Skip to main content

Did You Make the Cut?

Almost 20 years ago, I bought a used van with very low miles, under 30,000, but it had a salvaged title. The alternator went out on it and I had to be towed to the tune of $175.00, cheap by today’s standards. Anyway, because it was a salvaged title, it was no longer covered by manufacturer’s warranty, so I paid for a new alternator out of pocket (ouch), but I wrote a letter to the auto manufacturer explaining my towing-bill dilemma. Guess what? They sent me a check to cover the cost of the towing.

What’s the point, you say? It is this: It never hurts to ask.

Back on September 5 and 19, 2019 I wrote blog posts about credit cards and how they work. Feel free to review them: “Knowthe Difference,” and “CanYou Handle It?” In the latter post, I assigned some very telling homework, and, I suggested that you shred all your plastic if you couldn’t “handle it.”

This leads me to the clever title of my blog post. Okay, I’ll explain it to you.

If you heeded the advice in my almost-two-year-old-debt-hating-diatribe, you should have made a “cut” of some kind. Perhaps you figured out that you can, indeed, manage a credit card with the utmost integrity and responsibility (upon review it means NEVER paying interest because you ALWAYS pay the balance monthly IN ITS ENTIRETY with money you already have ON HAND and have BUDGETED for those purchases). Good for you! You made the grade. But then again, perhaps you used the scissors.

If you are in the latter group, I really have to give you some credit (another pun, I’m on a roll!), here. It’s a difficult thing to do. But you will be better for it in the long run. If you are in the former group (and are currently working on ELIMINATING all debt, including this credit card), this hack is specifically for you.

Give your credit card company (there really should be only ONE) a call and ask them for a rate reduction. Like my intro story indicates, it never hurts to ask.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One More–Christmas Experiences Part II

Christmas is just a week away. Hopefully you’ve checked everything off your to-do list and can spend some quality time “experiencing” Christmas gifts with your family. Because, after all, your loved ones will be far more touched by how you made them feel than they will be with what you gave them. This week, I want to share with you my sister, Carey’s, family Christmas experience. “One Christmas, when my boys, now 18, 23 and 28, were little, we gave them an experience that is still talked about now. And it’s something so easily replicated that any family can do it, and it’s not too late to do it for Christmas (even ON Christmas) this year. We drove around our neighborhood and looked at all the homes decorated for the holiday. We took note of the addresses as we numbered them. We talked about what made each ornamented yards stand out. And at the end of the night, we voted for our favorite. I had my sons help me make some of our favorite holiday desserts and, in addition to taking p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Timing is Everything

I was told that a good time to buy a car is January or February. Why? I would guess it’s because many people are financially destitute right after Christmas (because they have not yet been introduced to my blog!) so car sales are down. I do think there is another reason. I think that most people have yet to file their taxes and receive their tax returns (a.k.a. overpayment that they loaned interest-free to the government ) with which they plan to make a down payment. Now it’s March, and many people have already filed their taxes and received said overpayment that we common-folk refer to as a return, and it’s burning a hole in their pockets. This can be good news for you if you have things you want to sell. Now is the time to capitalize on the extra influx of cash. What do you have around your house that you no longer use that you can sell? Speaking as someone who has done this very thing, I must warn you. Selling stuff you don’t need anymore and collecting the cash can be addicting...
Post a Comment
Read more

The One Nobody Wants to Talk About

A young, twenty-something wife and mother of three in my neighborhood lost her husband unexpectedly a few years ago. He died with no life insurance. It left the family financially devastated . She had to sell her house and move into her parent’s basement. A Go Fund Me account paid for her husband’s funeral. I have another friend who lost her husband to a horrible illness when they were in their early forties. This couple had planned ahead and made sure they had the right amounts of the right kinds of insurance in place, including life insurance on the major breadwinner of the family–my friend’s husband. A year or so after he passed, I asked her how she was doing financially. She said her husband had taken care of her financially in death just as well as he had in life. Life insurance is crucial for a specific portion of your life. Do not overlook this. There is more to losing a family member than the overwhelming grief of the loss itself. No one needs financial hardship heape...
Post a Comment
Read more