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Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 9:15 am
by Sutter'sBeard
MrCrowesGarden wrote:Congrats. The fact we made it thru this Christmas without having to use them was a big deal for us.

I know I'm still paying for my wife's poor financial decisions before we met... and for ones while we've been together.
I can identify with your issues here. Before we were married, my wife managed to put $3,000 on a credit card that had a $1,500 limit. Her trick was to do it $19 at a time and they still go through.

I managed to go almost the last three years without carrying a balance. That changed in 2016 when everything went to sh*t.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 9:32 am
by go birds
women amirite???

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 9:52 am
by AWvsCBsteeeerike3
go birds wrote:women amirite???
Ha.

Not to agree that women are bad at money managing or whatever and I know you were joking.

That said, my wife's (divorced) parents are the exact polar opposites of money managers.

Her mom treats every penny like it's hot magma burning a hole in her pocket. We used to get her bank statements. Her savings account had like $12.00 (twelve) dollars in it. Her checking was often in the single digits by the time pay day rolled around. I have no idea how stressful it must be to keep track of spending down to the nats ass so you know excactly how much can be spent. And, of couse, she doesn't have credit cards because she has gone through bankruptcy multiple times. Sometimes she'd give a present in the form of a $200 check but ask for it not to be cashed for X amount of days. Like...hey, why not just give a $20 check. Why 200 FREAKING DOLLARS if you don't have the money?!?! She rents a house that she can't really afford by herself and bought a car with undoubtedly a huge interest rate loan from the dealer. Every month the money in is about exactly equal to the money out. With none going to savings. FML. The clearest example is going out to eat. She'll want to go out and absolutely get offended if I pay for it. And, she wants to do this often. Like once a month or so.

Her dad, otoh, treats every penny like it's a 10k diamond and refuses to let it go. He'll drive up, not spend a dime at a gas station other than on gas, not spend a dime on food, not spend a dime at the store. Drink whatever beer I have, whatever liquor I have, but never replenish any of it. I don't care, he's a guest. And, he certainly does a lot of work while he's here. But, last time he was here, I had the AC set on 73 and he turned it up to 78. SEVENTY EIGHT!!!! to help me save money. Thanks man. But, going out to eat. Nope. He will never ever suggest it. And, if we do, he'll inevitably forget his wallet. One time he ordered a beer and didn't have his ID. He's like 60 and they wouldn't serve him alcohol. Ha.

Amazing to see two people that different ever were together long enoguh to produce offspring (and not much longer)

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 10:24 am
by cardinalkarp
.....are the devil.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 3:06 pm
by Diddy
AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:That's awesome. I remember getting out of college and going haywire thinking money grew on trees for a while.

No idea what your situation is, but there are a lot of credit cards that offer 0% APR for a year or longer if you transfer debt to them (usually a 3-5% fee). It may be worth looking into if you're paying 15%+ or have a substantial amount to pay off. You can also borrow against 401ks or other retirement accounts at rates much lower than credit cards typically charge.
We're fortunate to still have a pretty good credit rating and the apr on the cards is pretty low. I just recently learned that I can borrow against my life insurance policy. I guess we've been doing it wrong by making slightly more then the min payment on multiple cards instead of paying all the extra on the smallest balance.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 4:29 pm
by AWvsCBsteeeerike3
Diddy wrote:
AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:That's awesome. I remember getting out of college and going haywire thinking money grew on trees for a while.

No idea what your situation is, but there are a lot of credit cards that offer 0% APR for a year or longer if you transfer debt to them (usually a 3-5% fee). It may be worth looking into if you're paying 15%+ or have a substantial amount to pay off. You can also borrow against 401ks or other retirement accounts at rates much lower than credit cards typically charge.
We're fortunate to still have a pretty good credit rating and the apr on the cards is pretty low. I just recently learned that I can borrow against my life insurance policy. I guess we've been doing it wrong by making slightly more then the min payment on multiple cards instead of paying all the extra on the smallest balance.
Is that true? I mean, does the math work out? I've seen the theory of paying off the lowest one first then attacking the next, then next, etc, but in my mind without ever setting up a spreadsheet to check it out, it's all the same. There's probably a lot more satisfaction doing it the lowest one first and so on way.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 4:53 pm
by Arthur Dent
If you are making minimum payments on everything, the financially optimal choice is to put any extra payments only on the highest APR card -- the individual balances are irrelevant. That said, in terms of psychological and logistical benefits, it's certainly nice to completely eliminate a debt.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 4 17, 10:00 pm
by cardsfansince82
I had a few cards here and there for short periods, but pretty much went my whole adult life without relying on a credit card. I just paid debit for everything to force myself to live within my income. Just a few months ago I got a card with the 15 month 0% rate and have started putting quite a bit of my expenses on it. I'm letting it build up a balance for a little while and using a similar amount to aggressively pay down other debts that I have. If I've planned it right, I will be completely debt free (other than a car payment) and have the card balance back to zero right when the 15 months ends. Assuming it all works out I'll most likely keep the card for the rewards, but I don't ever want to carry a balance if I can avoid it.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 5 17, 4:26 am
by JoeMcKim
The thing with credit cards is you have to keep a track of your spending since every time you spend money on something you make sure you have enough money in your bank account to cover your CC bill. But the bills only come once a month and if you already spent $500 dollars early in the month if you forget about that if you check if you got enough money in the bank later in the month before you get your bill you'll be spending money you might not have to pay off your CC at the time.

Anyways I try to use cash most of the time. And I only really got a credit card now is so I can be subscribed to Hulu Plus since you need some form of an electronic payment setup for it since they don't take checks.

Re: Credit Cards

Posted: January 5 17, 8:16 am
by AWvsCBsteeeerike3
Arthur Dent wrote:If you are making minimum payments on everything, the financially optimal choice is to put any extra payments only on the highest APR card -- the individual balances are irrelevant. That said, in terms of psychological and logistical benefits, it's certainly nice to completely eliminate a debt.
Thanks, that makes sense. As a completely useless exercise at this point, how would you prove that? It was part laziness on my part and part incompetency as to why I never figured it out. Common sense is what I always fell back on, the principle is still accruing interest regardless of what chunk is paid off...