Archive for the 'Credit Cards' Category

The Ultimate Credit Card Payment Program

Thursday, May 5th, 2005

Update: While the principles presented in this post are sound, the payoff order described it slightly flawed. Please read my followup post/mea culpa before applying the principles here.
Get out your pen and paper, because I am about to share with you the ULTIMATE CREDIT CARD REPAYMENT PROGRAM! That’s right, the ULTIMATE CREDIT CARD REPAYMENT PROGRAM!!

See, [...]

Stop Paying the Minimum Payment

Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

I’m working on a big post on how to really pay down your credit cards fast, but I thought I would share a piece of the puzzle with you: don’t make the minimum monthly payment on your credit cards!

Many people out there pay whatever the minimum monthly payment is on their credit card statements, decreasing [...]

Book Review - The Automatic Millionaire

Tuesday, April 26th, 2005

Last weekend I found myself in an airport shop in Salt Lake City, halfway home from San Jose with a 2 hour flight ahead of me. I had learned from the previous leg of the trip that the plane I would be flying on featured so little room that using my laptop was out of [...]

A Glossary of Credit Card Terms

Tuesday, April 12th, 2005

Donald, over at Personal Finance Tips, has a great glossary of common credit card terms and what they mean.

Included in the list is:
Account set up fee - This is an initial fee that some banks or providers charge to start up your account.
Annual fee - In lieu of higher interest rates throughout the year, some [...]

When Free Money Isn’t Really Free

Thursday, March 31st, 2005

The gent who writes “You’ve Been Haacked“, a technology blog, recently encountered a telling truth: free money isn’t always free, even when the bank promises you it is. Repeatedly.
His story is located here. In it, he describes what happened:

We received one of those offers where we can take a $10,000 loan for 6 months with [...]

The One Holiday You Don’t Want To Take

Sunday, March 13th, 2005

I personally consider Credit Card companies to be as evil as banks, and maybe even a little more evil. One example is that I applied once for a credit card, only to be turned down. I applied to the same company a short while later since they offered a free t-shirt for applying (boy was [...]

Don’t Get Rid of Credit Cards

Monday, March 7th, 2005

As Mike noted briefly in his last post, paying off credit cards is ideal. While you are paying them off you really want to ensure you don’t miss any payments, as missed payments can affect your credit rating in nasty ways.
Beyond that though, other parts of paying off debt can affect you in nasty ways. [...]

Cut Up Those Credit Cards

Monday, March 7th, 2005

These days the average American household has around $3800 US in credit card debt (source), and it is a number that is steadily rising for many. More people than ever have credit cards, and they are getting them at younger and younger ages. For people with high balances, paying off these credit cards can be [...]