Credit Card debt

They are waiting for me to fall big.

(to be filed under: "I'll give you this big, shiny nickel fer yer little, crummy nickel!")

I don't know whether I've got a little or a lot.

I would say a large credit card debt would be in the $10,000+ range. Am I being naive?

Fortunately, you become less materialistic as you get older. I don't need, like, every CD by every band anymore, plus I get free music at work.

Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that it's going to be very hard to catch up on it and keep paying the rent I'm paying, and living the lifestyle I'm used to (which isn't extremely luxurious, but does have its indulgences).

I originally applied for a credit card after attempting to reserve a hotel room without one!

Do you still have the Omni, Hanle y?

I am tempted to transfer the balance to those "no intrest "offers

Just check and see when the "no interest" term expires, and make sure you've paid by then, or you'll get slammed.

has it been everyone's experience that the "1-year introductory 0% APR" offers by mail are a thing of the past?

any and all credit card offers i get go in the shredder unopened, so who knows

Ts and Cs are changing pretty radically at the moment. I recently came across a card (MBNA) which rounds up any monthly interest under £1 to the full £1, which is effectively a £12 annual charge for anyone who pays off their balance each month.

So you're saying they round £0.00 to £1.00? Fucked up.

mbna/bank of america SUCKS
i need to cancel that card

we've paid in full for years (putting groceries on it to keep it active) but waited until this year to get a rewards card! all that free money/airfare down the drain. my fear of debt keeps me out of trouble nicely, other than having no diploma and no property :(

gff, do you have no cards?

If I paid in full, I would never be able to travel anywhere, ever.

i still get those offers. mainly chase and citi.

I have no credit cards, and I never travel anywhere, ever. I also do not have any credit card debt (and never have). Mixed bag etc.

I accidentally paid my last CC bill twice, giving me a $150 credit on my account. What do I do if I don't actually want to buy anything with that money? (I can assume I will be paid zero interest on it.)

Whenever I overpay, my account just has a negative balance until someone buys something with the card. It just gets applied to the next month.

Our last electric bill was -$79. I'm still not sure what happened there.

Tracer, the negative balance will hang around until you make one or more credit card purchases that add up to $150. Luckily, you can pay almost anything with a credit card these days, so you should be able to put a necessary expenditure onto the card and use up your credit balance without having to buy something you would not ordinarily have bought. Groceries, for example. Or utility bills.

You can call and ask them to send you a check for the amount you overpaid. That's what I did with one last month.

I've been getting a ton of 0%-1yr and 3.9% until balance is paid offers. For an itinerant fruit picker, I seem to have killer credit.

OK! I guess it was my fault for screwing up the payment but it is sort of weird that they "have" (x) amount of my money of mine that they can be, and are, lending out to other people and buying other debt and leveraging other assets with, willy-nilly, and I don't get a penny for this privilege.

milo I may do that!

"let them come get me"

you can have good credit and have manageable CC debt. though all you people that pay it off every month are very admirable or whatever.

Actually the CC companies hate people who pay it off every month and punish them with mediocre-to-poor credit ratings! My parents are very good savers and have religiously paid off their CC bills for decades, bought their own house, two cars, etc and now, in their 60s and 70s, have a sort of okayish-to-crappy credit rating to show for it.

WHich is what I console myself with after my innumerable late payments

tracer if your card has online banking, sometimes you can request a refund that way...i'm pretty sure BOA/MBNA has that function.

Whenever I overpay, my account just has a negative balance until someone buys something with the card. It just gets applied to the next month.

"someone"

i don't have that with HSBC - it counts as a "cash advance" and comes with a penalty of like $25. even though it's my money.

pursuant to this thread - why i am still going to download mp3s illegally

i think i will request a check and in the meantime rob an HSBC

what about if you carry debt but always always always pay the minimum or more every month, on time. and you started with good credit?

HYPOTHETICALLY

CREADIT CARD DEBT YYYEEAAAAAH

you should be fine as long as you aren't missing payments or going over your limit. i think the ideal is to be at 50-70% of your available credit?

