Ask Liz Weston

Dear Liz: We have good credit with FICO scores in the 780 to 800 range. For most of the last 20 years we have paid all of our credit card bills in full and on time, never incurring any interest charges. Recently, though, we’ve started taking advantage of “buy now, pay nothing for a year” credit card offers.

We currently have outstanding balances of over $45,000 on several cards, and one card has an outstanding balance of $26,000 on a limit of $29,000.

We wonder how all this affects our credit scores since we are not really in debt because we have short-term savings to more than pay off these bills. Does this not show up on our credit reports?

Answer: The scoring formula often can’t tell the difference between someone who’s playing a game of arbitrage (essentially what you’re doing) and someone who’s getting in over his or her head.

Your credit reports, from which your FICO scores are calculated, give no clue that you have plenty of savings to pay off this debt.

A FICO score is a three-digit number that lenders use to help gauge your creditworthiness. But it doesn’t take into account your income or any other “ability to pay” information. The FICO score gets its name from Fair Isaac Corp. of Minneapolis, which developed it.

What the formula tracks is your payment history, the number and variety of your accounts and — most important for this discussion — the limits and balances of your accounts.

If you’re close to the limit on any card, that’s potentially bad for your score. So, too, is opening a lot of new accounts in a relatively short period of time, even if it’s just to take advantage of a great interest rate offer.

It’s hard to predict how playing the zero-percent game will affect your scores over time. Some people are able to do it for quite a while with no major negative effect, particularly if they are careful not to use more than 50% or so of any card’s limit. Others find their scores drop over time.

Dear Liz: Our question is about student loans.

We have a total of $69,000 in education debt. We also have a home worth $400,000 and our mortgage balance is $266,000, plus a home equity loan with a balance of $14,500.

We make a good salary, have excellent credit, pay all our bills on time, and, if gas weren’t so darn high, we would have a decent amount of discretionary income.

 

Does a home equity loan make sense in this case?

Answer: Generally speaking, trading student loan debt for home debt isn’t a great idea.

Student lenders typically are much more flexible than mortgage lenders, with a wider variety of repayment options. You also can get a deferment or forbearance if you lose your job or otherwise encounter a financial hardship. This respite from payments can last as long as three years on many student loans.

Compare that with what would happen if you couldn’t make your mortgage payments. Within a year, and usually much less, your home lender would start foreclosure proceedings.

In addition, most student loan debt can be consolidated. This would allow you to lock in your current interest rate and perhaps lengthen the repayment term to lower your monthly payments.

A longer loan means you would pay more interest over time, but it could help ease the monthly crunch you’re feeling.

All that said, not being able to deduct the interest on your student loans is a significant disadvantage.

If you’re confident you’ll be able to make the payments, then you might consider paying off at least some of your student loan debt with home equity borrowing.

You should, however, limit your total borrowing — all your home equity loans plus your primary mortgage — to no more than 80% of the value of your house.

You want to keep at least a 20% equity cushion in your home whenever possible, as a last-resort emergency fund and also to protect yourself in case of declining home values. (You don’t want to be faced with having to sell your home and owing more than it’s worth.)

Given the loans you already have, you should be able to pay off $39,500 of your student loans with home equity debt. Then you could consolidate the remaining $29,500.

Q: We are facing a challenge in regard to financing our son’s education. We are being asked to contribute $30,000 a year for a private college education. Is this really a wise move? We have a daughter who will be in college in two years. Help!A: A good education is virtually essential to success in today’s competitive, global economy. That said, there are plenty of ways to get a good education, and bankrupting yourselves on a too expensive college shouldn’t be one of them.

 

If you can’t manage this bill without sacrificing your own retirement plans or your daughter’s education, then you need to think about some options.

If your son has his heart set on this college, then he should be willing to take on at least part of the cost by incurring student loans. (He should be careful, though, to make sure that his total student loan debt doesn’t exceed the salary he expects to make in his first year out of school.)

Another option, obviously, is for him to attend a less expensive school for at least a couple of years, if not the duration of his education.

The fact that you’re asking this question just months before your son starts college indicates that you haven’t done enough thinking and planning, but it’s not too late.

Head to the bookstore or library and grab a copy of a college financing guide and explore your options. You might also use FinAid.org’s expected family contribution calculator, available at http://www.finaid.org , to estimate how much you’ll have to kick in once your daughter starts school.

Good luck.

Dear Liz: Our question is about student loans.

We have a total of $69,000 in education debt. We also have a home worth $400,000 and our mortgage balance is $266,000, plus a home equity loan with a balance of $14,500.

We make a good salary, have excellent credit, pay all our bills on time, and, if gas weren’t so darn high, we would have a decent amount of discretionary income.

We make extra principal payments when we can. The problem is that interest rates on our school loans are climbing, and payments are getting higher and higher.

We’re wondering whether we should take out another home equity loan to pay off the student loans.

That would obviously leave us with less equity, which could limit the price we could pay on the house we plan to buy in three to five years.

But it would also decrease our monthly loan payment significantly and we would be able to deduct the interest on the home equity loan. (We can’t deduct student loan interest because we make too much money.)

Does a home equity loan make sense in this case?

Answer: Generally speaking, trading student loan debt for home debt isn’t a great idea.

Student lenders typically are much more flexible than mortgage lenders, with a wider variety of repayment options. You also can get a deferment or forbearance if you lose your job or otherwise encounter a financial hardship. This respite from payments can last as long as three years on many student loans.

Compare that with what would happen if you couldn’t make your mortgage payments. Within a year, and usually much less, your home lender would start foreclosure proceedings.

In addition, most student loan debt can be consolidated. This would allow you to lock in your current interest rate and perhaps lengthen the repayment term to lower your monthly payments.

A longer loan means you would pay more interest over time, but it could help ease the monthly crunch you’re feeling.

All that said, not being able to deduct the interest on your student loans is a significant disadvantage.

If you’re confident you’ll be able to make the payments, then you might consider paying off at least some of your student loan debt with home equity borrowing.

You should, however, limit your total borrowing — all your home equity loans plus your primary mortgage — to no more than 80% of the value of your house.

You want to keep at least a 20% equity cushion in your home whenever possible, as a last-resort emergency fund and also to protect yourself in case of declining home values. (You don’t want to be faced with having to sell your home and owing more than it’s worth.)

Given the loans you already have, you should be able to pay off $39,500 of your student loans with home equity debt. Then you could consolidate the remaining $29,500.