Money Walks

Wow, all these years paying my credit card on time and it looks like it’s finally starting to pay off. I have now been trying to build my credit for about 3 years now, consistently checking my credit report and making sure to meet my payments each month and finally, my bank decides that they can “trust” me with a credit card with 25,000.00 dollar limit. Woot!

My first credit card had a limit of 2,000 dollars and back then, that was a lot for me. I was really happy to know that I was worthy of being offered a credit card with that high limit. Ever since then, I’ve always been trying to see how much of an increase I can get by calling and asking every 3 months. So I guess in a way, that was one of my motives for wanting to increase my credit score, so that one day I can have a credit card with limit that’s over 20,000.00 dollars. And now that I finally got this limit, I hate to say it but I think I’m going to have to decline it.

So you’re asking why decline the offer I’ve been working so hard for? Well there are plenty of reasons I guess. Here are 5 reasons:

• Accepting this credit card with 25,000.00 might lower my credit score. Although my initial reason to build my credit was to have an enormous credit limit, now I’m looking in to buying a house within the next four years. I need to keep my credit score up so that it will help me get the necessary amount for down payment for the house.
• I already have 3 credit cards and another one is not necessary, especially since I am in the process of getting out of debt from my previous credit cards. Accepting this credit now would be really stupid move for someone whose trying to get out of debt.
• Having high credit limit is not always a good thing. One, it can lower your credit score, and also what if your wallet gets stolen? Then what? The higher the limits your credit cards has, the more damage the person who finds it can do.
• Having that high credit card might just influence me to go out and use that card. Not a good thing.
• I really don’t have the use for it. I’m just happy that I got offered

Anyways, on top of my credit card offer which was going for the rate of 12.15%,I was also offered an auto loan for 50,000.00 at 6.24% and also a personal loan for 3,000.00 at the rate of 11.5%. In total, it comes to a nice grand total of $78,000.00! And although it’s very tempting, I’m not accepting any of this.

I just can’t wait until I become debt free. Once I get out of debt, I will be so happy and relieved. I don’t think you can ever know what the stress feels like of being in debt, worrying day and night over how much you can payoff that week, until you actually experience it.

In the world of finance, I think the power of feeling debt free is one of the strongest because once you get to that point, your attitude towards saving and being frugal is perfectly in tuned. When you get in the habit of saving and pinching every nickle to pay off that credit card, it’s hard to quite, kinda like an addiction. Saving and being frugal is all about the attitude in my book. If you got the attitude, it no longer feels like an obligation but rather the feeling becomes natural to live frugally and in turn becomes easier to manage as a hobby. 

Things are looking good though, I should be able to beat my clock counter. According to my deadline, which was April 26th, but I believe looking at my current situation that I can probably get out of debt by mid February. I’ll keep you up dated.

Today the infamous Carnival of Personal Finance and the Carnival of Real Estate were hosted.

Nickel over at Fivecentnickel hosted the 85th edition of  CoPF. There were many great submissions and I want to point out some that I liked.

Carnival of Personal Finance articles I liked:

• NCN’s article on Creating a Personal Finance Goal.
• searchlightcrusade’s What to do when your loan is declined.
• Clever dude presents 3 methods to pay down debt.
• Wisebread presents Can you really make money from taking online surveys.

Frugal from My1stMillionat33 hosted the Carnival of Real Estate. There were over 30 entries in this edition. Be sure to check it out.

Carnival of Real Estate articles I liked:

• Exchange Ingredients presents 10 things your real estate broker will not tell you.
• Steve from 1SiliconValley writes, How much house can I afford.
• RealProspex had an article on 8 ways find a deal without searching.
• Getting green gives us Many faces of Mortgage fraud and rip offs.

I want to thank Nickel and Frugal for hosting these great carnivals, Thanks guys!

One of my goals is to be a home owner within the next 4 years. As of now I’m not too sure where I want to live yet but where ever it is it’s probably not going to be here in Maryland. Houses here are super ridiculous and not worth it. I think the average house here is somewhere around 375-450k. Now if I head somewhere south, maybe like Florida, the cost can get as low as 175-250!

In the meantime, I’m going to start saving up for that down payment and I can start on that as soon as I get my credit card paid off. Looking at my current situation, I think I will be able to beat my clock counter and be able to have it paid off sometime in Mid February. How did I do it? Well, there were some unexpected income that I will receive within the next month. I will get a refund check from my school that will be at around 1450 and my tax refund will be somewhere around 2500 to 3000. Aaaand, my friend who owed me about 1300 will be able to pay me off with his tax refund. So I think I should be in good shape for now.

Anyways, I was browsing through Yahoo’s Real Estate section and came across this neat calculator. It’s pretty cool because it shows you an estimate not only for your house but also the other houses around your neighborhood. You can check out the calculator by clicking here.

I also found some interesting facts about some price values of popular homes values.

The Brady Bunch House estimated at 972,428

Osbourne MTV House estimated at 12,177,002

Charmed House estimated at 980,748

Beverly Hills 90210 House estimated at 1,184,579.

What’s interesting about this is that the 90210 is referred as the postal address but actually their zip code is 91001 and is not in Beverly Hills but rather in Altadena. Kinda funny eh?

This week, I was featured in two carnivals.

One was other at Money, Matter and More Musing. Golbguru hosted the 15th edition of The Festival of Under 30 Finances.

Joe other at workingathomeinternet hosted the 17th edition of Working at Home Blog Carnival.

There were many great entries for both carnivals, thanks for hosting guys!If you haven’t checked em out yet, I suggestyou head over and start reading.

Here are some articles that caught my eye for this week.

Trent at thesimpledollar explains to us How bad of a deal is a 50 year mortgage.

Stubborncapitalist posts a nice chart that shows the difference between Frugal Vs. Cheap

Getting green gives great advice on what we should do with our tax refund.

Flexo over at consumerismcommentary talks about investing: real estate vs. stock market.

Makingourway talks about his travelings ahead and shares with us More ways to save money while travelling on an expense account