A personal victory

Just sent $803.83 in to Barclay, the bank that holds my credit card. Racked up $2500 in debt on it a few years ago paying for school and occasionally stupid shit I should not have bought on credit.

This payment zeroes out my balance, which I had been working on since January as my New Years promise.

I've got another card with a little over $1000 on it left, but at a much more reasonable rate than the 24.99% Barclay had been pushing on me since November, which spurred my decision to work to pay it off.

Feels great. Got a few items about to be sold (EOTech rifle optic and my camera) which will go a long ways to paying off the other one.

Got a loan I gave to a friend coming back soon as well, which I think will pay off the balance of that card, and the rest I might use to buy myself a toy (maybe a tax stamp for my AR)

Sorry for the long post, but it feels fucking amazing to get that weight off my shoulders.

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Originally Posted by Ridge

Just sent $803.83 in to Barclay, the bank that holds my credit card. Racked up $2500 in debt on it a few years ago paying for school and occasionally stupid shit I should not have bought on credit.

This payment zeroes out my balance, which I had been working on since January as my New Years promise.

I've got another card with a little over $1000 on it left, but at a much more reasonable rate than the 24.99% Barclay had been pushing on me since November, which spurred my decision to work to pay it off.

Feels great. Got a few items about to be sold (EOTech rifle optic and my camera) which will go a long ways to paying off the other one.

Got a loan I gave to a friend coming back soon as well, which I think will pay off the balance of that card, and the rest I might use to buy myself a toy (maybe a tax stamp for my AR)

Sorry for the long post, but it feels fucking amazing to get that weight off my shoulders.

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congrats. paying something off is a great feeling

I fucked my credit when i was 19-20 and it still has not recovered been a brutal process

Congratulations.

My fiance and I are trying to figure out how to get out from under all of our debt and it's not a fun thing to contemplate.

Congratulations!

Nice work.

Credit is just a way to make you poor. Pay them off and use a debit card.

Find some good resources here on finances. (www.daveramsey.com)

Took me a long time to learn my lesson.

Congrats, and keep at it.

Since I know this will degrade into a tips thread, I'll kick it off. I don't know if you're in the situation or not, but I see a lot of my friends who have credit card debt, and are still "investing" in the stock market. Credit card debt comes first - it's a guaranteed 20% hit against you, vs. a 10% maybe return in the stock market.

My perspective:

Use credit cards whenever possible, but never buy anything you can't afford in cash
->You will never carry a balance month-over-month
->The credit card company will work for you
->I make 3% on my spending every year

Credit is for real estate and vehicles, and ideally not vehicles.

I had a Barclays card as well. Congratulations!

Congrats!

The wife and I are just starting our debt snowball. If we can stick with it, we can be totally debt free in about 8 or 9 years. That includes our two cars and a mortgage, saving us tens of thousands of dollars in interest.

+1 for Dave Ramsey. He is a great source for financial info.

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by Drilldov2.0

Find some good resources here on finances. (www.daveramsey.com)

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This right here is a HUGE +1.

Nice!

Congrats man!
It's hard to buckle the belt I KNOW but you will be so much better off without that looming over your head every month.

damn 24.99% , that seems like it should be against the frikin law . hell even vinny bag of doughnuts would have given you a better vig than that . congrats on paying that sucker off .

[Beer]

Congratz!

Congrats!

We've been working on our dept as well, after a fun-filled 2 weeks of working 72+ hour weeks doing somebody else's job (while they were on strike), We just paid off the last 2 cards from when my wife had her store racking them up, as well as re-fi'd the mortgage to 4.75%

good feeling to get that off your back...[Beer]

Congrats! This past year I buckled down REAL hard and last month finished paying off a mountain of CC debt I piled up during/after college (young, dumb, full of...). Such a great feeling.

Great going. You're doing fantastic. I know it can be hard to maintain the self control but for me it was very satisfying to not owe anybody.

Be prepared for your credit rating to go in the crapper. If you aren't paying interest to someone they penalize you by lowering your credit rating number. It makes it hard to get a loan if you do need one. My credit rating went down below 600 because I didn't owe anybody anything for over 10 years. You may want to check with some experts about what you can do to keep your rating up if you anticipate eventually borrowing to get a house or something.

Hang in there and keep it up.

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Originally Posted by Ridge

Just sent $803.83 in to Barclay, the bank that holds my credit card. Racked up $2500 in debt on it a few years ago paying for school and occasionally stupid shit I should not have bought on credit.

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I used to work for Barclay, mostly when they were still Juniper Bank and before I moved out here. Not quite as evil as most credit card banks...

But I also just knocked out my last CC balance last week. Since I use it constantly for day to day stuff, I haven't been able to hit exactly zero yet, but I'm definitely in the zone where it's paid off every 2 weeks. Not down to zero debt (besides the mortgage) since I still have a small second mortgage and a car payment left, but getting so much closer. If we behave, we'll be in great shape this time next year.

Awesome! I started getting into debt when I was 19, paid everything off and do nothing but cash ever since I was probably 24. The only debt I owe is my house, but I figure if I don't have enough cash to buy a car then I don't need it. It's amazing how freeing that feeling is that you never owe anyone, it has also dictated the direction of my life and career because like everyone else I want the nicer things in life so I work hard and sculpted my career to afford me those things without credit cards.

Good work, you are going to feel SOOOOOO free soon!

sounds like you're going right back at if if you want to run out and buy something the first time you have no CC debt. how about saving some cash instead of spending it?

Well someones gotta stimulate the economy! But no, seriously, I keep a buffer of cash that would help me in case of an emergency or a couple months without income.

http://www.upperplayground.com/wp-co...132744.gif.gif

Glad you are getting everything taken care of! It is definitely nice to not have any debt.

Nice work on the credit cards.

My wife went on bedrest with our 2nd child and she couldn't work. Racked up about $30K of credit card debt and doctors bills. Have 1 card left with $10K on it. Slowly but surely........

All my kids will be lectured and lectured and lectured about the dangers of credit cards.