You are asking for a friend, I take it?

is that true, bell??? i have never missed a payment, and am at about 60% of total (which is still a frightening amount, since i inherited my parents' good credit, as they sneakily had me on their credit card when i was growing up and have never actually used).

i meant that about my friend

GUYS: GET YR CREDIT CARD LINKED TO YR CHECKING AND MAKE IT PAY ITSELF THE MINIMUM EVERY MONTH AND YOU WILL NEVER MISS PAYMENTS

unless you actually don't even have like $50 at the end of the month, in which case you've got bigger problems

i think the ideal is to be at 50-70% of your available credit?

waaaht?? they used to hand out $10,000 credit limits like it was fuckin halloween! so in order to get into the good graces of the credit raters you need to be sure that you're at least $5000 in debt at all times.. that is fucked

now that i have reg paycheque i am gonna set up this auto payment scene all over the place

that's what i was thinking, tracer!!!! i suppose, though, that being about 50% in the hole, but still being reliable actually does mean that you're "good for it."

and if they want "customers" v. one-off borrowers, then it makes sense to reward you for being in their pocket....FOREVER

yeah, once i get super-regular work in line (as opposed to the fluctuating shit i'm going to have to deal with for a while here), i'm going to set up the ultimate bill/CC/savings/etc. automaton.

a friend of mine has it worked out where direct deposit automatically shunts a specified amount into a savings account, a cc bill, utilities, rent, etc., making whatever's left over basically guaranteed to be spending money.

....this is when it's a good idea to sign up for one of those flat-fee heating bill schemes.

ok maybe i am a little rong:

Debt level is 30% of your score. The amount of debt you have in comparison to your credit limits is known as credit utilization. The higher your credit utilization – the closer you are to your limits – the lower your credit score will be. Keep your credit card balances at about 30% of your limit or less.

though i've read otherwise somewhere, i swear

As soon as the intro rate of 0% disappears, my strategy has been to pay it all off within 3 months and stop using that card. But yeah, NEVER got to even 30% of credit limit I bet, that'd be a sinkhole.

I like paying "manually" at month's end, to be reminded of what I've spent, the balance, etc. Anything automatic and I'd get into bad habits.

since i inherited my parents' good credit, as they sneakily had me on their credit card when i was growing up and have never actually used).

THIS IDEA IS FREAKIN' BRILLIANT. How old does your kid have to be to be on your cc?

Keep your credit card balances at about 30% of your limit or less.

does that mean on a $3000 limit card you need to have less than $1000 available?

yeeks.

what are your sources, bell?

xp it's a great idea! my sister was able to get a decent rate on her first condo without ever having had a credit card to establish credit.

also, 30% means you have spent $1000 into your $3000 total credit.

Yeah, when I called one credit card company to try to get my interest reduced, they said I could only do it by using my card more often and owing them more money in general. Thanks!

I've been paying off my debts like a crazy person since September, thanks to keeping track of all my spending and giving myself an allowance.

FWIW, Only sending in minimums is bad news bears because it usually barely covers the interest only.

great now i am depressed

http://credit.about.com/od/creditreportscoring/a/creditscore.htm

here

my credit score is fine, and i've been using about 50-60% of my credit pretty steadily.

using that much EACH MONTH? Or letting that much carry? like, pay enough down to keep it in that range?

like why do parents even talk to kids about sex? shit is BASIC and the kids on your schoolbus can answer most of your questions.

why didn't my dad have a MONEY talk with me before things got stupid

carrying it over or paying it down to that.

gbx you know you can get a free credit report right?

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/consumer/credit/reports.shtm

great now i am depressed

-- gbx, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 2:53 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

it's awesome how all this makes me want to be a drug lord

i mean fuck you credit score bullshit i'm paying cash

and living on my own island

hahahaa totally true

haha yeah. i don't have any hope of buying a home or anything in the next 5 years (uhm or ever) if i stay in ny so i don't really care all that much.

why didn't my dad have a MONEY talk with me before things got stupid

i'm thankful everyday that mine did. But their version of the money talk was v. scary, tantamount to the whole "omg pre-marital sex = DEATH & HELL"... in hind-sight, they probably went over-board, but I'm still glad. I've never even had a credit card and basically established credit by purchasing a vehicle and paying it off during college.

