Auto loan: must make X payments before payoff
"Paperwork prevails.  What you have is a dealer who get a kickback for sending financing to that institution. And the dealer pretty much said ""We only get paid our kickback at two levels of loan life, 6 and 12 months."" You just didn't quite read between the lines.  This is very similar to the Variable Annuity salespeople who tell their clients, ""The best feature about this product is that the huge commissions I get from the sale fund my kid's college tuition and my own retirement. You, on the other hand, don't really do so well.""  Car salesmen and VA sellers."
"One factor to consider is timing. If you set up the automatic payments through the bank that holds the mortgage (I'll call them the ""receiving"" bank), they will typically record the transactions as occurring on the actual dates you've set up the automatic payments to occur on, which generally eliminates e.g. the risk of having late payments. By contrast, setting up auto-pay through your personal bank (the ""sending"" bank) usually amounts to, on the date you specify, your bank deducts the amount from your account and sends a check to the receiving bank (and many banks actually send this check by mail), which may result in the transaction not being credited to your mortgage until several business days later. A second consideration (and this may not be as likely to occur on a loan payment as with a utility or service) is the amount of the payment. When you set up your auto-pay through the sending bank, you explicitly instruct your bank as to the amount to send (also, if you don't have enough in your account, your bank may wait to send the bill payment until you do). This can be good if finances are tight, or if you just like having absolute control of the payment. The risk, though, is that if some circumstance increases the amount that you need to pay one month, you'll have to proactively adjust your auto-pay setting before it fires off. Whereas, if you've set the auto-pay up through the receiving bank, they would most likely submit the transaction to your bank for the higher amount automatically. I'll give an example based on something I saw fairly often when I worked for Dish Network on recovery (customers in early disconnect, the goal being to take a payment and restore service). If you had set up auto-pay through your bank based on your package price, and then the price increased by $2/month, you might not notice at first (your service stays on, and your bill doesn't have any red stamps on it), but the difference will slowly add up until it exceeds a full month's payment, at which point a late fee starts being assessed. From there, it quickly snowballs until the service is turned off. Whereas if you had set that auto-pay up through the provider, when the rate increased, they would simply submit an EFT for the new, higher amount to your bank. On the opposite side of the spectrum: if you've set up the auto-pay through the sending bank, and you're not paying close enough attention when you finally pay off the mortgage, you might accidentally overpay by either making an extra payment or because the final payment is smaller than the rest. Then you'd have to wait a few days (or weeks?) for the receiving bank to issue a refund, leaving those funds unavailable to you in the interim. For these reasons, I personally prefer to always set up automatic payments through the receiving bank, rather than the sending bank." It appears very possible that Google will not have to pay any class C holders the settlement amount, given the structure of the settlement.  This is precisely because of the arbitrage opportunity you've highlighted.  This idea was mentioned last summer in Dealbreaker. As explained in a Dealbook article: The settlement requires Google to pay the following amounts if, one year from the issuance of the Class C shares, the value diverges according to the following formula: If the C share price is equal to or more than 1 percent, but less than 2 percent, below the A share price, 20 percent of the difference; If the C share price is equal to or more than 2 percent, but less than 3 percent, below the A share price, 40 percent of the difference; If the C share price is equal to or more than 3 percent, but less than 4 percent, below the A share price, 60 percent of the difference; If the C share price is equal to or more than 4 percent, but less than 5 percent, below the A share price, 80 percent of the difference.” If the C share price is equal to or more than 5 percent below the A share price, 100 percent of the difference, up to 5 percent. ... If the Class A shares trade around $450 (after the split/C issuance) and the C shares trade at a 4.5 percent discount during the year (or $429.75 per share), then investors expect a payment of: 80 percent times $450 times 4.5 percent = $16.20. The value of C shares would then be $445.95 ($429.75 plus $16.20). But if this is the new trading value during the year, that’s only a discount of less than 1 percent to the A shares. So no payment would be made. But if no payment is made, we are back to the full discount and this continues ad infinitum. In other words, the value of a stock can be displayed as: {equity value} + {dividend value} + {voting value} + {settlement value} = {total share value} If we ignore dividend and voting values, and ignore premiums and discounts for risk and so forth, then the value of a share is basic equity value plus anticipated settlement payoff.  The Google Class C settlement is structured to reduce the payoff as the value converges.  And the practice of arbitrage guarantees (if you buy into at least semi-strong EMH) that the price of C shares will be shored up by arbitrageurs that want the payoff. The voting value of GOOGL is effectively zero, since the non-traded Class B shares control all company decisions.  So the value of the Class A GOOGL voting is virtually zero for the time being.  