Where Smart Saving Grows
Strategies to pay off debt, improve credit scores, and understand interest rates.
I avoided writing down the full number for almost two years. Not because I didn’t know money was tight. I knew. I just had a habit of treating each debt as its own separate thing. The credit card was one problem, the personal loan was another, and the medical bill I’d been ignoring was a … Read more
I avoided writing down the full number for almost two years. Not because I didn’t know money was tight. I knew. I just had a habit of treating each debt as its own separate thing. The credit card was one problem, the personal loan was another, and the medical bill I’d been ignoring was technically … Read more
When I began managing my financial situation, I had $8,247 in credit card debt across three cards, while also having an income of $3,100 a month after taxes. Financial experts advised me that it would take me three to four years to pay off my debt based on my income level. To their surprise, I … Read more
I had zero credit history. Not bad credit – just no credit. No credit cards, no loans, nothing. I was 25 and basically invisible to lenders. Tried to get a credit card: denied. Tried to get approved for an apartment: needed a co-signer. So I spent 14 months learning how to build credit from scratch. … Read more
I was paying 24.99% APR on my credit card. That’s insane. But I just… accepted it? Then someone told me, “you can call and negotiate with credit card companies to lower your rate.” I was sceptical. Why would they just lower my interest rate because I asked nicely? But I tried it anyway. One phone … Read more
I used to have $2,247 in credit card debt with an interest rate of 24.99%, which meant that every month, $38-$40 of that went straight to zeroing out the interest without even touching the principal. I might have actually been able to pay that debt off if I hadn’t been paying it with other credit … Read more
I got my first credit card at age 22 and had absolutely no idea what “24.99% APR” meant. I didn’t care either; I just wanted the card so I could shop and build credit history. Interest rates seemed like something I would worry about later. Spoiler alert: “later” came quickly, and it turned out to … Read more
As of March last year, my credit score was 584. While it wasn’t low enough to completely get denied for credit, it was low enough to get denied for apartment applications and get stuck with high interest rates. By November, my score improved to 696. Now, it was pretty good. No credit repair companies involved. … Read more
Previously, I possessed $8,700 in credit card debt divided over four accounts. Every article I read indicated following the avalanche method as the most appropriate approach, leading one to pay off the highest interest card initially, and so on. So I attempted that method for four months. While I may have received some satisfaction that … Read more