Luckily they were more relaxed w/r/t sex talk.

the legends of weed dealers who pay off their students loans in cash are legends i hold dear

word.

I think the hardest part for me has been adjusting my 'tude about money and seeing it in a more positive light. I tended to see people with money as, at some level anyway, sellouts, and believed that I would never be out of debt because that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

never believe this!
and always put lots of butter in your cookies so they more bend than crumble!

rrrobyn otm about cookies

Debt level is 30% of your score. The amount of debt you have in comparison to your credit limits is known as credit utilization. The higher your credit utilization – the closer you are to your limits – the lower your credit score will be. Keep your credit card balances at about 30% of your limit or less.

this is also why it's not so good to close old credit accounts you don't even use, it makes your available credit/debt ratio worsen + to the bureaus, the older the account the better. although the cc companies are apparently getting wise and hastening closure of inactive accounts, sometimes without telling people beforehand.

rrrrrrrrroy-bin you are extra awesome. And totally singing it (I am) to the tune
of
GOLD!
Butter makes your cookies fold
You've got the power to KNOW!
Money is not for sellouts.
Never believe this!

money cools motherfuckers out though

THIS IDEA IS FREAKIN' BRILLIANT. How old does your kid have to be to be on your cc?

in my country: of legal age (so 18yrs old).

i always pay my bills every month. wldn't even know how to make a cc debt to be honest. i mean, i don't know how you go about it. i also don't wanna/need to know.

My parents sort of had the money talk with me, at least about credit cards. They were for convenience only, you ALWAYS paid it off every month. For some reason I never ignored this particular piece of advice and have been very happy about it.

I got on the girlfriend's (now wife's) card when we moved in together like ten years ago and we've paid it off every month except for maybe four times. We also got and paid off a small car loan and neither of us has major student debt (yeah full ride scholarship for her).

When we got a mortgage the dude said the only thing that seemed to work against us in terms of credit rating was having the same card for so long that limit is pretty high - meaning we could spend a ton of money in a month and suddenly be in big debt. This seemed sort of ironic to me.

You seem to all be worrying hell of much about how to get the highest possible credit score. If you don't default on payments, don't max out your cards every month, don't do any other obviously irresponsible shit with your finances your credit will be fine.

would you credit it

Morrisons would.

wldn't even know how to make a cc debt to be honest. i mean, i don't know how you go about it. i also don't wanna/need to know.

You don't own a car or a house, and didn't go through university, yes? That, in a nutshell, accounts for all of my husband's and my credit card debt (now paid off in full, hurrah).

i just put $5000 on a 0% apr for 9 months card. then at 10 months the interest hits me @ 19.99 percent. Is it relatively easy to just do another balance transfer at that time? advice needed

I have credit card debt and an excellent credit score. One of my credit cards just upped my limit to $19,000!! I'm lucky I don't have a serious spending problem.

i doubt i can pay off 5k in 9 months but maybe i can? that would be awesome.

oof no way

not too bad tho

Be careful, deej, if you don't have it paid in full at the 9 month mark, some of those cards (Dell credit/Best Buy credit/etc.) hit you with all the accrued interest.

I would have a card lined up where I could do the transfer and sit on it until I found out if I needed it.

You seem to all be worrying hell of much about how to get the highest possible credit score. If you don't default on payments, don't max out your cards every month, don't do any other obviously irresponsible shit with your finances your credit will be fine.

Yah OTH. Consumerist gets me so nervous about like these insane balancing acts you have to do and I'm like "oh wait I'm just fine quit freaking out, me."

Another OTM. I used to freak out about my credit score all the time, worried it was permanently fucked up by some college roommates that screwed my big time. But, as I learned when I applied for the loan to buy our house, I have "excellent credit". Just be sensible and you'll be good.

