Journal tomhudson's Journal: Poll: Insolvent banks and credit card rates 53
When you or I don't have money, we say we're broke.
When banks don't have money, they say they're "facing a liquidity crisis".
So what are they doing? Well, one quick fix is to raise credit card interest rates.
A lot of people who were paying 8.5% are, as of this month, paying 19%. Someone with a $20,000 balance is going to be paying what - an extra $220 a month in interest? The banks (at least CitiBank) are giving their customers who complain 2 choices - either accept the reaming, or cut up the card, and pay off the balance at the old interest rate
Why? Because most people can't afford to cut up their credit cards.
I can understand going into debt to pay medical bills, because your health comes first. I can also understand going into debt for business reasons, because it makes sense if it will generate more income than it costs. Going into debt to buy consumer goods? Stupid. Makes about as much sense as charging groceries and gas, and taking 3 years to pay them off
Poll Question: Can you afford to cut up your credit cards?
[_] Already did - cash is king!
[_] I kept one
[_] I pay them off in full each month
[_] I "usually" pay them off each month.
[_] As long as I can make the minimum payment, who cares?
[_] I'm charging like crazy - chapter 13 here I come!
[_] I'm doing a SCO - chapter 11 and 7 are my friends.
[_] Someone stole my credit cards, but I didn't report them because they charge less than I do.
I could get rid of it but i wont. (Score:1)
[X] I kept one
[_] I pay them off in full each month
[X] I "usually" pay them off each month.
[_] As long as I can make the minimum payment, who cares?
[_] I'm charging like crazy - chapter 13 here I come!
[_] I'm doing a SCO - chapter 11 and 7 are my friends.
[_] Someone stole my credit cards, but I didn't report them because they charge less than I do.
I'm a firm believer in having an emergency fund and savings in the bank.
We've only had one CC from our bank
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I dumped all mine years ago. I generally paid them off each month as the bill came in, but my ex wasn't as restrained in spending as I was, so one day I just took them all, cut them up, and flushed them down the toilet. When the renewals came in hte mail, I did the same thing, and that ended that!
I know 2 people who have determined to do basically the same thing - pay them off, then shelve them - and they're making great progress. One has reduced her debt load by half, the other should have it down to ze
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thats the biggest problem.
we've managed to do fairly well since the bankruptcy. mostly thanks to the advice of Dave Ramsey's book Financial Peace (now Total Money Makeover)
both of us grew up in households were finances weren't talked about and we picked up bad habits from our parents.
It really kills me to be carrying a balance right now since what I really want to be doing is paying down my HEL with my extra income.
But i'll have half of the balance paid off when i get my tax re
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Credit cards usually include additional insurance on big ticket items (electronics in particular) that go beyond what a store offers. I haven't taken advantage of it, but it is there. Also with renting a car, the credit car usually covers the insurance so you don't have to pay the rental agency for their overpriced insurance.
Layne
I pay them off in full each month (Score:2)
As for me, I do the same thing but accept frequent flyer miles instead of a discount. My wife is flying to San Francisco in March for $5.00. It's not all bad.
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That's brilliant! However, I've heard rumblings that banks are now dropping customers who don't generate enough revenue by paying their bills in full. The banks get a "rake-off" of between 2
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Unlikely. I speak from some experience here, having launched a credit card company some years ago, which was later bought out by a major bank. It's true that banks don't particularly like customers that pay off their balance every month. But ultimately, so long as the customer generates enough revenue to pay back the CPA (Cost Per Acquisition -- the average amount spent on marketing e
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And thus you are receiving failing grades in "Believing in Marketing 101", "Keeping up with the Joneses 203", and of course "Advanced Impulse Purchasing 324".
The average American is marketed to at unimaginable levels, by psychologists who have a deep understanding of group zeitgeist and herd mentality, paid
Most ads don't work any more ... (Score:3, Insightful)
"and even I find certain ads extremely compelling."
What are these compelling ads you speak of?
