THEY owe ME $7.68. (I just got a refund on something I ordered online). I use my credit card only for online purchases. And I subtract the amount of the purchase out of my checking account as I go, so I have the money in hand to pay the bill. Of course I adopted this method after digging a little hole for myself.
I don’t owe anything; I pay in full each month (though I use my card rarely enough that a lot of months, I don’t have any charges to pay).
I’m another pay-in-full-each-month guy. My wife does the same. Each of us has one credit card, which is all either of us needs.
I have no problem going into debt for the major building blocks of a life (home, car, education), but not for this n’ that.
I charge almost everything, and always pay it off each month.
About $650. Doesn’t sound too bad but I only have a part time job.
To break it down:
$200-meds
$250-shoes, shirts, pants (all needed)
$100-groceries and a few treats
$100-unexpected presents and expenses
I used to be about 10k in, but I finally got sick of the interest and cleared the debt. Now I pay it off every month.
-$500. not sure how that happened, but apparently a $400 check was processed as $900, and i haven’t figured out if it went through my bank yet at $400 or $900 so i don’t know if i should call discover or not. Hopefully i’ll get a bank statement soon and clear this mess up.
To those of you like Surreal who just don’t get why people like me are so in debt, remember that credit card companies now give cards to 18 year olds. That’s how I got so far in debt. At 18 Discover gave me a Platinum card with a $5000 limit. Now, at nearly 22, I realize just how stupid and irresponsible I was/am. While the money spent is entirely my fault, I can’t help but wonder why these companies would give an 18 year old that kind of card. Oh well, live and learn.
Wow, and I thought I was something special by paying off my card each month. I did have a little snafu a couple of months ago and racked up over a hundred dollars in finance charges or something (!) because I thought Paypal was set up on a different card than it was. But that’s my only blemish, it was immediately remedied, and I’ll save all my credit woes for when I’m in medical school…
$1344.88 as of today. That would be about three weeks of take-home pay. 1 credit card. I haven’t charged anything for months, but I’m paying back from when I was unemployed.
StG
Sigh, I was totally paid off for about a month. Then I had a chance to discount a doctor’s bill by paying in full. That sucked all my cash away right when my new bedroom furniture was finally delivered. Damn you Ethan Allen and your gorgeous pencil post bed! So now I’ve got about a month’s salary on my only card. After my first paycheck of the school year I’ll be debt free once again, for good this time.
10 weeks at 3.75% interest. It is the only debt I carry.
$0 - I pay it off every month except in extreme circumstances.
At the moment, I owe $76 on one card and $85 on another. Both of them will be paid off next week when I get my paycheck. I would’ve paid them off already, but $700 in car repairs kinda drained my checking account for the time being.
And you can count me in the group that always pays the cards off right away. Only once have I been hit with an interest charge, and that was due to the company being a week late depositing my check. One phone call took care of that for me (It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you threaten to cancel your card).
I don’t carry a balance on my credit card. The reason I have a credit card is that it helps me consolidate some expenses.
For example, if I was to pay for gas by cash, I have to weigh that priority with other bills. If I just made my loan payment to my mom ($500 a month) I’ll be cleaned out and don’t want to risk overdrafting. So I’d have to try not to use the car much until I had money to put gas in it. But if I paid for gas by credit card, I’m not as inconvenienced because I can pay the balance when I can afford it. They give me like a 20 day grace period to pay it off in full. Since I don’t charge much beyond gas/gifts, the bill is rarely above $100. Even if I’m broke when the bill comes, my paychecks will come in with plenty of time to pay the bill off in time.
Bah! I’m 25, and the card I got as a freshman in college JUST NOW achieved a $5,000 limit.
Just as well…I’m afraid of what I could do with more cards and a higher credit line.
Nothing. We pay them off in full each month. We use them for day to day living and oh boy is it illuminating to see where we spent money.
They make their money off irresponsible people. They know that 18-year-olds tend to be more irresponsible than 50-year-olds. It really is that simple.
Dug a 2 month hole. How could I be so stupid? Paid it off a year ago, have a $35 credit on one account, and hoping I never unlearn that lesson. The cards are in a drawer with rubber bands around them, and notes saying how much each line is. So if I ever need to raise a ransome, the choice is there. But the $500 and $1000 surprises are all coming out of my bank account.
It sure feels good to have money in a savings account.