But the earlier advice about paying as much above your minimum payment as possible is dead on! Best way to whittle down your debt without breaking the bank.

ok so until right now i've always paid credit card bills on time as well as paying more than the minimum due, but i went out of town this past month and didn't get around to paying 2 bills until about a week after the payment due dates - is this a big deal? one of them, even tho it was late, i paid off in full. i'm kind of pissed at myself b/c this tho, it was just absent-minded

also, do local/regional (not federal) tax issues show up on credit reports?

things generally don't get reported to a credit agency unless they're over 30 days late. It sounds like you have spotless credit anyway so I wouldn't worry about it. Call them and ask them to reverse any fees they might charge you; if you are nice on the phone they probably will.

don't understand your tax question. you pay sales taxes whether you pay with cash or credit.

thanks! yea i should call them

re: the tax question - i basically didn't file income tax returns w/ my county for a couple years back in the early 00s, and i'm now receiving penalties. i'm digging through all my old files to resolve this now, but i was wondering if my failure to pay local income tax would show up on my credit report

I've heard of federal and state, but never heard of county tax returns.

maybe it's not ubiquitous - google auto-complete brings up my old county as soon as you type "regional income tax..."

I pay off my credit card in full every time. I would rather eat broken glass than give those bastards one extra cent in interest, fees or finance charges.

Making the last payment after many years of carrying a balance is the second-best feeling ever.

So I have this close friend who I just found out is in a lot of credit card debt and maybe doesn't quite get the full implications of it or know what to do. From questioning him it seemed that he didn't actually know whether he was paying down his principal or how exactly to read his credit card statement, which is frustrating since he is a bright guy otherwise. He also had some bullshit line about how "living on debt is just what you have to do these days." I'm thinking I need to say something to him about it, but I'm not sure exactly what to tell him to do - negotiate with the card company? Cancel his card and just take more student loans (he's in school) which will at least give him lower interest? Even maybe use the lower interest student loans to pay some of the CC debt? I don't think he has any bad spending habits except that he tends to travel - maybe I should advise him to cut back on that? Should I just stay out of it?

Obviously kind of a touchy thing to get into unless he's really asking for advice, but at least one of those things -- putting student loans toward high-interest credit-card debt -- is both smart and something you can suggest as just a helpful, non-meddling bright idea.

Yeah, I didn't want to get too pushy with it, but we're pretty good friends and have the kind of relationship where we can give advice from time to time I think.

I've also heard stories about how you can call the CC companies, be like "I can't pay all of this" and then negotiate down the debt and work out a plan. I don't know if there's any downside to that - does it fuck your credit rating? Personally I virtually always pay off my whole balance and never have carried more than a couple hundred.

(Oh, wait, I kind of misunderstood what you meant about loans. If it's a choice between living on credit cards and student loans as time goes on, obviously the loans are better. But it'd also be smart, if possible, to take loans to pay down the cards, because it'd be shifting high-interest, high-risk, snowball-and-soak-you debt into a low-interest setting that's totally designed to be forgiving.)

It's all kinda moot as long as he believes "living on debt is just what you have to do these days."

i have a friend who had a bunch of cc's for his business that he was always rolling over to new 0% intro offers cause what a great way to take out a loan but when the financial crisis hit and the credit markets tightened those rates stopped coming in so he negotiated his tab down

anyway he was carrying around $40k and hes gonna end up paying like $17k

he recommends this site for infos http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/settle_debts.shtml

btw the credit card companies are the most vile savages BLEED THEM FOR ALL U CAN

(Oh, wait, I kind of misunderstood what you meant about loans. If it's a choice between living on credit cards and student loans as time goes on, obviously the loans are better. But it'd also be smart, if possible, to take loans to pay down the cards, because it'd be shifting high-interest, high-risk, snowball-and-soak-you debt into a low-interest setting that's totally designed to be forgiving.)

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:38 PM Bookmark

I actually meant possibly both.

Man, that's just insane if he's actively accumulating credit-card debt instead of student-loan debt

I got a call yesterday saying I owe $400 on a card I took out two years ago and have never used. WTF.

they used to hand out $10,000 credit limits like it was fuckin halloween!

