Reflecting on Stupidity - Desperate for Credit
Fri 30 Nov 2007, Written by Eden
Categories: Debt, Reflecting on Stupidity
I spent some time recently cleaning out old financial documents and I found a credit card statement that made me laugh. I guess I must have been really desperate for credit and the opportunity to spend money that I didn’t have because this credit card was just awful.
I had to pay a $70 set-up fee and $69 annual fee and the interest rate was about 23%. The limit was $600 and there were no rewards or anything else that could even remotely begin to justify those huge fees. All I can say when I look at that is I can’t believe how stupid I was. I can’t believe how much money I threw away in an effort to spend more money than I had anyway. It’s disgusting really.
Fortunately, I got at least a little bit smart even before starting my official financial turnaround because I paid off that card last year and closed the account. If you have a credit card like that or if those sound like good terms to you, cancel the account immediately! Believe me, you will regret it later if you don’t. 
November 30th, 2007 at 10:48 am | Mrs. Micah said:
Yeah. Normally credit cards shouldn’t be cancelled for the whole credit score thing. But with fees like that—definitely.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:42 pm | Frank said:
Hey Mrs. Micah, I’m not sure how I feel about the whole idea of keeping credit cards open in order to maintain a FICO store. I will likely play along for now since I can see buying a new house in the next few years as a real possibility, but outside of that I think I would prefer to break free from the credit score system.
Before anyone calls me crazy- I’m still debating both sides of this and it’s too early to make a final decision anyway. Those are just my thoughts as of now.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:23 pm | debtdieter said:
I don’t think cancelling cards impacts your credit score in Australia, I will need to check up on that though.
One like that is worth cancelling regardless though, what a nightmare!