1st snowflakes on 2009

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2006
1st snowflakes on 2009
10
Fri, 01-02-2009 - 2:55pm

I am happy to report that I have been able to snowflake $310 already for 2009.


We have 3 credit cards that are the crux of why I am on this board. We bought a house this year and had to charge some stuff along the way - some of it certainly could have been avoided but we incurred much of the debt for the long-term goal of being in a new home and settled. AKA we knew what we were getting into.


So we have three credit cards with heft balances. Ideally I would like to find 2 credit cards that will let me transfer the balances with a 0% or low percent interest rate so that we can consolidate 3 CC to 2 CC and help us have

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2007
Fri, 01-02-2009 - 3:29pm

Congrats, Michelle!

I won't get paid again until mid-Jan. so no flakes in the near future.

I get plenty of good offers from the cards I've had for a while. Keep paying on them and soon enough they'll offer a 3.99% for life or 0% for 6 months or whatever. It'll come! Just be careful about the transfer fees.

Dee



iVillage Member
Registered: 11-14-2008
Fri, 01-02-2009 - 4:53pm
Congrats. I love those 3 pay periods in one month!!


iVillage Member
Registered: 02-01-2008
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 10:04am

Have you thought about paying the CCs off the "Dave Ramsey" way? He says to pay the minimum on the highest balances and all the "extra" money on the lowest balance. Then once that balance is paid off, attack the next lowest balance. I'm resisting doing it that way because I want to pay off my HELOC first, even though it's my highest balance and lowest interest rate. I can see his point though. If I paid off my lowest balance parent plus loan, I would have $116 a month to throw at the next lowest parent plus loan. I'm just wondering what others are doing.

Mary Jo








iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2008
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 10:57am

I'm paying off my lowest balances first. I have really good

Pregnancy%20ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2006
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 4:50pm

Thanks for the thoughts. Yes in general I use a modified Dave Ramsey way. The only time we deviate from that is if we have to charge something that we know we will be getting rembursed for (i.e. my mail order prescriptions that I get reimbursed from my flexible spending account). In this case we pay back the card that we used.


Personally - and I know I am in the minority on this board - I do not like Dave Ramsey. I like some of his ideas and concepts which I modify for myself but his personality and approach don't work for me - I guess he is too "boot camp" for me and he wants us all to do several different savings approaches at once.


I don't want to be negative because I know many people love him and he works great for many...just not my style.


Michelle

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2007
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 5:40pm

Michelle:

He's not my style either, but I did recently look at some of his stuff to see what he recommended for budgeting purposes (5% for entertainment, for instance, plus a bunch of others). It gave me a place to start from and then go from there.

One thing that I keep reading is that you should pay off your highest interest card first, regardless of whether or not another one is "almost paid off". Although I also fall into the pay-one-more-off-so-I-only-have-4-cards scenario and I'm struggling with that one. I'm kind of juggling this all around right now. There are a bunch of debt calculators on the web that show different scenarios, depending on the strategy you want to use.

My other big dilemma right now is: to transfer or not to transfer???

Dee





iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2006
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 8:50pm

Dee,


I too am wondering about transferring as I mentioned in another post. I am going to look into it but as you cautioned me I am going to pay special attention to transfer fees.


I have not full yinvestigated these so I am not promoting any of them but this looked like a reasonable place to start research on transferring. If I come up with anything spectacular I will let you know!


Good luck. It is a very nice feeling to feel like I am in this alone and to be among people who don't judge me for the debt I have. The reassuring thing is I have been in debt before and gotten out so I know I/we can do this!


Michelle

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2006
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 9:00pm
ACK never mind that previous link - all of those were 3% balance transfer fees which would negate the 0% interest rate for me!
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-31-2008
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 11:32pm
Great job Michelle!!!

Chris

Chris

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-17-2007
Sun, 01-04-2009 - 5:11am

I was reading the postings on this posting since I can't sleep and if you don't mine