I already know where and why these feelings are creeping in. But there are here....so now I have to deal with them. It is a combination of my meds being a little off, plus having a night out and spending money, and.....I am leaving for a few days to visit a friend.
I never claimed to be Gazelle intense. And while I love to read about others who are....it does frustrate me that we can't/won't do that. I just hate to adjust our current totals and have to adjust them UP.
I am frustrated that no matter what I do, the "master" plan doesn't work. There is ALWAYS a repair that ends up being way higher than what we have set aside. The cars...I question if we should have gotten rid of them awhile ago. The order of doing things seems to be in a constant state of change.
This year has been rough. But honestly...every year is rough. 2007 was the death of our twins, along with a huge oil leak. 2008 was my miscarriage and having to replace the roof. 2009 was the death of my father-in-law, car issues, and a myriad of other things. 2010...who knows. And now....2011....marriage issues, the pool, car issues.....now having to fix Bossy's room.....
Apparently....I just suck at this getting out of debt thing. G-man made a comment the other night that really upset me....."debt is just a way of life." That spoke VOLUMES to me. While he wants to be out of debt, and is participating more in the discussions....he isn't getting it yet that this noose around our neck is just weighing down our LIFE.
Now that our medical waiver is gone...my student loan is going up....we are unable to lower our interest rates without either opening another credit card, or maybe a new Lending Club loan....it is time to revisit the budget AGAIN...and figure this out.
I know I am not getting a raise at work (state budget cuts). I know that G-man is willing to work more overtime, when it is available....but if it isn't available....there isn't much we can do. I know that we are saving for Christmas, car stuff, irregular expenses.....and we are doing the best we can.
I am just frustrated that others are pulling way ahead, and we are treading water.
So my two small things for the day to make me financially feel better are 1) continue to pack up yard sale leftovers to sell at consignment (we did a trial run on Friday, and we will probably get about what we were asking at the yard sale), and 2) I bought some bulk coupons for shampoo, which with sales...will come out to about $1 a bottle.
Pity party over.
Showing posts with label transfers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transfers. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Should I try again?
As I have mentioned many times, our interest rates (19.24, 14.24, 11.99, 9.74) on our CCs are part of the problem with our snowballing. We pay soooo much in interest, it is hard to have extra to pay on the principal.
Last year, I tried to get the 19.24 reduced. End result....not only did they not lower the rate, they cut my credit line by about 6,000 (at that point, my card was $189 from the limit). I was told this was for my own good.
Fast forward to today. Our CC4 has a balance transfer offer of 2.99% for 6 months (of course, it also has a 5% fee!!). But even after the transfer rate expires, it would revert to 9.74, which is WAY lower than 19.24!! We are leaning toward transferring about $6800 (which would bring us to $7140 with the fee....the limit is $7300).
This would leave CC1 with a balance about $9000. Should I call them again and try and get the rate reduced?? The debockle was last July. No late payments, and most months I paid over the minimum (which isn't easy when the minimum was at almost $500!!!). Even if they lower it to 17.99...that is something. I would love to see it in the 15.99 range, and then maybe try again in 6 months.
I am just afraid that they will screw me again. Since July, I have paid about $2600 to this card in principal, which again, isn't easy when you get slapped with $300 in interest every month. So I would hope that they would see I have been really trying.
Additionally...I also had the thought to transfer that $9000 to CC2, which will put it at about 85% capacity. But the interest rate on that card is 11.99, so I am still saving some (minus the fee). My concern there...this is G-man's card (from pre-marriage) and as the primary income provider, will "maxxing" out his card be bad?
Another thought...call CC4 and see if they are willing to increase the limit so I can transfer more to them.
OK bloggy friends.....thoughts????
Last year, I tried to get the 19.24 reduced. End result....not only did they not lower the rate, they cut my credit line by about 6,000 (at that point, my card was $189 from the limit). I was told this was for my own good.
Fast forward to today. Our CC4 has a balance transfer offer of 2.99% for 6 months (of course, it also has a 5% fee!!). But even after the transfer rate expires, it would revert to 9.74, which is WAY lower than 19.24!! We are leaning toward transferring about $6800 (which would bring us to $7140 with the fee....the limit is $7300).
