[Weitz]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

When my wife and I initially built our house it was a bit of a stretch at the time for us, but we knew our situation was going to be improving short term so we did it anyway. The first little while in here was pretty stressful and money was tight, now that things have ironed out the way we knew they would we are much more comfortable.

I think it was good for us to get a little taste of what life COULD be like if you don't live within your means, now that our 'means' is a quite a bit further ahead. This will serve us well as we move forward in life and continue to grow our family. I definitely would never want what things were like at the beginning to be our normal.

Side story to this, when we were working with the bank for our mortgage we went in to sign papers and as we were flipping through one they just casually mentioned that we had been pre approved for a fairly sizable amount of cash in the form of a line of credit. Just sign here. I said, excuse me? Yea just sign here and we give you this line of credit. I dont want that line of credit. But... but.. you're pre approved??!

This banker literally could not understand that we did not want the line of credit. So I refused to sign the paper, he at one point tried to make it sound like the deal wouldn't go through unless we did, at which point I hinted I'd love to speak with his manager about this issue. I imagine that he gets some kind of bonus or kick back for selling us on that extra.

The thing is, I already had a line of credit, at $0 where I like to keep it. It's only there for a HOLY CRAP OH #### moment that my savings can't handle.

The part that pissed me off was just how casually and nonchalantly they tried to tack it on to the mortgage. Many, many young families take it I am sure thinking "hey we will only use it if we have to" then they go buy new furniture on it, maybe go on a little trip etc.. etc.. and find themselves tens of thousands of dollars in debt for things they didn't need or even really WANT to begin with.

It had a super greasy feeling to it, we never dealt with that specific banker again. And eventually grew so tired of these same sort of tactics from the rest of the bank, we moved our mortgage. Nobody has your best interests in mind except for you, don't listen to the bank and do your research on everything they tell you or try to offer to you. They are a business first and foremost, and their primary goal is to make money off you.

Was the rate better than your current one? That would have been an easy negotiation to get a great rate.

I'll agree though the amount of added garbage places try and tack on to purchases of any size is hilarious.