Seriously, I'm at the point where every time I see or hear a commercial, I automatically notice the weasel words, the lies, the misinformation ... for example -
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Micro Center ads for Quad Core chips, for example. Even though I'm typing on a perfectly serviceable Athlon 4000+ that is generally sitting around idle, I *want* a faster computer. Even though the computer I'm typing on probably has more CPU cycles per second than the sum total of all CPU cycle seconds on all computers manufactured prior to 1970, *I want more*. It's not that there's one particular shiny Intel ad that's compelling, it's a constant flood of new
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That's just it - I wanted to spoil myself ... but when I actually looked at the big-screen TVs, the reality was disappointing. And that's when I realized that I just am not all that interested in it, despite all the hype, despite my daughter having a 60" TV, despite my brother-in-law and one of my friends having 42" TVs ... so I decided to continue "spoiling myself" by NOT buying one. This way, I don't feel guilty about not watching it, and reading a book instead :-)
I'd rather go visit friends, etc.
Whi
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And to stray completely off topic now, I bought my wife a new copy of Pit for Chr
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But... damn fun game pit is...
Now if only I can get as many people interested in Catan!!
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Pit is something a bunch of drunken people at a party can just pick up a handful of cards and start out yelling at each other. And if they're doing it wrong, it's all the funnier! "Corn! Corn! I mean I need two barleys -- oh, shit, did I just say that out loud? Four! Four!"
But my kid and his friends spend hours every week playing Catan at school, with all the add-on packs and stuff.
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We've got a 32" or 36" flat-front (tube) tv that's probably about 8 years old now. My wife is pushing for a new 52" LCD/Plasma. I'd rather go back to before when we had an old apple
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Wait another year - they'll be half the price or less next year because of the reduced demand:
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One solution for trivial pursuit is handicaps - you have to answer questions from 2 or more editions to advance your token. Its a LOT harder.
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I've kept one (Score:2)
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Looks interesting. How much money did they want from you up front?
They won't go broke. (Score:2)
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CitiBank is the one most likely to go broke. #2 on the list is Bank of America. The problem with the banks is that they need to have a certain amount of capital - money in reserve - or they can't borrow, even from the Fed's "discount window." Currently, neither on is expected to survive the ongoing housing crash in their current form, which is only expected to reach bottom some time in 2010 - 2001. BoA's purchase of Countrywide is looking worse every day - talk about buying an asset that's in decline.
Expe
[x] I'm charging like crazy (Score:2)
"Going into debt to buy consumer goods? Stupid."
Although I've never been that good with my money, since I've taken a few economics courses (and of course, CS courses), I've learnt a few things which has changed the way that I approach
my finances.
The first thing, is more or less exactly what money is. What is it? Most of the time, when we talk about money, we think about something meta
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"Investing in yourself" can take 2 different forms - buying goods and services that increase your productivity and marketability (better nutrition, education) and "fool's gold" - that big screen TV. I almost bought a big screen TV last year - then I realized 2 things - even the $6,000 model had a relatively lousy picture, and I don't watch TV. Most months, the TV isn't even turned on.
I'm making an exception for the Sarah Conner Chronicles - if I remember - but that's it. That will in effect more than dou
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And I hope you're right about lending circles, that increases my hopes for the
None of the above (Score:2)
Use one card for all our transactions, and that card kicks back 1% to the mortgage. Keeping it paid off.
Using low-interest balance transfers to maneuver the rest of the load and continue to pay it down.
We're also making healthy amounts of long-term investment elsewhere.
Is it the most efficient approach? Unlikely.
The virtue is that we've been fairly consistent over the last 18 m
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"The trick, learned a couple of years into the marriage, was to let it be _her_ idea. Women: can't live with them, can't live with'em. ;)"
I hope your wife doesn't read slashdot. ;-0
"The virtue is that we've been fairly consistent over the last 18 months or so."
That's something people need to realize - like dieting, you can't do it in one week, or one month. It has to become a real habit, and only then is it easy.
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re: sig (Score:2)
Does it translate to "I am not a man, I am a curse"?
