Holiday Loans and Deferrments, Good or Bad?
Well, they’re usually bad - very bad. Chances are, if you have a credit card, a car loan or any other type of small loan, or even maybe a mortgage, you’ve probably been solicited by your lending institution to waive a month’s payment for the month of December, when everyone is financially more strapped due to the holidays.
You may have even been offered more than one month of deferrment in some cases. I know some friends who have actually done this, only to find out that they were either charged a high fee for the luxury of waiving a months payment, or “deferring” it, or they received a lot more high interest tacked on to the end of their loan, just making the loan more drawn out, so that - yes - the lender can get yet more money out of you.
Offers like these may be tempting around the holidays, but it is really best if you can just go ahead and make you payment as scheduled.
Or, maybe you can even call your lending inistitution and negotiate a lower payment for that one month with them to ease the financial burden a little, but without an exorbitant fee or additional interest being charged. The worst they can say is no, but at least then you know you tried.
