[olddog]

Good financial tips for someone to consider is not a bad thing.

Refinancing your house into a 30 yr mortgage and rolling all your other debts (cars and credit card) into that loan is not a good idea. You will still be paying for a car that is sitting in a junk yard, and you will have paid more interest than the original price.

A home equity loan requires good discipline. The minimum payments can be just slightly more than the interest, resulting in 30 yr or 40 yr to pay it off.

It is generally a bad idea to be upside down in a car loan. You buy it brand new and your likely going to take a 20% drop in value the first year. If you didn't put 20% down, you will owe more than it is worth.

Let's use easy numbers. Say you pay $100K and finance it all. One year later a drunken slug totals it for you. His insurance says it is worth $80K and hands you a check. You still owe $95K. Now that the car is worthless the bank wants $15K from you right now. No more payments, because the title no longer secures the loan. No bank will loan you $15K to pay off another loan. Now you are in a pickle.

I would never recommend anyone getting a loan on a new car without putting 20% down. More if the car has unusually high depreciation.

Financing toys is not a great idea, but people do it all the time. You should at least ask yourself some what if questions. If this happens what will I do? Be prepared.