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Credit card usage (Score:1)
I can't even conceive of a $20k+ credit card debt. At this point I owe $3k on the credit card, $1.5k on some "no payments for a year" furniture (and that $1500 is in an interest-bearing account, and has been since the purchase *grins*), and around $7k of student loans of her that we're paying off at an acc
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"$1.5k on some "no payments for a year" furniture (and that $1500 is in an interest-bearing account, and has been since the purchase *grins*"
You've been paying at least 14% interest (and possibly more) on that "no payments for a year" deal. The vendor grosses up the sale amount to cover it, and pays the finance company that enables the contract. If you want to see the true rate, stop paying it ...
So unless that interest-bearing account earns you at least 14% after taxes, you're behind ...
Never mind t
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I figured, if I wasn't gonna get a break for cash, I'd just take the deal and pay it off later and at least recoup some interest.
(That and it was $500-$750 cheaper at the place I got the furniture than the next cheapest place with equivalent stuff.)
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What you have to do is show that you're prepared to walk unless you either get a better deal, or they throw in a sh*tload of stuff. They'll do one or the other (usually the latter, since this way they can say they didn't lower the price of the tv ... hah!).
Make friends with one of the people working there, let them know you're serious, and you'll get a chance to see as they diddle with the amounts on-screen at the sales terminal to make the deal work (its how I got an additional 13% off my camcorder, ove
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(when I got my washer and dryer, I think it was 15% "display item discount", 10% cash back, and 12% miscellaneous discount)
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Paid In Full (Every Month) (Score:2)
I avoided them like the plague after my bankruptcy (Score:2)
One is almost paid off, with the other one carrying about $2000 on it. I should have them both empty in the next six months or so. At that point, if I can I am hoping to travel (Sigg
Ever heard of "saving up" for things? (Score:2)
Front Page Poll? (Score:2)
Grats Tom?!?!?!
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Yep - they even left the html tags in with their cut-n-paste.
Nice to know that they read my journal ;-0
well before my bankruptcy.. (Score:2)
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That's an interesting story. I'm glad things are better for you now.
Not wholly offtopic... (Score:1)
I pay them off each month, all three of them. I have one exclusively for online purchases, it's not a physical card: it's just a number and has extra safeguards. One is associated with my current account and the third is associated with the joint current account with my wife. Each one of them have a special purpose.
Why? Because I make a budget [slashdot.org]. A little planning, a little calculation and money problems are gone...
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Your budget idea is a good one, and so is the two accounts method.
It *is* possible to do it with only one account, but you have to be disciplined about it.
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Well, I don't want to take credit: this is the system I learned from my dad and I just published it in a journal because it is infuriating that so many people cannot manage their money properly, even if they are on a site like slashdot where the more mathematically inclined hang around.
Yes, discipline is part of the equation. My wife has a feeble for expensive clothes and accessories, but I pretty much budgetted that in ;-)
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Clothes, shoes, purses and coats come with the territory, you ignorant clod!
One thing I've noticed is that most single women are in better financial health than their boyfriends. Guys tend to want to "pimp their ricer", buy the latest toys, etc. A couple of grand on a new set of rims buys a LOT of clothes and accessories ...
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I'm not one of those. If anything my financial health was better than my wifes. However, regarding that quote: I never got that. Why do these dolts don't just buy a car that they like in the first place? I've got an unmodified 2000 Audi TT and I have never felt the need to change anything on it. It is perfect as is. Changing it would be the equivalent of punching the designers and engineers in the balls.
Oh, and I got that one on a par
For me ... (Score:2)
[X] I kept one
[_] I pay them off in full each month
[X] I "usually" pay them off each month.
[_] As long as I can make the minimum payment, who cares?
[_] I'm charging like crazy - chapter 13 here I come!
[_] I'm doing a SCO - chapter 11 and 7 are my friends.
[_] Someone stole my credit cards, but I didn't report them because they charge less than I do.
I tend to try to pay my credit cards down quickly. I must admit I've put a few toys on them that have taken
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Isn't it always like that ... :-(
Hopefully, things will work out over the next little bit and you'll get them cleared again.