$33K Gone
As I have been transitioning the debt we carry to zero percents and now on to pay-off, I have been eliminating my many, many credit cards. That many open lines of credit is just ridiculous. I could have purchased a small home or condo on my charge cards. This just isn't necessary and I need some clean finances.
What have I changed?
- I closed 5 accounts and that would have been 6 next week, but they beat me too it. This eliminated $33,400 in available credit.
- I moved 2 credit cards to a business use position - effectively they still are with me, but technically, I do not pay them and will not see them on my personal records. This moved $21,600 from what I show as personal. These cards will never have more then 20% on them and if they do, I will initiate a payment early fromt he business.
- I removed 2 cards from play in the business, that were also designated business but on personal credit. Replacing them with above. This eliminated $25,000 from our available credit.
Now we are sitting with:
- $37,150 available in credit cards for personal cash flow tool
- $35,600 credit cards open and working for business as cash flow tool
- $35,000 in personal equity line
- $100,000 in business equity line
Wow - still $207,750. Even after eliminating $58,400. My goal is to shrink the personal use ones some more after we devour the old debt we've been carrying at Zero Percent. Although, we are only using 8% on credit cards, we are still at 21% of usage total personally.
I will never be credit card free. I would just like to be down to 1 card and 1 card only. Yes, receiving cash back. Or maybe I will enjoy the rewards debit cards so much that I can chuck all the cards into the shredder.
One things for sure the less I have, the less I need to worry and fret over. Stress free living is what I want!
2 comments:
I only carry one and never a balance only using it for online purchases to avoid fraud (victim three times in 2008). Otherwise it's all cash via the debit card and not debt. Talk about stress free living!
We could never get down to one card because we travel too much and the credit card company has this annoying habit of freezing the card we're using for normal transactions they deem suspicious. That and with online purchases, the numbers get reported on stolen lists and we have to wait for the replacement card and if we are on the road we won't get the replacement card. So we have three. One we use to autopay the bills that is then autopaid but otherwise lives in the file cabinet where it won't as likely be reported stolen by a retail company. A Capital One for foreign use (no transaction fee, saves 3%!) pays cash back up to some limit and another that also pays cash back up to a limit. Trouble is we hit the limits before the year is out so this way we can switch cards to keep earning cash back.
I haven't added up our total lines of credit, I'm sure it's absurd, tho.
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