Credit Card Debt Report March 2009

Hello-

My how time flies when you are having fun.  It’s already March and many new year’s resolutions are either long gone and forgotten or you’ve already done something about them.  I’m still concentrating on getting my credit card debt paid off.  Had a couple of setbacks this past month though.

I started doing my taxes and found that I have to pay about $7,000 in taxes for 2008.  Ouch.  Since I am self employed, I am supposed to be sending in tax payments in each quarter which are estimates because the government cannot wait for its money so it can start spending it like crazy, hundreds of billions at a time.

And then my 94 Camry is on its last leg so I am in the market for a new used car.  I got pre-approved for an $8k auto loan at 5.4% and I withdrew $4100 from my whole life insurance policy so I have a budget of $12,000 for a car.

However, I don’t want to spend that much for a car if I can help it.  I can use some of the insurance money to go to my tax bill.

So I may have to cut back on my aggressive debt cutting practices so I can get a car and start paying on my tax bill.

In credit card news, my Discover Card now has a balance and they lowered my interest rate to 9.24%.  They offered me a balance transfer offer of 5.9% until Feb 2010 with a fee of 4% with a max of $150. Ouch.  It seems like just a couple months ago the fee was 3% with a max of $100.  They have to make their money somehow right?

I went onto a balance transfer offer calculator to determine if this was a good deal.  You can run your own numbers here: http://www.creditcards.com/calculators/balance-transfer.php

It said I would save almost $500 during the balance transfer offer net of the $150 balance transfer fee and would then save about $21 a month in interest after the offer was over.  So I transfered my USAA balance at 12.5% to Discover and now I have about $900 left to pay on my USAA card and get that one paid off.

So here’s the credit card debt report for March 2009:

USAA $908.48
Discover $9497.11
Bank Of America $15851.51
Chase $13746.62
AT&T Universal Card $9182.60

total credit card debt as of March 2009: $49,186.32

total credit card debt as of Feb 2009: $49,869.27

difference from Feb to March: $682.95 8-(

That’s not a lot.

I need to start making some more money so I can pay off my debts faster.  And then I’ll have a bigger tax bill next year.

Have a safe and happy spring break.

-Adam

The Credit Blogger