S/O Credit cards.....

[5kidsforME]

SO after 7 pages of posts in the Credit card thread I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the people on the board either 1)Don't have a credit card or 2) if you do you would NEVER carry a balance??

 

FTR we are paying off credit cards that we got ourselves in trouble with. We cut them up and are paying them off.

 

But I am standing up and saying it: We were irresponsible!! We were irresponsible!!!

 

Surely there are more of you out there that got themselves in the same predicament??? I mean we are on the other side of it. We are trying to rectify our mistake.

 

I am just thinking all the others on the other thread may have scared off those of us that have not been "perfect" and possibly even have <gasp> carried a balance.

 

Or is this going to be like the IQ thread where everyone is in the Genius catagory??? :001_huh:

[TraceyS/FL]

BTDT.

 

Carried a balance... got into major messes....

 

We don't have them now.

[Plucky]

Heck yes, we've been irresponsible. It's from getting ourselves in a whole heap of trouble with credit when we were young that we learned to be responsible. :)

 

We do still have credit cards.

[Confuzzled]

BTDT! They've been chopped up for a year and a half and we're still working on paying them off. We've been canceling them as they're paid off.

[Parrothead]

We are on a debt management plan now to pay off our wee bit of credit card debt. It is only about $2500. The fees and such were killing us so we got us a go-between to help.

[Audrey]

SO after 7 pages of posts in the Credit card thread I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the people on the board either 1)Don't have a credit card or 2) if you do you would NEVER carry a balance??

 

FTR we are paying off credit cards that we got ourselves in trouble with. We cut them up and are paying them off.

 

But I am standing up and saying it: We were irresponsible!! We were irresponsible!!!

 

Surely there are more of you out there that got themselves in the same predicament??? I mean we are on the other side of it. We are trying to rectify our mistake.

 

I am just thinking all the others on the other thread may have scared off those of us that have not been "perfect" and possibly even have <gasp> carried a balance.

 

Or is this going to be like the IQ thread where everyone is in the Genius catagory??? :001_huh:

 

Oh no. BTDT. We had a big operating line of credit and a couple of cards each with uncomfortable balances on them at one time. But, we dug out of that AND paid off the farm mortgage. It was d*mn hard work, but worth it.

 

Now, we're working on building up our own "line of credit" in an account, so that we can cancel our operating line of credit at the bank. We still have one credit card for online stuff, but it is paid off every couple of weeks to ensure that we don't get any interest charges.

[Blessedfamily]

SO after 7 pages of posts in the Credit card thread I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the people on the board either 1)Don't have a credit card or 2) if you do you would NEVER carry a balance??

 

 

Surely there are more of you out there that got themselves in the same predicament??? I mean we are on the other side of it. We are trying to rectify our mistake.

 

I am just thinking all the others on the other thread may have scared off those of us that have not been "perfect" and possibly even have <gasp> carried a balance.

 

Or is this going to be like the IQ thread where everyone is in the Genius catagory??? :001_huh:

 

Some people used to carry balances, got in a bit deep, and paid their way out. Now they say no to credit cards loud and clear. Not to make anyone feel bad, but to say "BTDT. You can do it too." :001_smile:

[Kris]

Surely there are more of you out there that got themselves in the same predicament??? I mean we are on the other side of it. We are trying to rectify our mistake.

 

I am just thinking all the others on the other thread may have scared off those of us that have not been "perfect" and possibly even have <gasp> carried a balance.

 

Or is this going to be like the IQ thread where everyone is in the Genius catagory??? :001_huh:

 

Can I just say we learned by doing? Or, maybe, learned what *not to do* by doing? :lol:

 

I'll be 51 here pretty soon. I posted we haven't had any credit cards for ten years. Wanna guess how much fun I had shopping for the rest of the time? :lol:

 

The only thing that saved the day was I used to make great money. So when I realized the pickle we were in, we were able to get 'em paid off and in the trash ASAP.

 

I'd be pretty surprised if anyone in the other thread who either doesn't use them or pays them off every month didn't reach that decision for a *very* good reason -- or maybe several thou$and of them? ;)

[5kidsforME]

Some people used to carry balances, got in a bit deep, and paid their way out. Now they say no to credit cards loud and clear. Not to make anyone feel bad, but to say "BTDT. You can do it too." :001_smile:

 

And thats what I should have said in the other thread. I said cut them up. Should have said got ourselves in trouble and digging our way out.

