I’m dismayed to report that because of taxes, we aren’t going to be paying off big chunks of our credit card debt like we had planned. At least, not as quickly. I made more money than usual last year, so we set aside extra for taxes. (We, here, is really my husband, the brains of [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Debt'
Argh! Capital One Brings the Hassle
January 29th, 2010 1 Comment
Today someone called a friend of mine, demanding that his Capital One balance be paid in full by Monday. My friend was upset not only by the threatening tone of the call, but also because he was in good standing on his payment plan with the company. He wondered if he was being scammed. Turns [...]
Cash For … Nevermind
August 3rd, 2009 2 Comments
Image by Getty Images via Daylife When word that the cash for clunkers rebate program had started, I emailed my husband: “What if we took the $4,500 rebate on the truck and sold the Passat?” We’d like to get a hybrid. This would take us down to one car, but with HourCar coming to our [...]
Tags: cash4clunkers · emissions · HourCar · hybrid · hybrids · rebate program
Credit Card Rate Hike? Take These Steps To Negotiate
July 29th, 2009 2 Comments
A reader writes: Like most folks, we have lived on credit and have quite a lot to pay down. But several of these cards have interest rates close to 30% which makes paying them down a multi-year process. Our goal is to totally get off the credit train but keep a couple cards for convenience [...]
Tags: Credit bureau · Credit card · opt-out letter · rate hike · rate jacking
Fahrvergnügen? Nein
July 28th, 2009 2 Comments
Image by clevercupcakes via Flickr Our car took a week-long convalescence last week, and the bill came to about what you’d expect for a stay at a swanky spa: $1,258.04. Clunk, indeed. Except that’s the sound of our wallets hitting the floor. The total is about 9 car payments; of course we finished paying off [...]
Tags: repair bill · Volkswagen
Where We Are Now, and How We Got Here
May 27th, 2009 No Comments
If you’ve got a little time, I have seen no better example that encapsulates, in one man’s story, the mania that preceded the housing bubble and its very painful aftermath. His story is jaw-dropping. A financial correspondent for the NY Times Washington bureau, Edmund L. Andrews’s $120,000 salary was never going to support $4,000 in [...]
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Gamers and Those Who Stop Playing: A Story Behind the Story
May 26th, 2009 1 Comment
In this story I wrote for CreditCards.com on which cards personal finance experts use themselves, Liz Pulliam Weston, MSN Money columnist, and Ron Lieber, NY Times columnist, are both whip-smart and serious about leveraging their credit cards rewards programs. In the course of my conversation with Lieber, I asked something about how the card issuers [...]
Tags: cash economy · Chris Farrell · creditcards.com · Liz Pulliam Weston · Ron Lieber
Credit News Roundup: What The New Law Means for You
May 22nd, 2009 1 Comment
Your Money: Guide to New Credit Card Rules, NY Times President Obama signs the new credit law (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act) this weekend, which means that by mid-August consumers will be spared some of the most egregious fee charges and rate hikes. (This article by the Christian Science Monitor breaks it all [...]
Tags: credit card law · credit card legislation · credit card rules
Pay Off Debt First, or Save?
April 21st, 2009 12 Comments
When I first started this blog, I envisioned socking money away in a variety of interest-earning places: IRAs, CDs, and money market funds. I was fresh from the “eureka! Savers build wealth!” experience that the otherwise clueless among us get when they’ve just stumbled across “The Millionaire Next Door,” and ready to start building some [...]
Tags: Cash Flow · credit cards · paying off debt · savings
Credit Scoring Changes in 2009
December 31st, 2008 No Comments
Here’s a must-read about coming changes in credit scoring from personal finance expert Liz Pulliam Weston. Lenders will start using the new scoring system by late January. The new FICO scoring system (the one most lenders use) will be more sensitive than ever to the gap between how much credit you have and how much [...]
Tags: Credit score · FICO · Liz Pulliam Weston