This would leave CC1 with a balance about $9000. Should I call them again and try and get the rate reduced?? The debockle was last July. No late payments, and most months I paid over the minimum (which isn't easy when the minimum was at almost $500!!!). Even if they lower it to 17.99...that is something. I would love to see it in the 15.99 range, and then maybe try again in 6 months.
I am just afraid that they will screw me again. Since July, I have paid about $2600 to this card in principal, which again, isn't easy when you get slapped with $300 in interest every month. So I would hope that they would see I have been really trying.
Additionally...I also had the thought to transfer that $9000 to CC2, which will put it at about 85% capacity. But the interest rate on that card is 11.99, so I am still saving some (minus the fee). My concern there...this is G-man's card (from pre-marriage) and as the primary income provider, will "maxxing" out his card be bad?
Another thought...call CC4 and see if they are willing to increase the limit so I can transfer more to them.
OK bloggy friends.....thoughts????
Friday, March 19, 2010
OK, let me have it.....
I am cleaning up the desk area and found a credit card offer that G-man saved in his "need to talk to Mysti" pile.
It is for a Visa card with a 0% interest for 12 billing cycles and 3% transfer fee. It is 12.99% interest after one year.
I have been looking for a way to pay less interest, and this certainly would be a way. If we took the same amount that I have been paying on CC1 that has the ridiculous 19.24% interest ($400 a month) and transferred that to this card, that would be $5000 plus the fee of $150, for a total of $5150. Paying the same exact amount of money we have been.....in one year we would have that card paid off, and it would all be principal. That would lower CC1 balance to about $11,000, with a minimal payment of $285, which would continue to go down over time.
Alternatively, we could transfer the money, and make minimal payments on it, and hit the other higher interest cards heavy.
Between the cards, the minimal payments would be:
CC1 - $285
CC2 - $200
CC3 - $140
New card - $400
Which is $1025 total. That is about $150 more than we are doing now, but in 1 year, we would have $5000 paid off, plus whatever else went toward the other cards.
Thoughts????
It is for a Visa card with a 0% interest for 12 billing cycles and 3% transfer fee. It is 12.99% interest after one year.
I have been looking for a way to pay less interest, and this certainly would be a way. If we took the same amount that I have been paying on CC1 that has the ridiculous 19.24% interest ($400 a month) and transferred that to this card, that would be $5000 plus the fee of $150, for a total of $5150. Paying the same exact amount of money we have been.....in one year we would have that card paid off, and it would all be principal. That would lower CC1 balance to about $11,000, with a minimal payment of $285, which would continue to go down over time.
Alternatively, we could transfer the money, and make minimal payments on it, and hit the other higher interest cards heavy.
Between the cards, the minimal payments would be:
CC1 - $285
CC2 - $200
CC3 - $140
New card - $400
Which is $1025 total. That is about $150 more than we are doing now, but in 1 year, we would have $5000 paid off, plus whatever else went toward the other cards.
Thoughts????
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
OOOHHHHH.......
This is what I have been waiting for! A balance transfer offer!!!!
CC4, which I reactivated at the holiday, has the lowest interest rate of any of my cards. 9.24% (and until July, it is only 1.2% for purchases). They haven't had a balance transfer offer in awhile, but alas, there is one available until March 13.
Now before I got down this path, I need to do the math (I am a poet!).
The balance transfer offer is for 9.99% (plus a 5% fee) good for 6 months. Then back to the regular rate. While the balance transfer rate is actually higher than my CC rate (9.24%), it is WAY lower than the 19.24% we pay on CC1. As of today, I have just over $7,000 in available credit. And while I know it is bad to "max out" a card, wouldn't the savings justify it, since the balance will drop much more quickly?
So let's say we choose to transfer $6000. With the 5% fee, we are actually at $6300. Still below the limit, so we are ok there.
Here is the interesting thing. There is almost no advantage. It will take me the same amount of time to pay it back. There is a slight interest break, but it is less than $1000 when you account for the 5% transfer fee.
I thought it was because I am only able to transfer about a third of the high interest debt. So I figured out what it the numbers would be assuming I was able to transfer the whole balance. I saved about 4 month over just transferring the third.
