one of my many life lessons recently has been the importance of reading your mail. as you guys already know, this whole financial crisis and lifestyle change of mine started when i read my mail and realized that my providian card interest rate had increased from 7.99% to 31.49% without my ever knowing it (because... i never read my mail).
who likes reading mailings from credit cards? no one. no matter how you look at it, it's a reminder of what is lacking in your life. whether you lack money, or you lack the ability to manage your money, it sucks. even if you pay off your credit cards every month, that's a bill you have to pay.
i don't know how many other people out there avoid written mail and just do it all online like i do, but what i have figured out recently is that you are really kind of screwing yourself if you do that. my theory is that credit cards want you to stay in the dark about what is going on in your account... that is why they don't say "YOUR APR IS 31.49%, DUMBASS" in big bold letters when you log in. they save that information for tiny print they mail you that you throw in a box in your sun room.
however, with my new commitment to managing my budget and being totally aware of my financial situation, i am now reading all my credit card mail. and guess what chase bank (which i have two credit cards with) sent me the other day? a notice saying that they are increasing my APR from 8.99% to 12.99% for all future purchases.
fortunately for me, i am not using any credit cards anymore and since all i have is a balance, they can't apply the new APR to the balance that is already on there. but just imagine if i hadn't read this little flyer with the tiny print? i would have fucked myself again.
in other news, january was a successful budget month for me. i actually ended up spending about $500 less than i had budgeted for. i am still working on tweaking the budget as i figure out how much i actually spend on things (something i never bothered to pay attention to before) and try to budget for larger, non-monthly expenses (such as car repairs, weddings, and traveling). but it feels really good to know that i am capable of not only sticking to a budget but actually spending less than i planned.
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31%? that's insane!
ReplyDeleteDavid's capital one is doing the same thing, which stinks. they were always pretty good for us.
Chase has always sucked, so there's nothing new. But we used all our money from our wedding gifts and last years stimulus checks to pay that off, so pbbbbt on them.
On another note, I noticed the creative commons license display at the bottom of your blog--that's a good idea. I think I might do the same thing, because I get a little paranoid sometimes...
credit cards want to screw everyone. capital one has always been pretty ok but they just pissed me off for some dumb reason (i think they were raising the interest rate and there was no balance on it which just annoyed me) so i closed mine.
ReplyDeletere: creative commons license, it is free and awesome. not that anyone really wants to post my crappy budget problems as their own but still, we all put a lot of effort and love into our blogging so why not cover your ass.