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Oct. 22nd, 2009 09:18 amI would like a credit card. I really would. I'd pick a single category of things to use it on, like whenever I happen to get food outside the house. That way, not having the individual transactions in my bank's ledger wouldn't confuse my budgeting and record keeping. Once it would have been gasoline, but now I don't use enough gasoline to bother. And at the end of each month I would pay it off in full. The only reason I want one is to create a credit history, which I don't have much of right now.
So I usually look through the pre-screened credit card offers I get in the mail, just to see what they're like. Have you looked at these things carefully? They are astoundingly crappy. I got one yesterday from First Premier Bank.
If I sign up for the card, here are the fees that would be applied. Ninety-five dollar, one-time program fee. Twenty-nine dollar account setup fee. Forty-eight dollar annual fee. Seven dollar monthly service fee (paid annually at eighty-four dollars). As it says on their disclosure pamphlet, if I was approved for the minimum credit limit of $250, I'd only have $51 available on my card. In return for First Premier's 'generous' offer of managing a line of credit for me in the hopes that I won't pay off my balance and will owe them money, I would already owe them two hundred and one dollars. Just for opening the account.
It's usury and scamming like this that is to blame for our nation being as badly in debt as it is. It's the people who put together these 'offers' that are designed exclusively to take advantage of the uneducated public that are responsible for bankruptcies and suicides across the country. No thanks. I never did follow up on a secured credit card with my current bank. I should do that soon.
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Still working on getting New York pictures up. I'm up to my visit to Cleopatra's Needle.
I can't find words for how it felt to see this piece of stone. Thirty-five hundred years ago, ancient people who believed their king was a god used primitive hand tools to carve and erect this stone block in Egypt. Fifteen hundred years after that, the Romans under Agustus moved it to Alexandria to a new temple built by Cleopatra. Even in ancient Rome, it was ancient. In 1879, it traveled by steam ship across a very large and dangerous ocean to come to New York. And then, in the Summer of 2009, it was right there in front of me. I think it's probably the oldest man-made thing I've ever seen. I was deeply moved, being in its presence and feeling that tangible link to the ages.
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My manager may be sending me to a class in Chicago to get some Windows 7 training. Could be fun. Hopefully it at least won't suck. And afterward I get to share my new-found knowledge with my co-workers. Whee.
So I usually look through the pre-screened credit card offers I get in the mail, just to see what they're like. Have you looked at these things carefully? They are astoundingly crappy. I got one yesterday from First Premier Bank.
If I sign up for the card, here are the fees that would be applied. Ninety-five dollar, one-time program fee. Twenty-nine dollar account setup fee. Forty-eight dollar annual fee. Seven dollar monthly service fee (paid annually at eighty-four dollars). As it says on their disclosure pamphlet, if I was approved for the minimum credit limit of $250, I'd only have $51 available on my card. In return for First Premier's 'generous' offer of managing a line of credit for me in the hopes that I won't pay off my balance and will owe them money, I would already owe them two hundred and one dollars. Just for opening the account.
It's usury and scamming like this that is to blame for our nation being as badly in debt as it is. It's the people who put together these 'offers' that are designed exclusively to take advantage of the uneducated public that are responsible for bankruptcies and suicides across the country. No thanks. I never did follow up on a secured credit card with my current bank. I should do that soon.
--------
Still working on getting New York pictures up. I'm up to my visit to Cleopatra's Needle.
I can't find words for how it felt to see this piece of stone. Thirty-five hundred years ago, ancient people who believed their king was a god used primitive hand tools to carve and erect this stone block in Egypt. Fifteen hundred years after that, the Romans under Agustus moved it to Alexandria to a new temple built by Cleopatra. Even in ancient Rome, it was ancient. In 1879, it traveled by steam ship across a very large and dangerous ocean to come to New York. And then, in the Summer of 2009, it was right there in front of me. I think it's probably the oldest man-made thing I've ever seen. I was deeply moved, being in its presence and feeling that tangible link to the ages.
--------
My manager may be sending me to a class in Chicago to get some Windows 7 training. Could be fun. Hopefully it at least won't suck. And afterward I get to share my new-found knowledge with my co-workers. Whee.
