A new movie/documentary is coming out about the credit card industry and America’s problem:
Also – if you’re as interested as I am – check out this Frontline Piece:
FrontLine: Secret History of the Credit Card
It’s all part of their plan and most all of us played right into it.
This is my first time hosting a Carnival so thanks for stopping by and taking a look. And thanks to everyone that sent in their submissions. I read most of your blogs on a daily basis and it was a pleasure hosting your posts and insights. Now, onto the Carnival…
You Can Go Out and Payoff Debt at We’re in Debt
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Money Mondays at Mercurial Scribe
A brand-new series of posts detailing the start of her debt reduction journey. In it she talks about lowermybills.com and how their third party agencies have called non-stop. I have experienced the same thing with my brief interaction with that company. My advice: stay away from bill consolidation companies all together.
Merging Lives, Merging Money at Simple Guru
When you move in with your boyfriend/girlfriend/etc, will it be separate accounts or joint accounts? Simple Guru details the pros and cons and provides some good tips along the way.
How to Furnish Your House On Any Budget, Even For Free at The Digerati Life
Recently, I moved into a new apartment and – for the first time ever – don’t have a roommate. So far it’s been great, but I quickly realized that my roommates had always provided the bulk of the furniture. In this post The Digerati Life details a few furniture strategies ranging from buying retail to…well…you’ll see.
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Refinancing When the Rates Are Higher at Searchlight Crusade
Professional insight on what appears to be a very common problem.
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This just in…Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is no fun. Neither is Divorce. What happens when the two meet? By the way…I had assumed that a common reason for divorce would be “money problems” and was going to write a little something about that. But after some quick fact-checking it turns out there’s little truth to that.
How to Improve Your Credit Score at Free Money Finance
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Citibank’s Universal Default Clause…Buh Bye!!! at Blogging Away Debt
Your Income Pie – How Should You Cut It? at Debt Free
How much of your budget should you allocate to certain things…Debt Free has compiled some interesting numbers as a starting point.
Skipping EVEN MORE Nickels and Dimes for Bigger Savings (long and updated) at Wisdom from Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket
I’m in Debt – MTV True Life at My New Choice
My New Choice has some thoughts on young people and debt after watching MTV True Life – I’m in Debt. I think I’ve seen this episode actually, and speaking as a ‘young person’ myself…please don’t think those people represent the rest of us.
Facing Your Credit Card Debt at Ask Mr. Credit Card’s Blog
Mr. Credit Card explains how the first step in tackling your credit card debt is to acknowledge that you’re in debt.
Check Out My Prediction From Two Years Ago! at No Credit Needed
Personal Finance blogs are about two things to the readers: tips and motivation. Here’s a healthy dose of the latter from No Credit Needed.
Paying extra mortgage principal the easy way at 40 Something Finance
Before making any extra mortgage payments, make sure you’re doing it the right way.
Best Financial Choice – 15 Year Mortgage at Journey To Financial Freedom
15 or 30-year mortgage…what could you save?
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Man Can’t Live at Bread Alone – Or Can He? At Mad Kane’s Humor Blog
Might as well wrap up the Carnival with a little poem from Mad Kane
After seeing a few blog posts about Mvelopes, I’ve decided to give their program a shot.
The reason for this is that I see how it would be useful to have specific buckets (a.k.a. Envelopes) in which to plan for certain things that may occur either throughout the year or throughout the month. What I’m skeptical about is how easy I will find it to be.
While the program does link to (most) all your online accounts, it doesn’t physically transfer any money for you. So it’s really just a fancy way of telling yourself that you only have X amount to spend on Y this month.
Like I said, I’ve decided to give it a shot and take advantage of the free 30-days to see if I like it and if it makes any difference come my next pay period.
Like always – I’ll keep you posted.
I started a 2nd job this week to help cover rent and pay down my debt.
I’ll be working an average of 6 times a month and taking home a little less than $500.00 per month by doing it.
Not a lot, but better than nothing.
Also, I’ve been bit by the Craigslist bug recently since I’m in the process of moving. I’m planning to put A LOT of “stuff” that I don’t really need anymore up for sale. Again – not much, but every bit will help.
One of the many horrible things about living paycheck-to-paycheck when you’re in your 20′s is being handcuffed by debt. What I mean by that is that I don’t feel that I have as many “life options” as I would without my credit card debt.
The company that I work for is going through a tough time – in fact, they have been since I’ve been here (but that’s another story all together). A few people have been laid off, while others have left on their own. But I remain, partly because I feel a slight sense of loyalty towards my company (which is reduced with each passing day) and partly because I don’t know what I want to do next.
I could easily search for and get another job within my industry, but that would just provide another paycheck, maybe higher, but still just a way to make money to keep my head above water each month.
Maybe I’m just being dramatic of using excuses, but I can’t help but feeling that if I didn’t have debt, or at least as much of it, I would be able to step back and decide what I want to do with the next XX years of my life, rather than how am I going to make rent next month.
Debt robs more than money from your future. You can’t calculate missed opportunities.
Okay – so I’m not sure if I’m rightly justifying this or not, but I applied (and was approved) for a Discover Card this morning. I applied only after reviewing a list of 0% balance transfer offers on The Five Cent Nickel.
Currently my credit card debt has the following interest rates:
Hopefully I can convince my “new friends” at Discover Card to increase my limit enough to take on my $13,513.40 balance. I’m also planning to ask American Express if they can match the current 4.99% that they gave me on a previous balance transfer.
Hopefully the answer will be yes to both my requests.
And my debt will soon look like this:
Much easier to handle I believe.
That’s the ideal plan, however. I’ll keep you posted on what happens.
Last night I took a look at my Credit Card Snowball strategy and came to the conclusion that there must be a better way to organize this debt.
Originally, I had told myself that I was not going to do anymore balance transfers, or open any more cards for transfer purposes, since it’s just becoming a way of deferring the debt responsibility.
However, my payments to my MBNA debt are being eaten by my rate, which is a generous (yes, I’m being sarcastic) 22.45%. As mentioned, I have an American Express card and being a member since 2003 I’ve decided that I’m going to test their former marketing campaign and see if membership really does have it’s privileges.
Now, I have read countless transfer/talk to your credit card company strategies in both books and blogs, but last night was my first attempt at trying to negotiate with my credit card. I called their customer service department and mentioned that I currently had a large balance at MBNA that I would like to move over to my current AmEx card – however it was about $13,000 and I only had an available balance of about $6,000 on my AmEx.
They told me that the most they could do was raise my credit limit to $14,000 – giving my about $12,000 for the balance transfer.
I then mentioned that my current AmEx balance is due to a previous balance transfer offer that they extended me which held a rate of 4.99% for the life of the balance. To which they informed me that they currently do not have any promotions like that, but they will have one coming up in about a week or so (their promotions run quarterly).
So, I will continue to make the payments on both my AmEx and MBNA debt. I plan to call AmEx back in about a week and if I’m not happy with the rate I’m given on transfers I will ask to speak to a supervisor.
Hopefully, AmEx will not only value me as a customer, but will also appreciate the idea that I would like to unload about $13,000 on them rather than their competitor.
If I can lower the rate on my largest balance from 22% to around 5% – that will obviously be huge.
As always – I will keep you posted.
