I took out a personal loan to consolidate credit cards. After this month, my credit card interest will drop to around $85. With the interest on my other loan, the overall interest charged each month will actually be higher, though. I’ll start figuring that in soon.
Some of my cards have gone up and down. I’m focusing on paying of my highest interest rate card, which’ll knock more than $15 off the interest I’m paying monthly.
I used the credit card I paid off to go to Vegas. I’m going to focus on paying off one of my higher interest rate credit cards next instead of paying this one off again right away. why get rid of 16% interest when you can get rid of 25%?
I paid off one credit card since I got all of my bills for this month. It had $3.25 interest charged this month, so my interest will be that much less next month. It may not be a lot, but it’ll come down little by little. I also haven’t had any issues with being overdrawn on my bank account since I’ve been keeping strict track of my balance. My interest charges peaked at $202.59 since I’ve had this goal, so it’s down $17.41 from that.
Went back up slightly. It should go down a bit now, as I have paid off two credit cards.
This time they hit me with six overdraft fees totalling $210, although they refunded $42, bringing it down to $168. The best part is that they told me their practices are set up for my benefit. The fact that they process transactions from biggest to smallest to increase the number of fees is for my own good! Well, I’m done with them. I’m going to open a new account eslewhere in the upcoming weeks and be done with Bank of America for good. My wife and mom are going to, also.
P.S. Both of the people I talked to when I had to call customer service, because they aren’t authorized to do anything in the branch, were completely rude and insulting.
Keeps the fire burning, keeps me motivated to get beyond getting screwed by banks like this. At least it was only one this time.
This was my total finance charges for January. I don’t know how it went up from December, I must have figured something wrong. We’ll see where it goes from here.
I have to make sure not to get any stupid overdraft fees or late fees. I’ve never really had problems with late fees, so I just need to make sure I avoid using my credit cards unless it’s a matter of life or death, which means manaing my money instead of spending until it’s gone each paycheck. My finance charges were 195.09 the last time each was applied to my account. Each month, I’ll check to see my progress on lowering this amount. If you look at the amount of interest you pay each month as a bill of it’s own, it really puts into perspective what debt does to you. At this rate, I waste $2400 each year on interest alone.