[Crissy]

We carried some hefty balances for a period of time after we remodeled our house.

As a rule, though, we only charge what we can afford to pay in cash at any given time.

Edited December 20, 2008 by Crissy

[LBC]

Well, if I had married a different man, I might be able to say, "btdt", but the first fight dh and I had (before we were married) was because I was paying my credit card bill at an ATM and didn't have my bill with me so I rounded it to $500. Dh was surprised that it was "exactly $500". When I told him that it was a few dollars more than that I thought he was going to have a stroke. He went on and on about how he just couldn't believe that I wouldn't pay off my entire credit card balance every month. I'm sure that the thought of marrying me seemed terrifying at that point! The conversation ended with me saying that it really wasn't that important to me, so if it mattered that much to him, we would do it his way. 18 years later I'm glad I took his advice, but if not for dh, I would have learned the hard way, with everybody else.

 

Lori

[hornblower]

I admitted to underage drinking in another thread. I'm all for legal pot. :D Some of us are irresponsible in other ways....

 

Money is really the only thing I've always been a total goody two shoes about. And dh is an even bigger tightwad than I.

 

We read financial planning books when we were still in our teens. (Hi, I'm a nerd. Do you want to talk about the magic of compound interest? Oh, you've read The Wealthy Barber too? swoon. I've found my mate! )

 

My parents talked to me about $ and credit and loans and interest; they encouraged me to get a dept store card when I got my first 'real' job in highschool but also said if ever I couldn't pay a bill, I had to tell them & get a loan either from them or from the bank - because owing to the credit card company was a fate not to be considered.

[FO4UR]

I learned the hard way.

 

I am still learning the hard way trying to pay off a huge student loan for a degree I use to SAHM and HS!!!!:lol:

[Tree House Academy]

Yep, we are there now...ish. We have carried high balances three or four times on our cards and paid them off. We are now paying off about 6K and should be done by March or so. After that, I will not be using a credit card at.all. I can not be responsible with them the way I should and I always get the balance much higher than it would be "easy" for me to pay. My dh is sweet and understanding, but both of us are fed up with how irresponsible I am. What started as $1200 for homeschool in May has now become 4K on my cc alone...and I can promise ya...not all of it is homeschool. :(

[Quiver0f10]

Nope, you aren't alone. We were stupid and have quite a bit of CC debt. We have chopped up the cards and hope to pay them off soon, but we are currently only paying the minimums. We will be at this for a while :glare:

[Kari C in SC]

We carried some hefty balances for a period of time after we remodeled our house.

As a rule, though, we only charge what we can afford to pay in cash at any given time.

 

This is us. Right now, we have about $6000 on a 0% cc that was completely for making our kitchen livable when we moved. It included cabinets, countertops and appliances. We *thought* we would have sold our house before the Home Depot 0% came due... well, then the market tanked and we are stuck with two houses. If we had sold our house, we would have paid off the new house entirely including cc. So, we transferred it to another 0% card. Now we are faced with taking our tax return and paying it off or socking that away to increase our emergency fund. Normally, I would pay it off, but the economy is hitting my dh's job and we are not sure we want to have less cash on hand. Having said all this... when I was 22 (I am almost 37 now) my then boss showed me an amortization schedule of my then $8000 in cc debt. I about died. We spent the next 10 months paying that cc off. Since then, we have never gone back to paying interest. We use one cc for everything and pay it off each month. We have used cc with 0% offers to buy big ticket items i.e. kitchens, tvs, and once I even paid off the last year of a car payment. Somehow we have always paid it off before the year was up. This was the first time our plans didn't go the way we thought. Would I do it over again with adding the kitchen? Yep! We use it everyday - most of the day. We are not paying interest on it and will either pay it off with the tax return or over the next year. Either way - it was money well spent.

Edited December 20, 2008 by Kari C in SC

[hmschoolmom22]

yep, have them, yep, gotten in over our heads, yep, paying them off and we have cut them up!!!!!!!! never again!!

