What happens if I get approved for financing, but don't make the purchase?
Nothing will happen. It will not affect your credit score. You are not in trouble.  :) Assuming that you didn't already agree to a purchase contract, you are not obligated to purchase simply because you had a pre-approval credit check done. However, even if you did, since they aren't shipping yet, you could probably cancel. If you are in doubt, talk to customer service to ensure that they aren't planning on shipping one to you.  They did check your credit report (known as a hard pull), and this does temporarily affect your credit score. However, it affects it the same whether you complete the purchase or not. If you have another credit check done with another seller, it will result in another hard pull, affecting your credit score a little more. But I wouldn't worry about a few hard pulls if you need to do some shopping. Just don't go overboard, and you'll be fine.
I don't think the verbal confirmation from the branch manager is worth anything, unless you got it in writing it basically never happened. That said, what did you sign exactly? An application? I'd think they would be well within their rights to deny that, no matter what the branch manager said. If you actually signed a binding contract between you and the bank, things would be different but the fact that 'approval' was mentioned suggests that all you and the bank signed was an application and the bank manager made some unreasonable promises he or she doesn't want to be reminded of now. If the complaints department can't get off their collective backsides, a firm but polite letter to the CEO's office might help, or it might end up in the round filing cabinet. But it's worth a try. Other than that, if you are unhappy enough to go through the pain, you can try to remortgage with another bank and end the business relationship with your current bank. My first credit card was a JC Penney card, 30-ish years ago.  I had a steady job paying maybe $11/hr at the time, and putting that on the application (with no other long-term debts) was all it took.  They gave me a card and a $4100 limit!!!!  I bought some clothes and stuff there every month or so, and paid the bill in full every month by the due date.    After a few months of that, I was able to apply and get approved for a Visa card (having the JCP card already helped).  After that, just keep on buying and paying in full every month.    Eventually you'll buy a car, and the credit history from the cards will help you get approved for that.  Continue making your payments on time every month.  Same with a house/condo (just bigger).  Basically, don't spend more that you can afford, make your payments regularly and on time.  Pay in full--do NOT just make the minimum payments...that's a recipe for disaster!!!  Don't miss payments, and try not to be late on them.  A late payment once in a great while isn't the end of the world, as long as you pay the late fees and interest charges. "If you think about it, it's really all one big pot of money.  The idea behind an ""emergency fund"" is that you want to make sure your financial life has stability: it's not going to be suddenly driven into the red, below $0.  As long as that doesn't happen, you can figure out how to live your life as you want. The reason we separate out an ""emergency fund"" is to simplify decision making.  In theory, every single purchase you make should include a consideration of how it destabilizes you.  Every $100 you spend on groceries is $100 you won't be able to bring to bear if you get fired or have a major accident.  In practice, this would be a crippling way of thinking about things.  You don't know what emergencies can hit you, nor when they will hit.  That's why they're ""emergencies.""  If you had to think about them all the time, it'd be horrible!  You would end up simply not thinking about it (like most people), and then the emergency hits when you don't have enough cash to stay solvent. The purpose of an ""emergency fund"" is to help make these decisions easier.  If you have money set aside for ""emergencies"" that you only have to think about every now and then, you can make the decisions in the rest of your financial life without too much concern for them.  You don't have to worry about that $100 in groceries because you are confident that if an emergency hits, that $100 won't be the straw that broke the camel's back because you have reserves to draw on. So you should define an ""emergency fund"" in a way which is most helpful for you to remain stable and solvent without having to fret about it too much.  For most people, the criteria for tapping that fund is very high, because the goal is to not have to think about it all that much.  If you wanted to, you could feel free to lump those ""medium predictability"" items into the emergency fund, but it just means you have to spend more time and effort thinking about the state of the fund.  Every medium predictability purchase has to come with the thought process ""what is the state of the emergency fund? Could this purchase meaningfully destabilize my ability to handle emergencies?""  Your emergency fund might yo-yo under these extra purchases, which could force you to think about the state of your emergency fund for normal purchases.  That'd be bad. Different people might want to think about things different ways.  I'm a big-picture guy, so I prefer to think about all of my assets as one big account when I make a lot of my decisions.  My wife, on the other hand, prefers not to have to think that way when she makes her purchases.  For her, having a very discrete ""emergency fund"" has great value.  For me, it has less.  So when I look at the finances, I choose to lump the emergency funds in with, say, the funds to re-do our backyard (something we are looking at doing over the next 2-5 years).  For me, that is the most natural way to deal with analyzing the risks -- I just have to be aware of how backyard purchases interact with our safety net.  My wife prefers to keep those funds separate in her head, so that she can look at how to spend money on the backyard without thinking about how it affects our emergency readiness.  While complicated, it shows that even within a household, it's possible to think about emergency funding two different ways.  (it causes minimal headaches, though a fair bit of book-keeping) So define ""emergency fund"" however suits you and your life best.  However, practically speaking, most people find it desirable to not put those medium predictability purchases into the same bucket as emergencies.  Those that do find it desirable to put them in the same bucket typically have a personal reason for why that suits their needs better." "What will happen if the stock price just continues to decline?  Nothing. What would happen if folks just stop trading it? Nothing. What if the company goes private? Then they will have to buy you out based on some agreed upon price, as voted by the board and (potentially) approved by the shareholders. Depending on the corporation charter, the board may not be required to seek the shareholders' approval, but if the price the board agreed upon is unreasonable you can sue and prevent the transaction. How do they decide the fair value of the outstanding stocks? Through a process called ""valuation"", there are accounting firms which specialize in this area of public accounting." Save up a bigger downpayment.  The lender's requirement is going to be based on how much you finance, not the price of the house. No. As long as you live in the house for 3 years, it's yours to keep. Financing has nothing to do with that. You lose your interest free grace period if you don't pay your balance in full every month by the due date. So you would be paying interest on the $70 amount from the date you bought it to the date you made the $70 payment, and interest on the $30 balance from the date of purchase and thereafter. "There are loans. Usually they're secured by the assets, and you also cosign them personally. Your own credit worthiness comes to play, your own assets are in jeopardy. As to what it is that you're buying - no, it is not necessary for the seller to sell you the building. You might buy the business, but not the actual space it occupies. In fact, the space may not even belong to the seller. You may find yourself taking over the lease, which is in fact a liability, not an asset. You should agree with the seller on what exactly it is that you're buying. You should ask for a full inventory list that would include all the assets and the liabilities that would be transferred to you. Lease, as mentioned, but you might also ""buy"" loans, debts, lawsuits, and god knows what else that is attached to the business."