ABC Television will air a special titled UN-BROKE: What You Need to Know About Money. They bill it as “an unconventional look at the fundamentals of everyday finance with all the facts about credit cards, mortgages, stocks and bonds, investing and 401(k)’s, in a fresh new format combining information and humor.”
The one-hour special airs FRIDAY, [...]
I went several months without getting an offer from a credit card company before I got the offer I wrote about in February. I didn’t see another one until a few days ago. Now I have received four in the last week. Two are from the same account, so I guess I should consider that [...]
Although my goals are to get out of credit card debt and I haven’t been too happy with the way some companies have been treating their customers lately, I do see times when you can use them as a tool to get a better deal.
I know some people get good rewards by putting purchases on [...]
Today I received a letter from a credit card company informing me that my Annual Percentage Rate would increase from 16.24% to 27.99% unless I reject the increase. By rejecting the increase, I will be unable to use this card anymore. If I do use the card again, the rate increase will go into effect then.
When I started this spreadsheet in January the minimums added up to $3920 (If I went back to November it would’ve been worse, but I don’t have complete records of that). Last month the minimums added up to $3177. That’s a difference of $743 per month. When I was trying to pay $3920, I was coming up short and having to go further in debt to pay for other needs like food and gas. There was also a lot of borrowing from one account to pay another. Needless to say there wasn’t anything extra to pay down the debts. That $743 dollar difference makes it a lot easier to pay cash for everything and apply extra payments toward debt.
It’s been two months since my last revision of the debt snowball and I’ve decided to update it.
Here is a spreadsheet showing the current status:
When you add all my minimum payments they add up to $984. I have made it my new goal to pay $1000 per month toward debts (other than the Auto Loan) [...]
