Do not adjust your browser settings. Your computer isn’t broken. It’s just that some odd things are happening in the Willard household.
Hubby and I are using a (gasp!) credit card.
Que Desi Arnaz: Luceeee, you have some essplainin’ to do!
When we applied for a mortgage loan with our credit union a few months ago, we were told that my husband has “no credit history”. This is because we paid off our debt in October of 2015 and haven’t incurred any debt since.
I was flummoxed. Even though we had a hefty down payment, and our mortgage payment would only have been around 10% of our after-tax monthly income, we were denied.
So we signed a 6-month lease with our landlord and got a credit card to use for everyday purchases, paying if off in full before interest charges are incurred, in the hopes that establishing a positive credit history would help us in several months.
But it still feels weird!
I’ve heard all the arguments against credit card use: they cause you to spend more because they remove the pain of paying. I don’t doubt the truthfulness of that and the research behind it.
However, when track your spending carefully and have a budget, you don’t let this happen. It also helps that we’ve got the recent painful memories of paying off debt to scare us.
I have known many personal finance bloggers who recommend rewards cards, and now I can see why. Last week our printer went caput and all the usual tricks weren’t reviving it.
I went to Amazon to buy another and lo and behold, the thing was FREE due to rewards points we had accrued!
Cha-ching. Now I see the benefit. In addition, since my checking account pays 1.5% interest, I’m using a card for everyday purchases to keep funds in my account longer, thereby earning me more interest.
Weird thing #2:
We now have cable.
My oldest son posted the news on Instagram. My first reaction was that of embarrassment – he’s ruining my reputation as a frugal weirdo!
The other day I had to chat with a Comcast/Xfinity customer service rep about an issue, and she offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse: internet speeds 3X as fast as that we previously enjoyed, plus cable, at $10 LESS than we were paying for just internet, for a total of $60 a month.
You guys. I’ve never had cable in my life, and it was a little scary. Are my kids going to turn into TV zombies? Oldest took a look at the channels and said there were “no good channels”, so I’m not worried. I told them not to get used to it because the cable would be gone as soon as the intro offer was over!
Still, it feels very, very weird.
In other news:
My Busy Mom’s Make-Ahead Breakfast Cookbook is on sale for .99 today
The His & Her Money Show interviewed me here to talk about getting out of debt with a large family.
Thanks to Mia@ UntoAdoption for publishing this nice review of The Temporary Tightwad.
Also, I recently updated and re-published the Slash Your Grocery Budget and Eat a Whole Foods Diet with ALDI ebook. If you purchased this book in the past, make sure you have the latest version!
You can choose to receive the update through your “Manage Your Content and Devices” page on Amazon.com.
Yup, we use a reward credit card for everything we can. As long as you use it for planned purchases, it’s a pretty sweet deal!
My husband and I and my brother and his wife also ended up in this situation. We both had good sized down payments and were applying for reasonable mortgages but didn’t have credit. We also both ended up getting credit cards. My brother and sister in law still use a rewards card for all their purchases and pay it off before interest. My mom recently told me about a company she heard about that does mortgages based solely on income and debt and your bank accounts and not based on your credit at all. I can’t remember the name but she heard about it through Dave Ramsey.
@Kristen – it feels really weird, but so far so good!
@Heather – Thanks for that info – yes we did get in touch with that company, called Churchill Mortgage, and hopefully they’ll be able to help us when the time comes. I went with our credit union first because they have such low interest rates available and we had an establishing relationship… we’ll see what happens when we reapply in a few months. 🙂
“We now have cable.” Well, you know, at one point I was never going to let DS just veg out in front of a screen except for an occasional family movie. I guess maybe that’s one way I’ve gotten a little bit “soggy.” But hey, when you homeschool a kid with ADHD, you do what you can to keep your sanity. 😉