I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘credit cards’ Category

And I just activated it. I feel kind of weird inside. I am about to use a credit card for the first time in about 4 years.

The credit limit on it turned out to be more than enough to transfer our entire balance from the Capital One card. So, I am going out grocery shopping today, and am paying for my Walmart purchases with the card to get my free $50 gift card. Then whenever that posts to our account (I already set up online account access), I am making a payment of the total amount to the card. Then when that posts to my account and my balance is again $0, I am transferring my Capital One balance to this new card. I’ll have 12 months from the date of transfer at 0% interest and even though that is faster than our anticipated payoff date we are going to try our hardest to meet that date.

Then the card gets stowed away and I don’t look at it again for a long time.

I thought about doing the balance transfer now and forgoing the $50 gift card but I shouldn’t accrue anything near $50 in interest on the Capital One card in the time it takes me to fulfill the requirement of a purchase and pay it off. We’ll see. I might change my mind before this evening.

Oh and in other news I did today look at my Wachovia account and I did sell my investments lower than they were a month ago. A bit lower, not a huge huge amount but maybe ~4-5%. And so it goes. I hope I’m buying Vanguard lower than a month ago too… but whatever. It is long term and life happens.

~J

Today when I checked my mail, indeed, the white envelope from Capital One was waiting for me.  How nice.

I opened it with a bit of trepidation but also a bit of “you know what, bring it on, I’m beyond caring at this point”.  The front of the enclosed brochure proclaimed “Important notice of a change in terms” and I thought…. okay then.  Of course.  It would have to happen this way, right?

But when I opened it, I discovered that my interest rate was not changing after all.  My fees were changing (assumably higher, I honestly don’t know what they were before) for late payments, returned payments, and being over the credit limit as of September 2007′s billing cycle.

I don’t intend on having any of said things happen to this account,  so in essence it really doesn’t affect me.  And better not.  But it did make my heart beat just a little faster in the moments between opening the envelope and opening the actual brochure inside.

I hate that a credit card can do that to me.  No more.  Well… soon no more.

~J