Ha. I had one that was $15000. And I was only about twenty five. I used my money for school though, books and supplies. Thank the lord I have NO debt now.

Man, that's just insane if he's actively accumulating credit-card debt instead of student-loan debt

I know man - it's almost like some Paul Newman in The Hustler kind of shit. I worry about this guy.

finally out from under the thumb of these bitch ass bastards and it feels SO GOOD

it'd also be smart, if possible, to take loans to pay down the cards, because it'd be shifting high-interest, high-risk, snowball-and-soak-you debt into a low-interest setting that's totally designed to be forgiving.)

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Thursday, December 31, 2009 1:38 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

weirdly this doesn't seem to work with people who run up serious debts unnecessarily. once they've taken out the loan to pay off the card, they end up getting another credit card and have to pay them both off. odd, but pretty similar to a lot of compulsive/addictive behaviour i guess. shifting cards into low-interest loans seems to be the just-a-half-of-shandy of the debt-addict - it gives them a taste of being "wealthy" again (ie, not hopelessly overstretched) and tends to provoke another spending spree.

xpost - yeah, I can see how that's not a long-term solution unless he's actually learning something or breaking bad habits. still, though, I mean -- I feel like someone should print something like this up and sneak it into his coat pocket when he's not looking:

                                                   CREDIT CARDS                    STUDENT LOANS
TYPICAL RATE                                           9-15                            4-6
INSANE DEFAULT RATE                                    25-30                           n/a
OFFERS FORBEARANCE?                                     LOL                           LIKELY
OFFERS INCOME-SENSITIVE REPAYMENT?                     AS IF                         POSSIBLY
HOW LONG IT TAKES TO "DEFAULT"                       ~1.5 MONTHS                    LIKE A YEAR
POTENTIAL TO TOTALLY RUIN YOU                          V. HIGH                      NOT SO MUCH

or well I guess that's more for subsidized loans, which I guess aren't the kind he'd be using, but STILL

Not many things feel better than making that last payment.

from what I have heard, you can negotiate credit card debt, but you are stuck with student loans, especially if the loans are through the gov't. If they plan on going bankrupt, paying for school on a credit card is probably the way to go. Although, obviously, planning on going bankrupt is a messed up way of living.

I'm getting confused why this question is asked at every purchase. The clerk can see that I'm holding a bank card, not discover or any credit card. What exactly is happening when I sign with my debit card instead of using my pin number? Are there hidden fees involved? Isn't this recent, that a bank card can also function as a credit card?

The question I forgot to state above is credit or debit.

Maybe I should have started a new thread for this question.

My wife swears that you are better off always using it as credit rather than debit, because some banks charge fees for hitting a certain number of debit transactions per month. No idea how true this is, but she always chooses the credit option when available.

When you sign a debit card receipt at a large retailer, the store pays your bank an average of 75 cents for every $100 spent, more than twice as much as when you punch in a four-digit code.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/05visa.html?ref=business

"To persuade the banks to issue more of its debit cards, Visa charged merchants for these transactions and passed the money to the issuing banks. By 1999, Visa was setting fees of $1.35 on a $100 purchase, while Maestro and other regional PIN networks charged less than a dime, Federal Reserve data shows. Visa says the fee was justified because signature debit was so much more useful than PIN debit; at the time, roughly 15 percent of merchants had keypads for entering a PIN."

I'm lost understanding Visa logic in issuing these fees for any reason other than making money. And I'm still confused if it's better for me as a consumer using my pin or my signature?

No idea. I think Tombot opinionized on this once, but I can't remember what he said.

VISA provides some insurance coverage for purchases

for debit card purchases too? in the uk, pin transactions are all but compulsory, but i guess visa in the usa is pressuring the retailers who don't move over to the new system. that might be because the pin system isn't necessarily more secure, but iirc it pushes the burden of proof onto the consumer if they claim a transaction is fraudulent - it's your job to keep your pin secret. whereas with a signature, they have to prove it was really you and not a forgery, so it's better for the consumer. that's my understanding, anyway.

don't know. no purchases in the US that require a pin go through as visa, they go through your bank, in my experience. visa doesn't do PIN here unless you are getting a cash advance or something.

nytimes seems to suggest that visa runs the system for your bank.

