Is it Monday already?

[angelchicken]

tomorrow I have to get up early because we have a company meeting at 8:00am.

BOO!

This will throw off my learning about the train by one day which means I will have to be getting up (probably)(maybe) early this whole week to get the hang of the time it takes to walk to the train, the amount of crowd, where to stand, the number of stops on the train, whether or not I'll be able to sit, if it's faster to get off at Wells and walk or just to loop around the, well, Loop and get off right by my building and closer to coffee.

So many new things to learn!

Also, I like this three day weekend thing.

If only it was *every* weekend!

~

This afternoon, after my last post, I closed my eyes and napped hard for about an hour and woke up feeling quite rested. I didn't dream or anything and I didn't set my alarm so I just woke up when I wanted to wake up.

I need more of those.

~

Question for the financially inclined:

Does opening a new credit card every year so as to get 0% interest on balance transfers absolutely destroy your credit?

Also, is there a benefit to getting a line of credit in order to consolidate debt for easier payoff?

Is one better then the other?

And where can I find a nice carpet that isn't a frillion dollars? I want to stimulate the economy, dag nabit, and want to stimulate it with a carpet! Though I could also use the money to pay a chunk of debt. But will that stimulate the economy? Probably not as much as a new rug, is all I'm saying.

Work. Tomorrow. Again.

I unpacked a bag of makeup today. It wasn't a very big bag. It could, feasibly, fit in my purse. But at least I unpacked something. ::wins::

Comments

[thehappyluddite.livejournal.com]

Getting new credit cards: every time you apply for any new credit of any kind (credit card, store credit card, mortgage, personal loan), the company that wants to issue the credit runs an inquiry on your credit report. If you're shopping around for a mortgage, this does not harm your creditworthiness. If you're opening credit cards in stores it does harm your credit rating. I don't know what happens if you open one credit card per year.
A good thing to check out: you get one free credit report per year, by law. You can request your free credit report to see where you are.

Debt consolidation: make sure it's worthwhile in terms of interest payments saved. In other words, if you have five credit cards that are all around 12% interest but the debt-consolidating-LOC is going to be be 15%, then it doesn't make sense to do it.

I would always recommend paying down debt before making a major purchase, but that's just me. I also recommend eating a gallon of ice cream every day, too, but that's not necessarily good advice, either. :-)

[thehappyluddite.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, one more thing about getting a new 0% card every year. Do you mean, you get one, max it out, then open another one? Or do you mean you transfer balances from the first one to the second one?

[angelchicken.livejournal.com]

Ah, I mean transferring balances from one card to another. I am trying to cut my debt (which will be easier, I hope, in my less expensive apartment and also when I finish the accutane), but I don't know the most fiscally responsible way to do it, you know? I remember Vee once saying she opened a new card every year and I was thinking, "does that make sense? because it doesn't sound smart, but I could be horribly wrong".

But if I could transfer all of my debt from my two cc's onto one 0% interest card without screwing up my credit then I would be ever so happy to do so!

Ya know?

[(Anonymous)]

Ok, I'm more awake now.

Make sure you read all the fine print before you open a new card.
Some of the ones with intro periods have really high regular APRs after that 12 months or whatever is up. Also some are 0% on transfers, but not new purchases, or vice versa.

Also, from what I have been reading, opening a new card isn’t necessarily the end of your credit score. I think paying off debt will help your score, more than opening a new card will hurt it. I'm not sure if there is some threshold between once in a while & all the time, that changes that. There are also calculators that can help you figure out how long it will take to pay off.

Taking out a loan might be better, if the interest rate is low enough, but that depends on how good your credit is now.

I'll email you about some websites with more info on this stuff.

[the-lbb.livejournal.com]

It's Tuesday here already, actually, which makes it too late/early to pretend I know what I'm talking about, but I've heard that actually stimulating the economy involves buying a big ticket American product that you wouldn't have otherwise purchased. Domestic vacations count, too. Unfortunately, I think we only stimulated the economy of our local car mechanic.

In your case, it is probably better to stimulate your own economy first, so that you can continue to share the wealth in the long term.

For a cheap rug,I went to a carpet place in a semi-sketchy neighborhood & bought a big chunk off a generic, solid, in stock roll & had it bound. It was much more reasonable than an actual area rug, b/c I needed big.

Welcome to you new place!

[fleetpete.livejournal.com]

(http://www.ozyandmillie.org/d/19990512.html)

[fleetpete.livejournal.com]

Twelve percent? What? I'm totally financially naive, but i don't see why you should be paying that much. The prime rate these days is 5.00%. Interest rates on thirty-year mortgages are about 6.25%. Home equity line of credit, 4.00%; home equity loan, 6.75%; CD-secured personal line of credit, 5.50%. If you're looking to consolidate debt, i would assume you're much better off talking to your bank about a loan than transferring the debt into a credit card with its high interest rate.

Now, with the stock market being down like it is, and interest rates being as low as they are, they say that it's a good time to have some debt in favour of buying stocks and mutual funds. However, the interest rates on credit cards are almost guaranteed to be higher than the expected growth rate of investments.

As for balance transfers, do they really charge zero interest on the amount you're transferring? Forever? Or is it just that there's no fee for the transfer, but you start paying interest on it immediately?

[the-lbb.livejournal.com]

CC APRs are higher--about 8%-12% right now, but I have seen as high as 18%. There are some cards that have intro periods, where you do not pay interest on new purchases or on the balance that was transferred for the entirety of the intro period. Some you pay interest on one, but not the other. The intro period may be 6 months, 12 months the end of the calendar year, etc. The APR can be really high at the end of that period though.

[fleetpete.livejournal.com]

(http://gocomics.com/garfield/2008/07/18/)

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I long for a nap almost every afternoon. I rarely get one, though, seeing as I'm usually working.

[sweet-ali.livejournal.com]

I have no financial advice, but Target and Ikea are my choices for cheaper but still stylish rugs.