How it Works
Today I'm gonna be talking about how you can actually get gear, the pieces of gear that you want, whether it's a camera body, it's a lens when you don't have all the money right away. This is usually a problem that you have when you're starting out. Mind you, if you think getting a good piece of gear, brand new camera or something like that is gonna make your videos better, it's really not. There's plenty of ways you can make your video better, learning more about lining, learning more about your camera, and it's settings when it comes time to upgrade that camera, there are a few ways you could do it when you don't have all the money at hand. I personally did this for my first few cameras so the way that I did this is I actually got a credit card through Amazon and Best Buy that have special financing.
Now, putting your camera on a credit card can kind of sounds scary, and it sounds like you might get stuck with a lot of interest. But the great thing about special financing is they do not charge you any interest. I'm gonna break this down for you guys, so it makes a little more sense.
Financing Rates
So Amazon and Best Buy both have special financing cars And basically what this is, if you pay that amount off in the time that they give you, you're not gonna be charged any interest. So you pay this monthly for the Amazon store card, which I bought my first camera, the 3TI. Then I bought the GH4 with it. I bought a few lenses with it. I bought some lights with it. I bought the GH5 with it. And what they offer is do you get no interest if it's paid within the full 6, 12 or 24 months? So the six month period applies to purchases between $150 to $600 and then 600 up go around to the 12 month period. So you have 12 months to pay off, maybe like a $1200 camera.
So there's a few things that I really like about this, and there's a few things that I don't like about this. So let's say you don't have that much money and you wanna upgrade your gear. You really think you can push this business and you want to make this a full time thing? The cool thing about this is you can purchase that camera. Let's say you got the camera body and it came out to $1200. You would be paying that off over 12 months, and that's about $100 a month. So what I really feel like if you start shooting videos, I'm pretty sure you could at least make $100 a month shooting any type of video. Whether it's real estate, it's photos for someone literally. You only need to make $100 a month to make that money back and pay it out through the month. So you're using that investment and you're investing in yourself and you're paying it off as time goes on. So that's what I did. I purchase the lens. I knew I needed this and I was able to charge more. I was able to get more clients because my videos look better. You wanna make sure you're investing in the right stuff, so definitely do your research. I did a lot of research when I was investing my stuff.But you really have to make sure you're going to actually go out. And you you just have to make sure you're buying this camera and piece of equipment for the right reasons. Same thing with Best Buy. They have the same type of parts, so you could definitely check that one out as well if you don't have an Amazon account.
Paying Down Your Debt Tips
So let's say we have that $1200 camera and we're paying $100 a month. So let's say one month we get a really big gig and we made $500. You can easily put that $500 towards that credit card, it's gonna lower the payments. You're gonna get closer to paying that camera off where you can invest in more gear. Don't put the minimum amount because some months you might miss it. So definitely put extra amount when you're making extra money shooting videos.
If this is your first credit card and let's say they give you about $1000 line of credit and let's say you buy something $900 on Amazon and you put it in special financing, the problem with that is, if you're paying that over a long period of time, you're using a good amount of your credit. It's like 90% credit utilization. So that's actually gonna hurt your credit in the long run because you have so much taken out and it stays there for the 12 months. It's not going away. Even though you're not getting charged interest, it's gonna hurt your credit score in the long run, so make sure you have more credit cards open more than just one. Even if you don't use them, it's really important, and you could look more into that. But that happened to me one time, so make sure you're not doing that.
Summary
You just have to make sure that you paid off within that time period. Make sure your payments are on time. And also make sure that you have multiple credit cards. So you're not using the entire credit card just for that one purchase gonna link these cards down below so you guys can check them out. This is a great way to start building up your credit and invest in some of your gear. You guys found this video helpful. And if you guys have any questions, feel free to comment down below.
Another Great way to finance gear is by using the FAF Funding network for financing gear as small as lens to your next tour.