What a disease credit cards can be yet a blessing when you really need the money and don’t have the cash for it… but still a disease in my book!
I got my first credit card during my first semester at the uni… go figure. I remember, the first item I bought was a flatbed scanner (back then they were the coolest and newest thing and I needed something to scan the pics for the chicks online, yes I feel sorry for myself thank you ). That didn’t really feel good, so I bought something else and then another thing which piled things up pretty quickly.
End of 2003/4, I had about $17,000-$20,000* (on 6 cards)* in debt and boy was it hard to look at. My credit score was around 520s… yes, not good. So, I decided to pay attention to it and get rid of it once in for all! All efforts towards that, started paying good chunk of income to these bad boys, for past year or so been sending credit card companies $2,000-$2,500 per month which has improved the debt image very well!
Today, just around $4k (on two cards) left and credit score has grown to over 710 and most importantly the feeling of being without credit card debt is amazing. With just car payment and insurance and no other bills time to think of saving money!
So, any credit card debt free success or horror stories?
nah thnkGawd i didnt fell fer credit cards i just use my debit card....just spend enough tht u have wid u...no tension later on.....n u can always save enough money to buy wotever u want
I had credit cards, then after we got married my hubby applied for credit cards, then we got taken in by the 0% balance transfer and purchase thing...which was cool at the time because we just bought our house...then we were transferring from one card to another on the 0% offers.....till the rules changed, we stopped being accepted and they charged fees for 0% transfers...so we paid off huge chunks and now we always use just debit card..and are still paying off as much as we can to get rid of the cards.
However we can only manage this so that we don't end up in the same situation in the future...if we CUT UP the cards and actually close the accounts.
Oh man - I've never ever used a credit card for credit. I've never spent so much as one penny or one cent on my credits cards that I did not have waiting in my bank account to pay it off at the end of the month (mainly due to the whole haraam interest thing).
I've got a large limit on my credits cards now across two countries, but still never use them to buy anything I can't afford. I use them to make secure payments with rewards.
Even then its not recommended to close *the accounts... just cut it up and don't *use 'em. ;)
Au contraire Jaan Leva... more credit cards (even with a zero balance) will affect your credit rating. The bureau looks at credit cards with zero balance as "potential" for you to borrow up to that amount and get into debt again.
I personally didn't know about this myself until my brother who worked last year for the credit bureau informed me.
The not-so-secret alternative to credit cards is to get a personal line-of-credit to consolidate your credit cards. You'll probably be paying significantly lower interest (usually just a couple of more points above prime), and get rid of your debt faster. I wish someone tells us these things when we're entering college... but according to my bank rep., this is something that banks deliberately hide since credit cards are more profitable for them.
I had managed to pay off my credit card debt for the most part a few years back but got stuck again after incurring wedding expenses on them... I wish I had used a credit line instead.
so are you consolidating now? I built up a nice chunk during adoption process..and have decided just to consolidate it rather than pay a huge chunk since my monthly costs have gone up quite a bit due to day care and all.
with me, the desi mentality works big time..cash spending...but we had gotten into the credit card spending,..its just easier and faster to pay at stores and places rather then trying to find a dime or a cent while others r waiting impatiently in the line:D..
Wat I have seen some people do is use the credit card for the daily expenses only becuz of the reward points that they accumulate...smart move
I have about 6 cards, never used for extesive shopping apart from when I bought my first house, i added up huge sum and then gradually i paid em off 4 out of 5. so one remaining :) soon i will be moving to my next house this time i will have not to buy everything new!. inshallah.
). That didn’t really feel good, so I bought something else and then another thing which piled things up pretty quickly.
