to read the paperwork is consumers’ responsibility.
The bank officers mention incomplete applications, not a legal change of name after marriage, and the alike errors as the most common ones. While able to be solved the same day, they often take precious time.
Lying
Any lies in the borrowing process will put the borrower himself under the stroke. There is no sense in increasing your income amount, not disclosing the whole of your debt or using false social security number, you will be the one to suffer most. There is a good rule of thumb: you should not put your loan in the first place if it threatens your marriage, business, or the whole financial well-being.
