Posted by admin on September 8th, 2008 filed in
Uncategorized
We have made relatively NO forward progress on our debt. Largely this is due to interest. The other day I was checking our American Express account and noticed that our payment was LESS than the interest charged for the month. What the?? Guess what, our interest rate has been changed from 14.99 to 24.99%! That will make you pee your drawers! Turns out there is no longer a "grace" period on our account. Our payment must arrive by the due date, or it is considered late. Now, we have had this card for over 5 years, and this has never been an issue. I have noticed too, that the "electronic" payment that goes out from our bank is taking longer to reach the credit card companies. Anyway, I called American Express to see if we could get this interest rate lowered and of course their answer was NO. So now I have to see if I can juggle part of this to another account with a lower interest rate and pray THEY don't decide that the moon is aligned with Venus and therefore they must raise our rate too. Oh Lord, help us!! I have NEVER had an interest rate this high in my life!
September 9th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
So sorry to hear this! Yes, the only thing you can do at this point is transfer your balance elsewhere. Good luck!
September 10th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Hopefully you’ll be able to do a balance transfer. However, you really need to try to pay off one of your smaller debts in full, that way you can apply those payments to some of your larger debts.
I know that your husband likes to blame you for all the problems but you need to make him see what all this debt is costing you.
I would recommend that you add up all of the interest you are being charged each month on all your debts [just the interest - not even any principal pay down] and then compare that to your combined monthly take-home salary. Show him what percentage of your incomes is going towards just the interest.
Normally I wouldn’t advocate taking money out of savings to pay off debt but you are in a FISCAL EMERGENCY.
By the way, why aren’t you on the savings account and why can’t you access it? If something should happen to him, you would not have any access to that money for quite some time.