I keep trying different versions, and none of them are really save that much money. Is the bottom line it just isn't a good move? Am I missing something???
CC4, which I reactivated at the holiday, has the lowest interest rate of any of my cards. 9.24% (and until July, it is only 1.2% for purchases). They haven't had a balance transfer offer in awhile, but alas, there is one available until March 13.
Now before I got down this path, I need to do the math (I am a poet!).
The balance transfer offer is for 9.99% (plus a 5% fee) good for 6 months. Then back to the regular rate. While the balance transfer rate is actually higher than my CC rate (9.24%), it is WAY lower than the 19.24% we pay on CC1. As of today, I have just over $7,000 in available credit. And while I know it is bad to "max out" a card, wouldn't the savings justify it, since the balance will drop much more quickly?
So let's say we choose to transfer $6000. With the 5% fee, we are actually at $6300. Still below the limit, so we are ok there.
Here is the interesting thing. There is almost no advantage. It will take me the same amount of time to pay it back. There is a slight interest break, but it is less than $1000 when you account for the 5% transfer fee.
I thought it was because I am only able to transfer about a third of the high interest debt. So I figured out what it the numbers would be assuming I was able to transfer the whole balance. I saved about 4 month over just transferring the third.
I keep trying different versions, and none of them are really save that much money. Is the bottom line it just isn't a good move? Am I missing something???
Saturday, August 22, 2009
CC 3 Interest
Of all our credit cards, this card is the most frustrating to me. You would think that the one with the highest balance would be my nemesis....and yeah, it is. But this card was originally designed to help us get out of debt and it just didn't work that way.
We opened this card to transfer debt. It had a fixed rate of 7.99% for purchases at that time, and something like an intro rate of 0% for 12 months on transfers. So we "maxxed" it out with a transfer. Paid on it awhile. Then tried to raise the limit so we could transfer more debt.
They wouldn't raise the limit to where we wanted, but they did raise it some. And we transferred more debt. I think we transferred debt at least 2 or 3 times onto this card. Each time, it had something like a 4.99% rate for the life of the balance transfer. Sounded great. Yes, we are on our way now!!
Nope. We had one late payment (of a day!!) and the 4.99% rate was gone. It reverted to the 7.99%. Still better than the rates on our other cards. And then the economy nose-dived. They changed the rate to 9.24%....ok, still better than the others. And then they changed it again, to 14.24%!!!
14.24% is now between the rates of the other cards (19.24% and 11.99%). This is not helping at all now. We don't use this card, and it was nice to see the balance drop (even a little) each month. This month, it went up from the interest!!!!
Darn interest.
New debate now is do I re-transfer the balance. The transfer rate is 8.99% with a 3% transaction fee. So it is roughly $200 just to transfer the balance, and then that makes the other card over 70% "full." Not sure what they would do to the ole FICO score.
I will talk to the Financial Advisor at our meeting on Tuesday.
We opened this card to transfer debt. It had a fixed rate of 7.99% for purchases at that time, and something like an intro rate of 0% for 12 months on transfers. So we "maxxed" it out with a transfer. Paid on it awhile. Then tried to raise the limit so we could transfer more debt.
They wouldn't raise the limit to where we wanted, but they did raise it some. And we transferred more debt. I think we transferred debt at least 2 or 3 times onto this card. Each time, it had something like a 4.99% rate for the life of the balance transfer. Sounded great. Yes, we are on our way now!!
Nope. We had one late payment (of a day!!) and the 4.99% rate was gone. It reverted to the 7.99%. Still better than the rates on our other cards. And then the economy nose-dived. They changed the rate to 9.24%....ok, still better than the others. And then they changed it again, to 14.24%!!!
14.24% is now between the rates of the other cards (19.24% and 11.99%). This is not helping at all now. We don't use this card, and it was nice to see the balance drop (even a little) each month. This month, it went up from the interest!!!!
Darn interest.
New debate now is do I re-transfer the balance. The transfer rate is 8.99% with a 3% transaction fee. So it is roughly $200 just to transfer the balance, and then that makes the other card over 70% "full." Not sure what they would do to the ole FICO score.
I will talk to the Financial Advisor at our meeting on Tuesday.
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