A quick peek in the classifieds will tell you that it’s not.  Although you’d probably be better off getting your kids out of the backseat and hopping on the cab to the nearest car dealership, it’s not a feasible option when you’ve got energy, phone, cable, and credit card bills piling up and bad credit. That’s where we come in.  If you own a home, give us a call and see if you qualify for a home equity loan that puts money in your wallet so you’ll never be coerced into buying another driveshaft, torsion bar, or flywheel housing gasket again.

I'll tell you what you need!

And as a member of the BC Homeowners Club, I vow to love my home because it loves me.  If a pipe needs fixing, if the wallpaper needs removing, or if the walls need repainting, I’ll be there.  If my empty basement wants to be an entertainment complex, if my son’s room is more suitable to be my new gym, and if my backyard craves a patio, I will be the first to support.  Fellow brothers and sisters of BCHC, we shall uphold the major tenets of our creed and for that, I salute you.

I still feel that way sometimes. It happens when I tackle the growing pile of bills on my desk, and realize, that buried somewhere within that pile is a late bill. But instead of a verbal slap on my wrist courtesy of Mrs. Reid, I get bombarded with very expensive late fees.

It’s hard enough to pay the bills for your cable, electricity, gas, and phone, let alone keep up with multiple lines of credit, all of which charge very high interest rates. This is why it’s a good idea to consolidate your debt by reducing the number of sources from which you borrow money. Home equity gives you access to the liquid assets that you have invested in your home and helps you reduce the number of bills you receive, making your debt that much more manageable. I bet Mrs. Reid would approve.

But the end of the Olympics will hit the restaurants, bars, and small retail businesses the hardest as they readjust from the surge in business from tourists and celebrating Vancouverites during the games. Although the Olympics were slated to improve the presence of Vancouver and British Columbia on the global stage, we will have to wait and see in the coming year whether the Winter Games have done anything to attract more tourists, and in turn, boost our local economy.

Where to now?

Living steps away from towering temperate rainforests and having the Rocky Mountains in your backyard may be impossible to put a price tag on, but home equity is not. It is a tangible product that lets you invest in what you value the most, whether that be navigating the slopes of Whistler, combing the beaches along the Sunshine Coast, picking cherries in Kelowna, or hiking through the Northern Interior Forests.

What we look like after we go cherry picking

Here are a few famous characters that have also faced bankruptcy and hardship in their lives, but made up for it with a life lived gloriously.

1. Dismissed most of his life as a failure, Rembrandt was an eccentric artist, a heavy drinker, a gambler, always saddled with enormous debts. He truly outlived his means, because perhaps somehow he knew that his destiny was greater than that of his time. Today, four hundred years later, he is regarded as one of the greatest romantic artists. His paintings sell for tens of millions of dollars, and whole cities celebrate in his honour

2. Thomas Edison was not always a noble inventor. For the first years of his life was a die-hard optimist, with no doubt in his mind, that one day, someway, he would catch his break. He worked tirelessly on his inventions until they bankrupted him. He was deep into debt, to the point that no one wanted to lend him another dime. Had he given up, he would have been forgotten, and some other wild-eyed entrepreneur would have taken credit for his lightbulb, and hundreds of other inventions. But he didn’t, and today he has over 1093 US Patents in his name.

3. Extraordinary writer Henry Miller lived most of his life with a smile on his face, no matter how hopeless his situation may have been. He lived with beggars and bohemians, drunks, and lovers and ladies of the night in a wild whirlwind that saw him scraping by from one borrowed dime to the next, with never so much of a care as to where the next meal was coming from. He lived his passion, and enjoyed every second of this wonderful world in a state of perpetual bad debt and worse credit. Today, he is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, judged more from how he lived his life than the actual words he put on paper.

The moral of the story is: Before you start beating yourself up for a mistake here, or a bad investment there, it’s important to look back at all of the great heroes, and how they sometimes started from being in debt as well. Anything is possible with a little help when it’s needed. Especially from Alpine Credits, that will take the once-hidden equity of your home, and loan you what you need, to set you on the path to a life well lived.

Here are some suggestions for things that you can do with a home equity loan from Alpine Credits.

1. Turn your old kitchen, into a new kitchen.

2. Turn your old office, into a new office.

3. All your debts, taken care of!

If you own a home, Alpine Credits will lend you the money you need to make your financial dreams a reality. The doorway to financial security begins with you own front door, so go on, open it, and take a closer look at the money you have invested into your home all of these years and you will realize that whether you have no credit, low credit, bad credit or credit card problems up the wazoo, Alpine Credits can step in and take care of them for you – if you own your home, you are good to go.