Financial Reflections

I’ve been a very bad boy.  I didn’t mean to be, honestly.  But I realized that I’m doing something that really sabotages my success.  What is it?  I still charge things to my credit cards.  There, that feels so much better now that I’ve said it.

As some of you know, I’m paying down my many cards and closing them.  It’s part of my overall debt elimination strategy. But I’ve discovered that one of the remaining cards has one automatic charge hitting it.  I let it slide for a month, then two, now it’s still on there and I haven’t done anything about it.

I also pull my credit card out at the restaurant.  I know enough to be careful with my debit card, and I recently learned that my debit card rights aren’t the same as they are with a credit card.  So before I let the waiter take the card back to who-knows-where, I make sure I have as much security as possible.

I stumbled on the idea of a 30 day trial to change behavior and thought I would apply it to my credit card use.  It’s simple.  Think of a behavior you want to change, and then change it for 30 days.  If you don’t like the results, just stop.

So I’m trying it out this month.  Here’s the three simple things I have to change:

• Pay cash at the restaurant
• Find another way to pay for automatic charges
• Ditch any card that charges me a fee

That might sound simple, but perhaps it sure will help me towards my goal of having zero credit card debt by the end of the year.  Note: I’ve heard that credit cards can be an effective way to charge an expense back if you’ve been wronged by a merchant.  This works if you put down money on furniture that will arrive at a future date, for instance.  I’m not doing that this month (living frugally to eliminate debt) so I don’t have to worry about that.