Five years ago I got into trouble with credit-card debt. After engaging a trustee and making a ‘consumer proposal’ (one step short of bankruptcy, but you repay part of the money), there were almost five years of repayment.
I am very glad to say that my last debt payment cleared my bank account yesterday. When the trustee receives official notice from the bank, they will issue me a certificate of completion, and I can then contact the credit-rating agencies to update my information.
Starting next month, I will now have significantly more money in my bank account (it had been hand-to-mouth at times), and I can begin saving… for a secured credit card, and trips to visit friends and family scattered across this fine continent. And maybe a few other places too. Like the World Congress of the Esperanto-Speaking Peoples in Italy in 2006.
Yay!
Speaking of “credit” cards, something that I have long anticipated has gone on sale in Canada: a prepaid MasterCard called MyCard. You buy it, load money onto it, and you can then use it wherever you can use a MasterCard credit card.
It was not until I had no credit card that I was able to discern the difference between the credit card as grantor of credit and the credit card as payment system. I did not need credit, but not having the MasterCard/Visa payment mechanism available was a major pain in an age of online shopping.
Problem is, the MyCard card (linked above) is very expensive: $30 to buy (actually $40, but $10 goes on the card). After that, it’s $6 per month, and it expires after a year, so you have to buy it all over again.
There are additional costs for loading money onto the card ($3 for each load theough pre-authorised debit or online banking, though not at a MyCard retailer); it has a maximum load of $2000, but you can only load $500 ($350 at a retailer) at a time.
I might get it anyways, but it’s not the slam-dunk it would be if it was, say, half the price.
MyCard cardholder agreement.