My Debt Reduction Blog » Credit Cards http://www.mydrblog.com/blog Our road down debt reduction to elimination, and living without a budget Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:47:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 en Having to carry a balance on my Sams Club card http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/15/having-to-carry-a-balance-on-my-sams-club-card/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/15/having-to-carry-a-balance-on-my-sams-club-card/#comments Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:40:42 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/15/having-to-carry-a-balance-on-my-sams-club-card/ Part of getting out of debt, means to not create any new debt. Well, I failed on that this past month. It’s normal for me to spend between $75 - $100 in a month at Sams Club, which I charge to on my Sams account and then pay off in full when I receive the statement. Last month I spent a higher than normal amount($233). When I got my statement, I only paid $175 of it and will pay the rest off on the next statement. Which means I will have to pay some finance charge.

Now I’m not really upset by spending more than normal, but I’m upset that I still don’t have a budget. That would showed me if I could have paid the whole thing on this statement. Instead, I chose to play safe and carry a balance and be penalized a few bucks instead of winding up short at the end of the month and find myself dealing with another penalty.

Note to self: Create Budget

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]]> http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/15/having-to-carry-a-balance-on-my-sams-club-card/feed/ I guess I still don’t get it http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/09/i-guess-i-still-dont-get-it/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/09/i-guess-i-still-dont-get-it/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:49:22 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/09/i-guess-i-still-dont-get-it/ With everything we’re going through and watching Maxed Out and In Debt We Trust, I thought I ‘got it’ that credit card companies are just plain evil. We I guess I’m still stupid to their game. A month or so ago, I saw a couple of PF blogs writing about an American Express deal where you get the business card, make a single purchase and get either $250 in gift certificates or a $125 statement credit. Even though we’re going through paying off tons of existing credit card debt, I signed up and was approved.

I’ve had the card for a few weeks and have been wondering where I was going to ‘use it’ so I could claim my rewards. Yesterday I finally used it, and decided to buy a couple of Dave Ramsey books though Amazon. I still plan to follow through with my plan, to pay the full balance, claim the the reward, then cancel the card, but here’s the irony of this whole story and the reason for this post.

Last night I was listening to some recent archives of the Dave Ramsey show, and someone emailed him about how he got a free radio from AmEx for opening an account and wondering why Dave hates AmEx so much. Well, that set Dave off. He explained that nothing with these cards are free. All this is, is a marketing scheme to sucker people in knowing that while some card holders can properly maintain their habits, a bigger majority will carry balances for years making AmEx tons of money. So really, nothing is free, plenty of people will pay for this ‘free’ radio. And that’s nothing different than the offer I signed up for. Provided I follow though with my plans, I hopefully will come out a little ahead, but in the end, I just fell for yet another marketing scheme to try an entrap me and I wish I wouldn’t have signed up at all. I’m hoping this experience has made me at least a little bit smarter and wiser.

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]]> http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/08/09/i-guess-i-still-dont-get-it/feed/ Paying off two credit cards this week http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/10/paying-off-two-credit-cards-this-week/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/10/paying-off-two-credit-cards-this-week/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:44:22 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/10/paying-off-two-credit-cards-this-week/ We’ve decided to pay off two credit card bills this week. We’re pulling $2,000 out of our ING account to do it, which leaves us with $4,000 in our emergency fund. We are paying off the credit card with the highest interest and the card with the lowest balance. In the end, this will give us just over $100 a month to put towards our next highest interest card, which also happens to have the highest balance(approx $8,000). Once that card is paid off, I think we’ll be on the home stretch of getting all credit card debt eliminated.

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