Once upon a time there was a credit card. The credit card had a nice home. His family gave him a nice room to sleep in, they fed him on time every time he was hungry, and they treated him with absolute care.
One day, the little credit card decided that he didn't like the family anymore. He didn't care that they had fed him, clothed him, and taken care of him his whole life. He felt that they owed him even more, so one night while everyone slept he snuck out of his room and ran away and joined a cult. The cult convinced him that he needed to sue his family because it was the American way.
I've been very careful in my life to not rack up a lot of credit card debt. We always simply used it for groceries and a few other things, but since we moved, we have only used them twice: to buy new computers.
We had 6 cards, three of which we never used. I cancelled those earlier this year, and kept the three larger cards. One of them has a zero balance, and my Capital One card has about 1900 on it, and our WaMu card had about 2300.
Enter the WaMu buyout by Chase.
My monthly payment due date changed. I was given no warning. No notice. I am 100% paperless, and have been for years. I never received an e-mail telling me that my due date for payments had changed. It had been the 19th of the month for years, and suddenly the new company moved it up to the 14th of the month. Not only that, but they raised my monthly payment by 100 dollars. Imagine my surprise when I log into my account one day and see that I have a juicy little 300 dollar payment that is expected of me (this was a couple of months back).
I call. I complain. I get the run-around. I dig deeper. Not only did they change my monthly payment requirement, they changed the due date. And, as I found out the next month...they raised my interest rate from 8.5% to ....30%.
No, that's not a typo. 30%. Chase Bank moved in, took over WaMu, and not only did they raise my monthly minimum, but they changed my due date without warning, nailed me with a 100 dollar late fee for being late on a payment I didn't know was going to be late in the first place, and then they proceed to raise my interest rate from 8.5% to 30%, meaning they effectively started charging me 80 dollars a month in interest.
It became priority number 1 to get rid of that card. We paid it off today. I am cutting the card into little shreds and literally telling Chase to go **** themselves tomorrow afternoon when I call customer service. I feel sorry for the poor customer service person who is going to have to sit through me raining down hell through the telephone at him, but I'm going to vent. I am going to positively freak out over the phone and get all this stress out of my system at how retarded it is that companies can get away with crap like that.
Meanwhile my Capital One card, which still has about 1900 dollars on it, has been a nice, steady 9% interest for 4 years. I have a nice, low, 30 dollar a month minimum payment, and I continue making 50 dollar payments just like I always have while we save up the cash to pay that one off (which will be paid off next month).
I'll keep my Juniper and my Capital One cards, just for emergencies. But that Chase card is going to be shredded, burned, shat upon, and desecrated in every way I can imagine. 30% interest my ass.
On the plus side, Evy and I will be 100% debt-free next month. No debt. Period. No rent, no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card bills, nothing. Our only bills are the living expenses and fluff. Good times, good feelings, and I'm stoked to finally have this monkey off my back.
Now back to your PG rated reading. Enjoy your stay!
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4 comments:
Congratulations on the debt-payoff.
One of my favorite financial gurus in the States is Dave Ramsey. Regrading the rampant use of credit cards in the U.S., one of his catch phrases is: "Live like on one else now . . . so later on you can live like no one else."
Nice!
Looks like the result of some Hope 'n' Change, there...didn't you think that was a good thing? Wait until healthcare kicks in.. /grins
Okay, I'm bugging you. Grats on toasting the card, that's great.
I just spent $1k on fence supplies/etc. myself. Whee. /gag
Gratz! We are also on the road to being debt free. I have paid off 3 cards and have one more monster to go. Thank goodness the company (USAA)is reputable and doesn't raise rates or change due dates. We are on slate to having it paid off by February. Then I can start whacking the house loan down. I want us to be completely debt free (except for utilities and living expenses) in 8 years.
Plus we have been building up our emergency fund (3 months pay)that is recommended by every financial guru. (That should be done by next year also.)
It is time we all went back to living a simpler life. Not just in how we live, but in how we handle our finances.
One thing this recession has taught us all, debt is not something to take lightly.
Absolutely not meant to be taken lightly.
We are close. At our current estimate we're leaving the Capital One card alone for now and simply making the minimum payments while we build up another chunk. While it's nice to pay off a debt, it's not good to do so at the expense of draining your account. You should always have at least a couple k left over.
As it stands now we will have several thousand in the bank by the end of August. We have a 1800 card to pay off and then home free. Still have some boxes to ship out from the States, and that's going to cost about 1k-1500, but our finances are looking blessedly good for the rest of the year. I fully expect to put away at a minimum 10k USD in the savings account by Christmas, with a goal of putting 10k a year minimum in each year.
Evy may be quitting her "real" job as well, because they refuse to get out of their "this is Bulgaria so we don't need to pay EU standards, because we aren't on the Euro yet". She could literally stay home and take a fraction of the articles I do per day and make double what she makes at her 6-hour-a-day job, in about 2-3 hours worth of time. We had a really, really long talk about it yesterday. She's extremely upset with the pay rates here, and it doesn't help when she sees me sitting at home making what I make. Plus it would really work out to her benefit if she worked at home with school.
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