The cost of important things like housing and automobiles has gone up in price to the point that I don’t know of anyone who pays cash for those items. In order to have a good credit history and be able to get a good loan it takes some thinking to find a loan that works for us. In our case, we started utilizing secured loans. Secured loans are loans in which you put up something of value as collateral. If you default on the loan that item becomes the loan company’s asset. We used the motorcycles that hubby had saved for. They were a good tool to afford us low cost secured loans. You have to be able to start somewhere! Sponsored post.