The Return of The Yale Card

The Yale Card used to be a primary payment option until 2-3 years ago. Then in 2007-2008, the market for financing crashed, but now like all things cyclical, financing has returned in a completely different form.

Gone are the 12 month 0% deals with payment at the end. In their place are 6 month (and the occasional 12 month plan) with 0% interest and monthly payments. Question is:

Should you finance?

My answer is maybe. There are credit card rewards. Unfortunately, points you redeem are for artificially high priced items. For bigger ticket items, financing may be a good option.

Lets say you buy a kitchen of appliances and are not ready for delivery. If you finance, you only start paying upon delivery, and then it is only monthly payments. In other words, with financing you schedule a delivery 4 months from now, you start paying in month 5......but only 1/6 of the actual purchase.

I do not expect financing to be as huge as it was in the past (that is a good thing). However, if used properly, it is a good tool for consumers to manage their cash flow.