Submitted by infpals t3_y9dqko in personalfinance
As the title states…
I’m in my mid-20s, making $60,000/yearly from working pt and disability pay.
Long story short, about 5 years ago, I locked myself in my house and didn’t leave for about a year and a half, nor did I take care of any finances.
The only thing that got me out was a 3 month hospitalization, and moving back to my home city once the military decided to discharge me with a 100% disability rating.
Since then, I’ve paid off about $25k credit card and personal loan debt, and I have about $4,000 to go, with a $250/month car loan and $2,000/rent trying to pay off my credit cards as fast as I can since I got my job.
Unfortunately, there’s been an emergency and I have to take out a $6,000 loan that I need by tomorrow. I currently have $10 in my bank account after spending the $4,000 I had in my savings and checking on this emergency.
Due to my bad credit history, it’s been near impossible to get a loan by any of the banks I’m associated with (Navy Federal, Chase and my small, local credit union I’ve been with my entire life).
So I took to Credit Karma, and the only loans I’ve had offered were about 35% interest, $210 for 60 months by OneMain Financial. The “interests and fees” are $6,600 alone for a $6,000 loan.
I guess my question is, as someone who is obviously financially illiterate and at this point hanging on by a thread, is there anything I need to look out for before I take this loan? I’m also a little confused how a $6k loan, 35% interest rate for 60 months ends up = $12,600.
It has “no early payment penalty fee”. Does that mean, if I pay off my loan by February, I’d just be paying for the interest accumulated by then?
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edit: Just to clear up any concerns, the $4,000 was to cover a weekend-long hospital stay + CT scan for my dog, where they discovered a mass in her small intestine.
They quoted me $15,000 for her surgery + recovery, while a local surgical center quoted me between $4-6k for it. I took her home, we tried medical management for a couple weeks, and while she did great, her condition wasn’t improving. Her quality of life is still there, she’s playing and eating and she’s otherwise healthy. Unfortunately, the mass is a ticking time bomb, and we won’t know what it is until they go in and take a look.
I totally get the concern for going into crippling debt for a mutt, but to be honest, she’s fairly young, she’s still playing even now, and she saved me. Another 6 years with her is worth $10k. Unfortunately I did not qualify for CareCredit, so now I’m just going forth with trying to find the best way to pay for her surgery.
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2nd edit: I was able to borrow the money from a family member to have the surgery. Unfortunately, they found an aggressive spread of what was likely lymphoma. My dog is gone.
I get that it was a lot of money and I lost my dog anyways. But in 2 years, I’m not going to regret spending the money. I would have regretted not trying. She was worth it. I love that mutt so much. I don’t know what I’m going to do.