My wife swears that you are better off always using it as credit rather than debit, because some banks charge fees for hitting a certain number of debit transactions per month. No idea how true this is, but she always chooses the credit option when available.

― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, January 5, 2010 11:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

never heard of this at any of the big banks

I realized a few months ago that I have been accruing "Thank You" points for my Mastercard that I've had since college. I had like 40,000 of them. I cashed them in and go a Blu-ray DVD player. Free! I knew that running up all that debt and paying it all off would help me out one day.

credit vs. debit affects the retailers (they pay fees for credit transactions) but shouldn't make any difference for you unless you're paranoid about people seeing your pin code, maybe a few banks charge for debit transactions but i've never heard of it and i've always used small banks myself.

Man you have that dude call Suze Orman, she's got a new whipping boy. By which I mean she is always stanning for the youth to pay their credit card debts off with student loans.

i try to use the pin rather than sign, otherwise if i lose the receipt i end up losing track of purchases thru online banking: debit shows up immediately, credit sometimes takes up to a few days.

i've got a capital one card that pays 1% cash back on all my purchases. i initially got it for reimbursable travel & misc expenses for work, but about 8 months ago I started using it for literally everything except for my mortgage and my utility bill (but only because neither will allow me). I pay off my balance in full every month and have managed to accrue about $120 in rewards! FUCK YOU credit card companies!

Man you have that dude call Suze Orman, she's got a new whipping boy. By which I mean she is always stanning for the youth to pay their credit card debts off with student loans.

― girl moves (Abbott), Tuesday, January 5, 2010 10:54 PM Bookmark

Whoa, really? I came up with that shit on my own. I should write finance book with my own glistening face on the cover.

Make sure most of it is taken up by words though with only a wee truncated mugshot

http://www.cornerofficebooks.com/YoungFabulousBroke.jpg

I'm kind of o_0 at Nabisco's chart saying "typical" interest on a CC is 9-15%. I think its common here for a general interest rate on a visa or mastercard to be between 15 and 20%, unless you get one of those special transfer balances or a starter deal.

I;ve just moved 10k of debt onto a v low interest rate card - 4% for 15 months and then reverts to only abt 10%, and I'm gonna try and kill the debt in about 18 months. It seems like a lot, but I've never had any other debts or loans, so its not a huge deal.

I was pretty confused when I moved to the US and started using a basic debit card (check card) and kept getting asked 'credit or debit?'

Not many people actually asking the question knew what difference it made or what. A few times they accidentally put it through as credit and it didn't make any difference. I think it's if you have some credit scheme actually set up with the bank that might offer some incentives. I could be wrong though.

Oh and also randomly being asked for ID when using either a proper credit card or even just my debit card! For small purchases too.

i've got a capital one card that pays 1% cash back on all my purchases. i initially got it for reimbursable travel & misc expenses for work, but about 8 months ago I started using it for literally everything except for my mortgage and my utility bill (but only because neither will allow me). I pay off my balance in full every month and have managed to accrue about $120 in rewards! FUCK YOU credit card companies!

― you want a war on christmas i'll give you a fuckin war on christmas (will), Wednesday, January 6, 2010 12:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I have done this for the past two years - just hit $200 in rewards and they bumped me to $250 (part of the t&c). never carried a balance or paid any interest. FUCK YOU credit card companies!

man, i guess that is one of the disadvantages of banking with a credit union - they're great to deal with over the phone and don't try to screw you, but they also don't give you as much free money....

high five! @ dyao

also the online itemized statements are a really good way to for someone lazy like me to keep up with and compare month-to-month expenditures. i can pop that bitch into excel etc. back when i was using my debit card exclusively my bank would just send me a janky pdf.

worth reading http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/05visa.html

“What we witnessed was truly a perverse form of competition,” said Ronald Congemi, the former chief executive of Star Systems, one of the regional PIN-based networks that has struggled to compete with Visa. “They competed on the basis of raising prices. What other industry do you know that gets away with that?”

i try to use the pin rather than sign, otherwise if i lose the receipt i end up losing track of purchases thru online banking: debit shows up immediately, credit sometimes takes up to a few days.

