What's in your wallet?

[Terry]

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message news:HXTyd.11116

Right on Joseph. OT I know but you gotta buy stuff to do 'home repairs'! Right? Smart moves. a) Pay off your card balance shortly before the due date. b) Don't ever; except an extreme emergency use the CC to get cash in hand. Interest at a high rate starts immediately. c) Don't use bank machines that don't belong to organisations other than your own; there WILL be 'other' charges. d) Be familiar with what your financial institution, bank etc, charges, if anything, for various transactions. Combine or avoid to minimize them. Take advantage of any (I won't use the word free, because nothing ever is; let's say "that are included") that are suitable for you._ And if you do have to borrow most people can get an unsecured line of credit from a bank or other financial institution at interest rate depending which country you are in, between 4.5 and say 7%. A secured loan would most likely be even cheaper. A LOC is a lot cheaper than even the lower interest rate credit cards; e.g. we have only one CC on which the unpaid balance interest rate would be 18.9% (Annual rate). If we ever paid any interest! Since getting that card, about five years ago, we have paid exactly one cent of interest (That's one cent, btw, not one per-cent!) I don't know why it's even one cent; maybe a computer slipped a gear in the third place of decimals somewhere and put the remainder difference in as interest? The one advantage of a CC is that you can delay the cost of paying for a purchase by up to approx. two thirds of a month. In the meantime you get a little time to plan how to meet the cost. Right now, for example, we know exactly what we owe on the card and when it is due to be paid, electronically to continue to avoid any interest. But I get the understanding that this is a pretty savvy group of people who could probably teach me a thing or two! All the best financially. Terry. PS. In the meantime I'd like to know who has the use of my money during the two to five days it takes to disappear from my bank account as a transfer payment to reach my payee! But that's another topic.

[Terry]

My understanding is that the above is the smart way to use one of these 'Balance transfer' zero or low interest rate credit cards. The point is to transfer the balance, and pay it off, without interest. But: DO NOT USE THE CARD FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE. So as to avoid any interest charges or mix ups that the monthly pay off being made is for other than repaying the debt. AFIK none are available here in Canada? Cos. it could be a nice way to borrow say $10,000 or $20,000 for a period of time, interest free! Financial industry competition must be greater in some other countries? There are interest accounts in the UK for example that pay 5% or better! Some UK companies that currently offer zero interest until Sept 2005 or for six months etc. are Egg, citiBank and Morgan-Stanley.

[Joseph Meehan]

I am using electronic transfers for most of my checking transactions. There is no delay. My bank and the payee generally show the same date. This has been speeded up in the last few months, even for paper checks. In many cases because banks no longer need send the paper check but use an image transferred electronically.

[Duane Bozarth]

...

I would suggest to get one widely-accepted card and carry it at least when traveling--they can be a life-saver should some unexpected problem arise when you're not at home...

I use them routinely to avoid writing many checks for individual items but pay the bill when it comes. I am able to avoid compulsive buying...shopping is not on my list of things I like to do...

[bumtracks]

yea me too .. sort of online checking with my bank, it's like having free envelopes and postage and real easy! Bill comes in mail, open it, connect to my account, schedule payment for a day before the due date and forget about it.

Some they pay direct transfer, some they mail with enough lead time to cover mail delivery - I leave that up to the bank and payee to decide - as far as I'm concerned its a mailed check which I get a cancelled copy of once per month with the statement. Can send a check to anybody in the US - they say allow five banking days max for it to reach their mailbox. Can't send a us dollars check out of the us though - Oh well- someday.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

You have to be careful though, some credit card companies lay a trap for you. MBNA in particular.

I've had an account with them for about 10 years. I went to electronic payment since it was easier. Most times I carry no balance, but once in a while a big purchase can stretch a few months. A few months back, I had a payment due on a Monday. I sort of forgot about it until the Friday before. They require a 2 day advance notice on the electronic payments. I set up the payment, but it would not be accepted for posting until the following Tuesday, making me late. They also charged a late fee.

I called to complain stating that every other bill I pay on lines will post either the same day or the next. This is the 21st century and there is no reason for the delay except to trap people close tot he pay date. The reply was that I could have paid by phone ($15 charge for the privilege) or just pay sooner. As you can imagine, the account was closed that day.

I pay my electric bill, phone bill, cell phone bill, newspaper and have never encountered a problem. MBNA is hoping to trap suckers and get excessive late fees.

[maradcliff]

Wow, you must have a terribly boring sex life.........

[daman]

[Stormin Mormon]

Little badly worn picture of Jesus, who reminds me the real reason for the season.

[Stormin Mormon]

Mine let out the little white smoke. No work no mo.

[newsgroups01REMOVEME]

Now you said that, I remembered. Cash is in my wallet. The true reason for this season. Being truthful, think, if Christ was the central point of the holiday season, like Easter, then would it be as big a bash as it is today?

Early christians banned Christmas Celebration because the Holiday Spirt of the season has nothing to do with Christ.

Just keep the faith and the truth, and celebrating everyday as Christ's day, with or without cash in the wallet. :-P

Merry Christmas Everyone! Oh, keep spending! Make that Cash Flow!!!!!!

later,

tom @

[zxcvbob]

I did the same thing with a "People's Bank", or something like that, a few years ago (when interest rates were much higher than they are now.) $11,000 balance, paid off in about a year -- I think I paid $1.20 in interest on that last payment because the 0% rate ended on the first of the month and I thought it ended at the end of the last month.

I never did use that card, but they kept sending me additional special offers and stuff for about a year before I eventually cancelled the account. The company couldn't care less that I had taken advantage of the deal.

BTW, if I had been a day late with any of those payments, the "default rate" would have kicked in immediately, and I think it was almost 30%. Plus a $29 late fee. That's what they were counting on, but I religously made my payments 2 weeks early (minimum payments for a while to bask in the 0%, then big payments to ammortize the loan over the remaining 7 or 8 months before the rate jumped.)

Best regards, Bob

[dflagg]

You could have just used Next Month Online. They will postpone your payment until the next billing month. I use them whenever I get myself in to situations like that. If you want to check them out, their address is

[zxcvbob]

I have been caught by that once or twice, and I call as soon as I get the next statement and ask them to waive the late fee. They always do

*if* you are a good customer and the slightly late payment is already posted. Note that a history of late payments makes you not a good customer for a while, so don't try to do this more than once or twice with the same company unless years have passed since the last time.

Bob

[Edwin Pawlowski]

That is what really PO'd me. I've never been late with a payment, this one was a day late due to their two day deal and they would not waive the fee. So I cancelled the account.

[Skirmishd]

I haven't been late with paying MBNA, so don't know how it goes.

I've had an account with Citi for years. I know some don't like them, but I've had luck with them. One time, I put the check in the mailbox to be picked up by the postal worker and found it days later in the snow. I called them and they waived the fee. I had to call them again about doing a phone transfer of funds or something, and the other person I talked to knew the whole story and we had a laugh. Also, I opened the account in only my name, and my husband had to fly back for his mother's funeral and needed to rent a car; they delivered his own card to him to our house the next day. The main thing I don't like about them is that when you call about something they often do this spiel to try to make me buy into other "services."