[lovemyshy]

I want to apply for a Credit Card, but am feeling rather over whelmed with all the choices out there. What cards do you guys recommend??

This is what I want from my cards:

Decent interest rate
Reward incentives (preferably merchandise)
Good protection and insurance



I would be mostly using my card to purchase groceries every month, and would pay that balance off pretty much as soon as I get my next pay cheque. It would also be there for emergencies, but soon Jay and I will be making a pretty decent monthly income so I'm not too worried about not being able to pay it off each month.

[Shotgun93]

Be careful with credit cards, you think it's easy to pay it off every month, but it can get easy to only start making min. payments and you end up paying more in interest than what your original purchase was.
Instead of using a credit card to rely on for emergencies, consider putting money aside every month into a savings account for your emergency fund. It will gain interest instead of you having to pay it on a credit card. And, it's a heck of a lot easier to decide what a real emergency is when your money is comeing from a savings account as opposed to a credit card.

We had probably every major card under the sun. None of them were great, all of them raise the interest rate sky high if you go over the limit or make a late payment, or sometimes even if you just carry too much of a balance for a period of time.

[lovemyshy]

Hmmmmm, definetly food for thought!!

[Top Dun]

Personally Just Don't do it. Put your money in a bank account and get a bank debit card. If you are not already in debt then just don't start that cycle of debt. I've gotten rid of Every single credit card I own (except one for medical related bills only) and ONLY use my debit card for regular purchases. The ONLY regular credit card I keep is my Mandatory Job related, Job paid off card.

[Xiphias]

It is way to easy to get way to much in debt with them, trust me! Cathy

[Shotgun93]

Here is more food for thought:

The Truth About Credit Card Debt

My husband and I had thousands of dollars in credit card debt and we worked so, so hard to pay it off while saving for a down payment on a house and paying off student loans.
People are amazed now at the things we can afford now, but it's not that we make a lot of money, it's that we freed up a huge amount of our budget by removing car and credit card payments and put everything we can into savings. You'd be surprised how much better off you'll be if you just avoid the cards and pay cash or debit card for everything.

Check out the link too, Dave makes excellent points about reward programs with credit cards, they aren't rewarding as you think.

[lovemyshy]

Originally Posted by Shotgun93

Here is more food for thought:

The Truth About Credit Card Debt

My husband and I had thousands of dollars in credit card debt and we worked so, so hard to pay it off while saving for a down payment on a house and paying off student loans.
People are amazed now at the things we can afford now, but it's not that we make a lot of money, it's that we freed up a huge amount of our budget by removing car and credit card payments and put everything we can into savings. You'd be surprised how much better off you'll be if you just avoid the cards and pay cash or debit card for everything.

Check out the link too, Dave makes excellent points about reward programs with credit cards, they aren't rewarding as you think.

Thanks for that link Shotgun!! I'll definetly check it out.

I know you guys are so right. I do have a payment schedule posted on my fridge for when I start making better money from my new job. We have a lot of catching up to do from bad decisions, and its gonna take us about a year to get all the old debt paid off (if we stick to my payment schedule I've already printed off). I'm seriously NOT interested in getting into the same situation again, and Jay and I have discussed how we are going to be much smarter once we get caught up by saving up and paying cash for things we need.

Currently we are paying about 4000 dollars per month in montly bills, payments etc... (that is 48,000/year ). Once we have our old debt cleared up we will go down to 3000k per month for monthly expenses (that is everything, including groceries, insurance, and babysitting costs) which is only 36,000/ year. Between the two of us we will be clearing about 90k per year (after all the deductions, and RRSP contributions etc.) so we should easily be able to afford to pay cash for any purchases.

[Shotgun93]

That web page has an excellent plan for paying off debt - the Debt Snowball. I highly recommend looking around the website. We bought the books and followed the program and it didn't take us very long to pay off what we did. I highly suggest looking into it, you will definately think twice before financing or occuring more debt.

[lovemyshy]

Originally Posted by Shotgun93

That web page has an excellent plan for paying off debt - the Debt Snowball. I highly recommend looking around the website. We bought the books and followed the program and it didn't take us very long to pay off what we did. I highly suggest looking into it, you will definately think twice before financing or occuring more debt.

I know what you mean, its insane how much you pay in interest on things.

So, what would your opinion be on buying a vehicle that offers 0.9%-1.9% interest??

[Lindsayanne]

I only sign up for cards with a 0% introductory interest rate, then switch when the introductory period is over.