― DAN P3RRY MAD AT GRANDMA (just1n3), Wednesday, January 6, 2010 4:06 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

this isnt exactly true. debit txns make a real-time inquiry and credit txns dont, but while debit TENDS to post sooner than credit txns, it's all still in the hands of the merchant to report txns in whatever batching-structure they choose. you can overdraft on both, too. i choose debit, cause it saves the merchant fees, which seems cool esp in the case of small businesses that i like.

ha, Trayce, that 9-15% was meant as a rosy, best-case, good-credit-history estimate

or the 9 was, anyway

Ah ok, I was jealous !!

I am traditionally horrible at finances, but I decided to grow up finally last summer and as of this month, I have paid off $5k in credit card debt since November. Sometimes I have to remind myself that this constitutes an actual achievement. Maybe I'll go on an expensive trip to celebrate!

Well, after carrying a large balance for the first time ever, I have learned that the way credit card interest is calculated is fucking incomprehensible. Never doing this again.

What I thought I was doing was carrying a $2000ish dollar balance over to the next month, where interest would start accruing as of the day the payment was past due. Instead, I find out that they "average" my balance for the period, including purchases made IN THE NEXT STATEMENT PERIOD (i.e., which would not be past due yet) and charge interest on that for the whole time period. This is all rationalized by saying that the 30 day window after your statement is a "grace period" which you then no longer have once you carry a balance.

The way to get an animal to step into a leg-hold trap is to conceal it well and use a bait or a lure that it finds extremely attractive, placing the bait in such a way that in order to get at the it, the animal unwittingly springs the hidden trap.

yeah, i zero out the balance (usu less than $250) every month now.

How to game a trip to Europe this year I'm not quite sure yet.

Yeah I pay off as a rule. We had a bunch of large expenses relating to moving/home purchase and I thought we were cool to carry a little of the balance for a little longer, but nope. They did waive the interest charge so far when I yelled about it though. It's just pro forma now that you can yell a little and get what you want.

I thought Obama fixed this stuff? oops

why did you (pretend to) think that

had no memory of what was in this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009

pillaging

People at Capital One are extremely friendly. But one striking fact of life there was how rarely anyone acknowledged the suffering of its customers. It’s no rhetorical exaggeration to say that the 3,000 white-collar workers at its headquarters are making good money off the backs of the poor. The conspiracy of silence that engulfed this bottom-line truth spoke volumes about how all of us at Capital One viewed our place in the world, and what we saw when we looked down from our glass tower. This is not meant to offer a broad-brush indictment of business at Capital One; it is hardly the only corporation that has been ethically compromised by capitalism. It is, however, meant to shine a few photons of light on the financial industry in a post-crisis age of acute inequality.

Sometimes at Capital One, you would be working on a Powerpoint slide that showed “chargeoff rates” increasing. Your slide would feature a bunch of colored lines: one showing that ten in 100 people who opened this type of credit card failed to repay their debt within the first year; the next illustrating how the same thing happened to 15 in 100 people the following year. A curious colleague might walk by and say things like, “Oh, wow, can I take a look at those curves?” Said colleague might then offer up some comment pertaining to the work they did downstream from these indebtedness trends: “That’s fascinating. Is this deseasonalized? Does the dollars-bad chart look the same as the people-bad chart?”

https://newrepublic.com/article/155212/worked-capital-one-five-years-justified-piling-debt-poor-customers

it definitely takes a certain type of person to "thrive" in that line of work

Capital One was the cc company that was ALWAYS soliciting at my university (before that was banned).

make yourself pony up a bigger-than-usual credit card payment by thinking of it as a "money move" ala cardi b

i don't dancebuy clothes i don't need now i make money movesprincipal-whittling credit card payments

My free credit monitoring report gives me a total of the amount of available credit I've somehow gathered and it's getting to "ball out and fake your death/declare bankruptcy in ten months" levels. Never gonna own a house anyway, fuck it.