As promised, here are the stats on my credit cards**. Ugh. It's pretty horrid. Actually, quite horrid.
*Amount due/Interest Rate/Total Line*
Capitol One
Predicted: 480/24%/500
Actual: 540.65/25.9%/500
Old Navy
Predicted: 350/20%/900
Actual: 361.97/21%/900
Wells Fargo:
Predicted: 1050/15%/1100
Actual: 1086.78/16.7%/1100
The plan of action:
-Make sure I start paying my bills ON TIME. My worst attribute is consistently being a day to two days late on payments. I never remember bills are due until the day of. With my Wells Fargo, I can go to an ATM an instantly remedy the problem. The other two I pay online and it takes a day or two to process. Then, because my limits are near the max, the incurred late fee causes an overdraft fee.
-Pay off the highest interest card first (Capitol One). This also happens to be card I tend to pay late most consistently.
-Stick to not using cards. About a month and a half ago, I discontinued using credit cards. They are on a shelf at home.
-Next, pay off Old Navy card, and finally Wells Fargo.
**According to last month's statements. I've already made payments to Old Navy and Wells Fargo this month.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
You're doing a good job. You made an effort to look at your bills and write it down the stats. Congratulations, you completed part one! Next steps: program payment dates into your cell phone, Outlook, etc. Pay minimum on Old Navy and WF and throw remaining money plus minimum towards Capital One. Good luck on that journey!
OK. I have a question. What day of the month are these bills due and what day of the month do you send in your payment? I typically send in my payment about two or three days after the statement closing period, even before I get the statement. That way I get a lower monthly balance all month long and thus, pay a tiny bit less in interest all month long.
And any extra money you have coming in, is just gravy on top if you use it to pay down your debt.
Just something to think about. I hate Capitol One and will never do business with them again because they told me I was calling them too much each month to monitor my account. (Back in the day before teh Int3rw3bs made it easy.)
I agree with Thrifty Penny as well. You should looking into a DOLP and pay off your high interest rate cards first. And also call them to lower your rates for you. Sometimes they will if you have 4-6 months of on time payments.
Good luck!
That's not so bad. Check out my balance, and you'll start to feel better! :)
Two things:
1. Amending my advice now to say that I would use the $ to pay off the Capital One card and pay $100-150 on the Old Navy Card. That'll still leave you a little to start an emergency fund with.
2. Do you use Outlook or a similar program (google calendar, etc)? If so, you can set an alert/calendar event to remind you to pay your bills a few days in advance. Otherwise, I would pick a day and make it a monthly "bill paying day," where you sit down and do all that. With e-paying, you could even set the payments to go through on different days.
I definetly need to program something to notify me of paying bills. The cell phone idea was a good one considering I always have it on me. Thanks ladies!
Post a Comment