[LisaKinVA]

We've been there... err... am there. When we were first married, we were advised (by Larry Burkett teachers who are also our parents -- yeah, I know, that does not compute!) to NOT cash in part of our retirement funds to pay off our credit cards, as we were making much more in the market than we were paying in interest. :confused:

 

2 years later, the dot-com erased our retirement and savings accounts, and we still had debt. NOT fun.

 

Then, we had to sell our home, and had to borrow $10k just to get out of the house. Then, I lost my job. Then dh lost his job. We lost everything else too.

 

After several years, making just $30k, having 3-4 little children, we still were having to use credit cards to cover unexpected medical bills and tires, we're now in a much better position (making $130k again), and are working hard to pay off everything in one year -- including the family business debt we inherited in August. It won't be easy, but it will be sooo worth it.

 

We've done really great with our budget in 2007-2008, and have paid cash for everything. But, 2009 is "our year" the end of our "7 lean years" -- at the end of which, we'll be rapidly building our assets instead of paying off bills.

 

We will NEVER listen to anyone, EVER again, that tells us it's better to carry the debt and keep $$$ in retirement/investment funds. And our children will learn these lessons in spades.

 

We are NOT getting into this position again.

 

We have a three year plan -- year 1 pays off all debt. Year 2 completely funds our emergency fund. Year 3... we reward ourselves with a very nice trip to Disney World.

[Barb_]

We were irresponsible, got in over our heads, paid them off, never cancelled them and now use them fairly well. Every so often we carry a balance for a couple of months, so we're not perfect, but we put a freeze on them until they are paid.

 

Barb

[lighthouseacademy]

I was raised that you DO NOT go in to debt. I was taught that over and over and over and I was always aware of financial decisions and their impacts. I also had taken several math courses where a good deal of time was spent on interest, compound interest, etc. When I graduated from high school and got a credit card, I paid it off faithfully every month. When dh and I got married, he too had been raised the same way (his dad is an accounting professor). We had to pay for most of our wedding and our honeymoon. We ended up with about $2000 total debt (out of about 2500 total cost for the wedding, honeymoon, and rings) from it that we paid off over the next 3 months with finance free balance transfer checks and working hard. We did not want to pay a cent of interest. Fast forward a few years, we had a car accident (some idiot cut down a tree on top of our car while we were driving it) and we got stuck with part of the bill because the guy was a fraud and the insurance company didn't go after the homeowner because he had given them license and bond numbers etc that were fakes. We had to pay about $2000 total to come back out from the loss. We were in a bit of a pickle and did end up paying some interest as I think the debt got to about $6000 or so because I let it get away from me. We cleared that up when we refinanced our house and have never gone there again and now maintain an emergency fund and various savings accounts etc. We still use our credit card but we learned a few things about making sure to pay attention and use it to our advantage rather than the bank's. So, nope, not perfect here, but lessons learned.

[chaik76]

We're currently paying off our bad decisions...should be done in oh, twenty years or so.:tongue_smilie:

And yes, I'm serious. We're more than a quarter million in debt if you take into account our mortgage, student loans, and credit card debt.

[rafiki]

.

[Just Me]

Honestly? We have a mess that we are cleaning up right now. We have no cards - they have all been cut up. But we are trying to pay those balances and become debt free.

 

The one lesson I have learned is this - I cannot have a credit card. I cannot handle the temptation of "easy money". I never seem to need the money as badly when there is no available credit as I do when there is a balance left to use.

 

I am trying to instill the 'no credit' values into my children. I am doing what I can to change my habits.

[Nestof3]

Perhaps a lot of people have that stance now b/c that have been irresponsible in the past. :)

[newlifemom]

Like the OP, I am heartened to know that my family is not the only irresponsible one on these boards. In my defense, may I just state that we spent our first 12 years of marriage living on Long Island without making Long Island $. KWIM? A lot of our irresponsibility were for things like groceries, car repairs and clothes. However, with God's grace and detemination we stopped right before our last baby was born and haven't used them since. Still cleaning up the mess, and as one so correctly stated will be for the next 20 years. :glare:

[Lovedtodeath]

Sorry... I didn't see the other thread. We use ours all the time. The balance varies. I would say it averages at $4000. DH always manages to pay it off. Over and over and over. We also have a home equity line of credit that we regret.