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When your wedding day comes, you want it to be an occasion of love and laughter; a sparkling day filled with the friends and family who mean the most, all raising a glass to celebrate the start of a new chapter in your life.
What you don’t want is a wedding day that will leave you stressed about drowning in debt – which is why you should consider using home equity to finance your wedding.
If you own your home, tapping into your home equity is a great way to access low-cost funds for a variety of needs; from home improvement, to travel, to a major life event like a wedding. By using home equity to help pay for your special day, you can plan the wedding of your dreams – without the nightmare of unmanageable debt.
Wedding publication The Knot estimates that the average cost of a wedding is now $35,329; in large part because couples today want to create a unique and personalized experience for their guests. They are investing in fleets of food trucks, Instagram-worthy photo booths, exotic flowers for a day that’s bursting with color and originality, and lots more.
The cost of all these extras can certainly add up. And, there’s also the so-called wedding tax to consider. What is the wedding tax? It’s a well-documented phenomena familiar to anyone who has ever planned a wedding, in which products and services – such as hairstyling, photography and catering – suddenly cost a lot more when you even mention the word “wedding.”
Still, if there’s any time to splurge, a wedding is it. And by using home equity to cover some or all of the costs, you might be able to save money and enjoy far less stress as you plan your big day. Home equity offers two key advantages. Firstly, your interest rate will generally be much lower than what you would pay with a credit card or personal loan. Secondly, the interest that you do pay when using home equity is tax deductible, which further reduces the cost of borrowing.
When tapping into your home equity, you have two choices – you can take out a home equity loan, which gives you a lump sum and fixed interest rates, or you can apply for a home equity line of credit, for the flexibility to withdraw funds whenever you need them. A home equity loan might be the right choice if you want to limit your borrowing to a set amount, whereas a home equity line of credit can be helpful if you’re expecting surprise costs to arise and would like the freedom to pay for them as you would with a credit card.
If you decide that home equity is the right option to help you pay for your wedding day or a family members, work with a financial institution that can offer great rates and fees. All HUECU home equity products feature no annual fees, no pre-payment penalties and no closing costs – so you can conveniently and cost-effectively tap into your home equity, then get back to planning the big day.
