Took out YET ANOTHER Credit Card today!!

Discussion in 'Financial Cents' started by UncleMorgan, May 19, 2015.


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  1. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    HOORAY! My new CREDIT CARD arrived today!
    And, Oh, Boy! It's a good one!
    No annual fees, but the interest rate is humongous.
    And it's just chock full of opportunities for high-interest roll-overs and $35.00 fines for a kinds of things.
    I just can't wait to use it.
    Once.

    It's a promotional credit card. Amazon wanted me to have it, so they're going to give me a $100.00 Amazon Gift Certificate just for getting the card and using it exactly once.
    No minimum use amount. I just have to use it once within ninety days. I think I can do that.
    Amazon's Gift Certificate is good only for Amazon purchases, but I'll find something useful, I'm sure.

    Maybe I'll finally buy that fletching tool I've been wanting...

    Credit cards are evil--generally speaking--but sometimes they do have their uses. Like when you use a cheap one to pay off an expensive one. Or a disposable one to scarf up a chunk of change.
    Or an expired one to 'loid a lock...
    And they're really good for scraping frost off a windshield on a chilly day.
    And the make good mixers for epoxy glue, once you cut them up into little thin strips.

    Which is something I really quite enjoy doing.

    I use a large paper cutter because it makes such a delightful clunking noise as it cleaves YET ANOTHER credit card asunder...

    I better check eBay. They may want me to have another credit card, too.
     
  2. ditch witch

    ditch witch I do stupid crap, so you don't have to

    The Mr. had a Sam's Club credit account when we got married. The interest was 30%. Well ok, 29.999999% if you want to quibble. THIRTY PERCENT! And he carried a balance on it too. We still have the account, but it gets paid off prior to every billing to avoid getting hit with interest.

    I have Home Depot for emergencies, and it got maxed a while back thanks to some plumbing issues. Was nice to have it available but am throwing every spare nickle I have this month to pay it off. Think it is 27.999999%.
     
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  3. Airtime

    Airtime Monkey+++

    Try giving the card company a call and simply request they lower the interest rate. I've done that and have gotten 5-10% knocked off just for asking. (that was a while back during a very rare time when I was likely going to carry a balance for a month or two). Worst they can say is no, and you just might get it reduced a bit. Good luck.
     
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  4. madmax

    madmax Far right. Bipolar. Veteran. Don't push me.

    We did the credit card shuffle when we young and dumb.

    We have no debt past a month now.
     
  5. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    We have one credit card left with under 5K on it (we've paid off over $50k over the last year). Then all we have is car and houses. We've been paying cash for everything for quite a while and loving every minute of it.
     
  6. vonslob

    vonslob Monkey++

    me too, now all I have is amex.
     
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  7. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    You couldn't pay me enough to take out an Amex card. Starting in high school, they were sending me offers, pre-qualified, to apply for an amex card. Remember, I'm still in high school with zero income, and very little in a savings account. So I threw the applications out. Several times a year, I got more of those silly paper apps, did the same thing with all of them. College, more of the same, pre-qualified, they say. Went into the Navy, still no savings and a mountain of debt from Jr. College. Paid off the debt, made rate, and figured well, a cc would not be such a bad thing to have, so in went an application. Took about two weeks, but they rejected me. OK, sorta thot that could happen, after all an E5 doesn't make all that much. Now, get this. It isn't a month later and I get another pre-qual application blank in the mail. Just had to write a letter --. You know what? That did no good, kept getting the confounded "pre-qualified" blanks. Finally, I had to have a JAG lawyer write a letter to a Veep of amex to get them to stop. That worked for the remainder of the time I was in the service. Fool me once --
     
  8. Cruisin Sloth

    Cruisin Sloth Special & Slow

    Weird , I have had a CC since they were out im guessing 1970-4 or so ??
    Old brain and years , but I still remember the number of the first card 4522-030-127-491 ,, same Visa with 4 accounts , USD , CDN, POUND/Euros on one card . Interest is 20% or 25% on cash advances , But if you hold bank accounts ( from the same Visa Banks ) of each FIAT , then no charges !!
    GET a GRIP on your cards , they are playing you !!. Ya owe 6 G , bank it off to a mortgage & cut the interest way down , get over the CC because you are a special kind of stupid , don't !! Do with out & smartin WAY up !!
    Yes I have CC's and use them , but If I can't pay them off , Im screwed !!

    CC are LOAN SHARKS without a face !!!!
    When did we believe in free anything ?? Please ~~~~~~~

    Demos said were mostly old here , !!
    this thread is not showing it , Sorry !
     
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  9. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    @Cruisin Sloth - was that directed at me? Did you miss the part where I said I've already paid off over 50k? Are you seriously telling me or anyone to INSTITUTIONALIZE unsecured debt and back it with your HOUSE? Unsecured debt that is just that, debt that has nothing securing it and transfer it to being backed by your home?

    Did you miss the part where I said I'd paid cash for everything for a couple of years?

    Your tag line is "special and slow", maybe you should slow down your responses and actually READ what other people have written and then do us all a favor and run your post through a spell check and or grammatic (which is a free part of MS Word) so it's legible,internally consistent and makes even a modicum of sense.

