# 'Twere the Rants Before Christmas (December Mini-Rants) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** monthly-mini-rant\ **Created:** [December 1, 2025, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twere-the-rants-before-christmas-december-mini-rants/1025280 "2025-12-01T05:04:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 163
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twere-the-rants-before-christmas-december-mini-rants/1025280/163 "2025-12-13T01:19:02Z")
I have I guess a very first world rant. It started back in October here: > [@Season of the Kvetch (October mini-rants)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/season-of-the-kvetch-october-mini-rants/1023563/166): > > I have a fresh rant. ~18 months ago I refurnished my life after leaving my tiresome ex-wife (hereafter TXW wink ) and letting her keep substantially all my / our worldy goods. In the course of that I applied for several store-specific or store-branded credit cards who had “0% APR for umpteen months” come-ons. One of which, the subject of this thread, is for an upscale housewares chain. Not Williams-Sonoma but in that league. The folks who buy their overpriced trendy stuff are not poor and pro… As noted, it took 2 billing cycles to get the balance to zero, but by mid Nov I was done with that. Then I was going to close the card with prejudice. Then I got to reading the fine print terms. Which says there is the typical grace period on purchases. Which means that they should not have charged me the stupid 39 cents of interest in the first place. And also means that the card is a lot more useable for ordinary stuff going forward than I had thought. It’s not an interest timebomb booby trap as I had thought. I also launched this thread to get advice about the credit rating consequences of cancelling a card: > [@When to Cancel Unused Credit Card(s)?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-to-cancel-unused-credit-card-s/1024019): > > Continuing the discussion from [Season of the Kvetch (October mini-rants)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/season-of-the-kvetch-october-mini-rants/1023563/172): I’ve been meaning to make a thread on this, and @icon has helpfully led right into it in a reply to me in the linked thread quoted just above. Rather than clutter that thread with a digression, I’ll start afresh here. TL;DR: As a general matter for all of us consumers, when and why is it advantageous or disadvantageous to close unused credit cards vs. keeping them open but unused? How does the answer change when consi… Which produces not a lot of citeable fact, or industry insider opinion, but mostly leaned in the direction of don’t do it. So I didn’t close the card. I don’t use it & don’t have an immediate need to buy the stuff they sell. OK; that’s a decent truce in this war. Fast forward to now. It’s monthly statement time again. Of course their email says nothing about the key facts, like balance due or due date. Just [click here] and a lot of marketing puffery. Sigh. So I click there. Instead of the expected zero balance I have a balance: -0.39. They’ve credited back the 39 cents in interest from 3 cycles ago that they should never have charged. And now I’ve got a credit balance of 39 cents. They undid the mistake that set this whole chain of stupidity in motion. And triggered 2 manual payments when it should have only been 1. And and and. Gee thanks; you really shouldn’t have. So I can ignore their 39 cent gift and let it ride, I can go buy something with their card and pay the new balance (my purchase minus 39 cents) next month, or I can cancel the card. Sigh. Of course I don’t care about 39 cents as monetary value. But it upsets my inner fussy accountant to have a stupid credit balance sitting out there month after month. Gee thanks; you shouldn’t have. Which I suppose many other posters will be saying about gifts they receive in the next weeks. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twere-the-rants-before-christmas-december-mini-rants/1025280)._