Yes, three pieces of good news all in one segment!
Firstly, if you carry a credit card balance, here’s a card you’re going to want to get. Capital One just rolled out a Smartline Platinum card with a 5.99% fixed rate for three years with no annual fee and no balance transfer fee! If you always pay off your card, you’re better off with a card that has perks. Paying the card in full means you really don’t care what the rate is, because you’ll never be paying interest anyway.
On this card, after three years, the rate goes to prime plus 5. Right now, that would still make it the cheapest credit card rate around! But you’ll need a really good credit score of about 760 or higher. With this incredible rate they do not want people who are any kind of risk of arrears or default. Go to capitalone.ca and click on premium low rate cards. The app is on-line and you’ll get an answer in 30 seconds.
One family listened to me last year! Yes, it’s true. I just received an e mail from a family that did what I suggested last year, the year before, and the year before. Instead of making it a credit card Christmas over and over, take some money out of each pay and put it into a dedicated savings account for the annual bills such as car insurance and Christmas for example.
Well, the e mailer shared that they put $150 away each month and are now done saving for Christmas! THAT is one of the best presents they can give themselves. For the rest of us, there are seven paydays before Christmas. Figure out roughly what you’ll need, divide it by seven and put the money aside. It’ll avoid that big depression and large credit card bill in January!
Talk about a financial turn-around!
About two months ago I received an e mail from someone in the Okanagan. They had a rental house without a tenant, and were now paying two mortgages, plus their credit cards, line of credit, and other debt. They were in serious trouble.
Since I didn’t have any information on equity, or their income, I told them to give me a call in the next three days. They didn’t. There were basically three ways to deal with this: To do a consolidation, to re-mortgage, or to sell the place.
My concern was that they would take the temporary, most expensive and lazy way out by just getting another loan or consolidating. Both would just delay the inevitable financial pain, and add to their debt, without solving the underlying problem.
Last week I received another e mail. This one was asking me how to invest a ton of money? I was surprised. What was the turn-around? They actually sold the rental house. That was THE best solution. It allowed them to pay off the mortgage, their credit cards, line of credit, and become totally debt free, plus have a pretty significant amount left over. Talk about great news, and imagine the stress taken off this family.
They made the hard decision. Or maybe it wasn’t hard. After all, a rental property should be a blessing and not a curse, headache or shortcut to going broke. For anyone who has a bunch of debt, the fasted and best solution is to get your hands on some extra money or income. Start with the world’s biggest garage sale. Sell so much stuff that the kids are scared they’ll be next. Look around your house. All that stuff while you’re trying to keep ahead of the 20% credit card balance. It’s worth it. You just have to get mad enough to get it in gear.