    When I can understand what the hell you are saying you seem very insightful but half the time I have no idea who or what you are responding to our what relationship your post has to the topic in general.
     
  10. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    We live in a slave society and debt is the chain that binds us. The first and most important step towards freedom is to say "NO MORE!" Debt goes away fast when you do not nurture it. It goes away even faster when you attack it savagely. Want something you can't afford? Pay cash or do without. Choose to want something that you can afford instead--it's a surprisingly easy thing to learn how to do. And every unsatisfied want you have should be considered a strong encouragement to earn more efficiently. Eventually a man who is not afraid to work (or think!) will be able to afford almost anything truly worth wanting. It is better to be a free poor man than a rich slave, and it is much better to be a rich free man than any kind of slave.
     
  11. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    Kudos, DarkLight, on a plan well made and followed. (And doesn't freedom just taste divine!?)

    In an age where the average medium-quality automobile now costs over $30,000, plus interest, and where 120-month auto loans are the latest thing on cars with a ten-year design life, my wife and I have never owned a car that cost more than $3,500.00. And most cost well under a thousand. So we've never had an auto loan, or paid the sky-high interest.

    And we've only had one mortgage--which we paid off much too slow because we didn't understand the true nature of compound interest at the time.

    ("Ignorant was. Yes. And dumb," I Yodaed.)

    But pay it off we did, and we'll never have another.

    If you want your kids (or grandkids) to be free, teach them to calculate compound interest, and make them practice it until it's second-nature.

    Then they can profit from the relationship between time and money, instead of being eaten alive by it.
     
  12. Airtime

    Airtime Monkey+++

    We have been "free" for years and it is a wonderful feeling of freedom. It was also fun and interesting a couple years ago shopping for a car. Swore I would never take out a car loan ever again (did that once 30 years ago, never ever again) and also said I would never buy a brand new car again either. We saved for maybe 8 years for our next car purchase. My wife needed a 4WD SUV (we live in country and roads often not plowed quickly in winter).

    Tried to find a 2 year old Escape/CRV/Rav4 at a decent price. Looked for 2 months and the prices for those was only a few grand less than new. Finally swallowed my pride real hard, smiled to the wife and agreed we'd buy her brand new vehicle (unhappy wife, unhappy life).

    We went to the dealer to buy it. They wanted me to fill out the financing form. I told them, I'm just going to write a check for the whole price, I don't want or need financing, I can go get a certified check if needed. They didn't seem to understand. "Oh, but we need you to fill out this paperwork (financing application), we have to have it for our files." "Why? I am not going to sign it, I am not going to fill in most of the blanks." The sales guys quite literally did not seem to know how to handle a cash sale. After a couple minutes of discussion, they finally realized I was not going along, they were risking pissing me off and retrieved the business manager who realized we didn't need a finance application form. Unbelievable. It was actually quite fun, truth be told, but it was also sad and sobering just how out of the ordinary not financing a new car is. I also wondered if they were maybe a bit irritated as they gave me a very good price but then didn't make any of the easy and lucrative money off the financing -- that made the experience even more enjoyable.

    Have fun.

    AT
     
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  13. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    The post implies you will not have interest charges.

    In some cases you have up to 18 months with zero interest as long as you pay a very small minimum, then again it takes will power to handle such transactions. And money in the bank to cover emergencies. And your money in the bank can be drawing interest too.
     
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  14. vonslob

    vonslob Monkey++

    You could not pay me to take a mastercard or a visa, I have had amex for over twenty six years and have never had a problem. The thing with amex is that it is not a credit card, you better pay it off at the end of the month, if you don't they will nail you. Credit card troubles come from mastercard, visa, and discover. Getting a credit card is easy, visa and mastercard are all over college campuses selling their poison and ruining the financial future of our younger generation. To get an amex you need better than average credit and a verifiable source of income. In my late twenties I got into debt with a visa card, it scared me, so I struggled to pay it off and have never used another credit card again. Huge fan of amex
     
  15. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    So, or you saying you can't handle credit?
    Or are you saying they are out to get you?
     
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  16. vonslob

    vonslob Monkey++

    I don't understand the response, I handle credit just fine, I use it as little as possible. What part of my post would give you the idea that I think banks are out to get me personally. I am not sure where you got that idea, I think you pulled it out of your ass.
     
  17. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    Credit Card troubles come from the holder of the CC.

    I would say it is your own words that indicate what I said is true.

    If that offends you then we'll just forget the subject.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2015
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  18. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    At the risk of putting my oar in ruffled water, I'd say that vonslob is saying he learned his lesson, and telling what happens if you diddle yourself with ccs. Other than that, I'd have to read it again and see if I can take a different angle to view it from. Either way, Amex is not in my future any more than the other ones are in his. Simple point of view, methinks, and the above is what happens when quotes are taken out of context.
     
  19. vonslob

    vonslob Monkey++

    Why pollute the thread, if you want to argue then pm me. Why forget it. I think my experience with credit card debt is fairly common, happening to many twenty somes.
     
  20. vonslob

    vonslob Monkey++

    EDIT: Post was stirring the pot and was deleted. -- ghrit.
     
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