The reason I wanted to include the previous post here, is because there have been more recent developments in the whole “pay off my credit cards” goal.
See, I got another credit card. With a much higher limit than any of my previous ones. Yikes!
It may not look like it, but this is actually a good thing.
First, it allows me to transfer the balances of my other debts to this new card, consolidating them — and, of course, then eliminate the other lesser cards, just close those suckers right down.
Second, because this new card offered me 0% APR on transferred balances (which is the reason I applied in the first place), I have eliminated finance charges for the rest of the year. And the new card has a $0 annual fee, and a relatively low APR on purchases, although it’s a variable APR that can fluctuate depending on the Prime Rate. So I gotta watch that.
The downside is that, because of timing, transferring the balances adds one more pay period (half a month) to the time until I’m free once more of debt. But as I said, it’s still a good thing.
It appears that I have managed to repair my credit to the point where it was before I screwed up — wait, let me find a more positive way to say that. Ummm… How about “…to the point before I began exploring the challenges, risks, and rewards of fiscal adventure.” Heh.
However, even though I’m keeping two of my credit cards, the total amount I can go into debt has gone up significantly. As a hedge against plunging too deep into debt again, my new revised savings target is at least enough cash to pay off my total unsecured debt, which will be $3500. I should be able to set aside this amount by mid-2006.
In fact, a side point; I’m going to be retiring $1800 in debt in the next two months. Wow. Until I sat down to figure that out, I didn’t realize how much extra money I have. And I’m not going to have to make any major lifestyle changes to do it; I live pretty simply, but even so. Extrapolate that out over the course of a year, and that’s $10,800, or around 25% of my gross income.
I need to be holding on to some (most!) of that money next year — my new financial goal.