- Put it in my savings account for my trip to Japan next September, or
- Pay off my 18TB HDD (900 bucks) and get rid of all the upcoming installments ($100/month), or
- Other
Either way, my monthly balance stays the same, I think. I’m really bad with money. 💀
Always pay off debt, the interest adds up
… but beware of any early repayment fees. Some companies really want all that interest whether you pay it as interest or not.
Do these really exist? I thought that practice was banned after the '08 recession, but perhaps it was only with certain loans like home and auto.
Fees by those specific names may have vanished in certain industries and jurisdictions, sure.
With traditional home and auto loans there is a mandated disclosure form that lists your APR, finance charges, fees, and specifically early payoff or extra payments and whether those have any sort of penalty. I’ve personally never seen one list a fee for this (I actually just financed a car two weeks ago and went through this) on our home loan or any other prior car loan and thought it was outlawed with the regulations that got passed after the great recession when everyone was facing foreclosure.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that that stuff like payday loans or Klarna payment plans included some sort of penalty since they’re designed to be as predatory as possible, but I’ve never used anything like that.
Good point