The only divergence between GOOGL and GOOG price is dividends (which I believe is supposed to be the same) and the settlement payoff.  Somebody who places zero value on the vote and who expects dividend difference to be zero should always prefer to buy GOOG to GOOGL until the price is equal, disregarding the settlement. So technically someone is better off owning GOOG, if dividends are the same and market prices are equal, just because the vote is worthless and the nonzero chance of a future settlement payoff is gravy. The arbitrage itself is present because a share that costs (as in the article) $429.75 is worth $445.95 if the settlement pays out at that rate.  The stable equilibrium is probably either just before or just after the threshold where the settlement pays off, depending on how reliably arbitrageurs can predict the movement of GOOG and GOOGL. If I can buy a given stock for X but know that it's worth X+1, then I'm willing to pay up to X+1.  In the google case, the GOOG stock is worth X+S, where S is an uncertain settlement payment that could be zero or could be substantial.  We have six tiers of S (counting zero payoff), so that the price is likely to follow a pattern from X to X+S5 to X-S5+S4 to X-S4+S3, and climbing the tier ladder until it lands in the frontier between X+S1 and X+S0.  Every time it jumps into X+S1, people should be willing to pay that new amount for GOOG, so the price moves out of payoff range and into X+S0, where people will only pay X. I'm actually simplifying here, since technically this is all based on future expectations.  So the actual price you'd pay is expressed thus: {resale value of GOOG before settlement payoff = X} + ( {expectation that settlement payoff will pay 100% of difference = S5} * {expected nominal difference between GOOG and GOOGL = D} ) + ({S4} * {80% D}) + ({S3} * {60% D}) + ({S2} * {40% D}) + ({S1} * {20% D}) + ({S0} * {0% D})  = {price willing to pay for Class C GOOG = P} Plus you'd technically have to present value the whole thing for the time horizon, since the payoff is in a year.  Note that I've shunted any voting/dividend analysis into X.  It's reasonable to thing that S5, S4, S3, and maybe S2 are nearly zero, given the open arbitrage opportunity.  And we know that S0 times 0% of D is zero.  So the real analysis, again ignoring PV, is thus: P = X + (S1*D) Which is a long way of saying: what are the odds that GOOG will happen to be worth no more than 99% of GOOGL on the payoff determination date? "So true. I can't even remember how many times I've heard ""I was making x amount before the dotcom bubble burst."" When the crash happened I was barely aware of it because I know what the fuck I'm doing.  edit- damn auto correct liked sitcom instead of dotcom" If you do not need the money in the 401k right away and are interested in avoiding penalties on the amounts accumulated, roll over the 401k monies into a Roth IRA (your contributions and growth thereof) and a Traditional IRA (company match a d growth thereof). You can choose to take out money from the Traditional IRA not as a lump sum (penalties in addition to lots of income tax in the year of taking the distribution) but as series of equal payments over your life expectancy (no penalty but US income tax is still due each year). Be aware that he who rides a tiger cannot dismount: if you opt for this method, you must take a distribution every year whether you need the money or not, and the amount of the distribution must match what the IRS wants you to take exactly; excess withdrawals lead to penalties etc.  Publication 590 says Annuity. You can receive distributions from your traditional IRA that are part of a series of substantially equal payments over your life (or your life expectancy), or over the lives (or the joint life expectancies) of you and your beneficiary, without having to pay the 10% additional tax, even if you receive such distributions before you are age 59.5. You must use an IRS-approved distribution method and you must take at least one distribution annually for this exception to apply. The “required minimum distribution method,” when used for this purpose, results in the exact amount required to be distributed, not the minimum amount. Be aware that, depending on your country of residence/citizenship, you may be required to close all foreign accounts within x months of return, and if so, this stratagem will not work. They want people who continuously pay the minimum monthly payment on time not people who pay late. This is how they make their money, so a good credit score is important. If the loan is for a car, or mortgage there is specific paperwork that is processed when the loan payments have been completed. For other types of loans ask the lender, what will they give you regarding the payoff of the loan. Keep this paperwork, in hard copy and electronic form forever. "Repayment of student loans is usually deferred until graduation. Unless you are late or non-performing on a loan, it will make no difference to an auto loan. To get a (normal) auto loan you will need to demonstrate a source of income or have the loan co-signed by someone who does have income. As a general rule of thumb, banks care a lot more about your income than your ""credit score""." "As reported by ZeroHedge in January 2016:   ""While the media claims that this record has been reached because of drastic improvements to the US economy, they are once again failing to account for the central factor: credit expansion.""   ""In order to generate more vehicle purchases, these companies have incentivized consumers with hot, hard-to-resist offers, similar to the infamous “liar loans” and “no-money down” loans of the 2008 recession.""   http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-11/auto-loan-bubble-ready-pop.   Pro tip: Get your news over 1 year in advance by reading ZeroHedge and not shitty Bloomberg or other lamestream media."