Hello-

Way too damn long!

Just got an email from my Discover Card saying my new statement was available and the minimum payment due is only $37.  Cannot remember the last time I had a minimum payment due of only $37.

So I take a longer look at my statement and see that of that $37, about $21 would be going to interest each month.

Now that’s a great deal if you are the credit card company.  But it sucks if you are the consumer who is trying to pay off your credit card balance.

So I went over to one of the free credit card payment calculators to see just how long it would take me to pay that sucker off if I just made the minimum payment of $37.

And here’s what it gave me: “It will take you 146 months to be rid of your debt. In that time, you will pay $1,138.47 in interest.

If you devoted $36.53 to your debt every month, it would be paid off in 51 months, and would cost you $536.29 in interest.”

So it’ll take me 146 months to pay off my $1300 balance and I’ll pay $1100 in interest charges! FUCK!

Man that just makes me want to open a bank.  I should make an offer to buy Wells Fargo or WaMU!  How the heck are you ever supposed to get out of a mountain of credit card debt if you pay $37 as a minimum payment and $21 of that goes to interest charges each month?

The answer is that you are NOT!!!!

Don’t even think about a late fee or any other type of fee.

Those usually run $39 each time and that will each up about 4 months of principal payments.

So you know what to do: pay much more than the minimum if you ever want to lift the burdens of too much credit card debt off your shoulders.

On the bright side, you can see that I made over $600 worth of payments last month on my Discover Card balance so know I only owe $1314.  Hopefully I can have that sucker paid off by the end of the year.

That’s all for today.

Have a debt-free day!

-Adam

The Credit Blogger

Hello-

When was the last time you really looked at your monthly credit card statement?  Do you know how much your balance is going down each month or is it even going down at all?

When you have over $50,000 in credit card, I imagine I am paying a ton in interest charges that I shouldn’t.  But what choice do I have?

Is bankruptcy really a choice?

There is debt settlement and debt negotiation but then I would not be able to use my cards anymore and my credit would get all screwed up just as much as if I did file bankruptcy.  But I digress.

The amount of money you pay in interest charges can get crazy.

You need to be aware of how much of your payments go to interest and how much go to lower your balance.  No one knows the value of compound interest as much as your credit card company.

They get to make interest off of the interest they are charging you when you fail to pay the balance each month.

And this just goes on and on for months and months and months until it becomes years and years and years.

Sigh.

That’s hundreds and thousands of dollars each year just basically washed down the drain that you’ll never see again.

How to minimize your interest charges?  Call your credit card company and ask, demand, plead, etc for a lower rate.  Check your credit report and see how many on time payments you have made in the past four years and point that out to your bank.

Show them how good of a customer you have been and ask them and then ask them again and then ask them even one more time to help you out and lower your APR.

My mom just told me about a $39 late fee she got charged on one of her statements because she didn’t get a bill when she switched over to paperless billing.  I told here to call them and have them waive that thing.  It was already 2 months later that I fould out about this.  I said it didn’t matter, you are a good customer and they should waive that fee.

She called and they didn’t hassle her at all and waived the late fee.

$39 saved and it took less than 5 minutes.

That’s the equivalent of earning $468 an hour!

When was the last time you made $468 an hour?  Make the calls and get the rates down.  There’s no need to pay the credit card company any more fees or high interest rates than they are already getting.

Now here’s the sick part that I didn’t want to see.  How much I am paying each month in interest charges.

Discover: $35 on $2345 balance.

Chase: $155 on $15121 balance.

Bank of America: $172 on $17176 balance.

ATT Universal Card: $120 on $11106 balance.

USAA: $104 on $9984 balance.

Total interest charges each month: Approx $586! #@#%#%!$@#%^&&*&*!

That’s a really nice car payment right there.

That’s also a decent sized mortgage payment right there.

How the hell did I ever get into this mess…

-Adam