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Jordanthehutt posted:So I find myself in kind of a curious situation. It will hurt your credit score in that your available credit will be effectively reduced, so when you put charges on your other card, your overall utilization rate will be higher. Personally I would just keep the account open and not use the card, if you even have a physical card.
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Jul 7, 2011 00:57
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Hey all, I've decided it's high-time I took out a life insurance policy on my wife. We just found out that she's pregnant with twins (after three horrendously emotional years of trying) and she currently stays at home with my son. If something horrible were to happen to her, the cost of my child-care would be brutal. I wanted to pick your brains at where the best place to shop life insurance would be. As term policies are a commodity, I want a simple no-hassle way to get a lot of quotes without a ton of pesky phone calls, which is what happened when I shopped my policy last year. Any advice? Thanks!
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Jul 7, 2011 15:51
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Jordanthehutt posted:So I find myself in kind of a curious situation. Personally I would close it. It’s not hurting your credit by being there, but its not like it’s helping that much either. Parts of the algorithm FICO uses are vague, but we do know that accounts you never use don’t get factored in the same weight as accounts you do use. But what if some point down the road they start charging an annual fee, or an inactivity fee? They have to inform you if they change the fee schedules, but when you get mail from Citibank you assume it is a preapproval for another card and you toss it. And then you don’t pay it and they start reporting you for being delinquent. What if you move and they send out a replacement card when it expires to your old address and they figure out how to activate it? You’re not going to get the statements since they are going to your old address? Granted you are not liable for unauthorized activity, but its going to be a hassle to remove it when you are getting a mortgage and they ask why there is a $3000 charge off from Citibank on your credit. I don’t care what you do, I’m not offended if you listen to illcendiary instead. I’m not saying it’s going to destroy your life by keeping it. But things do happen and there is more to life than credit utilization. Don’t worry, if you need another credit card from Citibank, I’m sure they will approve you for another one.
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Jul 7, 2011 16:16
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Okay guys, I'm working for a college, in on TRS (Teachers Retirement for Texas) that will pay ~70% of my last 5 years salary to me anually in monthly payments after I retire at 60 matching 80years life+service (I'll reach the 80at 52). I currently make 35.7 a year, and don't have anything in savings besides the TRS contributions and the QPP (Pension) contributions (2500 a year matched by the college, making ~15k so far). I've got a good bit of money that's sitting in my bank account each month I'm not using, and can do more. It usually ends out to be $~700 for me. I usually spend most of it on silly stuff, but know I don't need to, but haven't got anywhere to put it. I'm curious what would be suggested for me and my spouse to save for a house and for retirement(she's in the same boat, but 32.5). We'd like to buy a few (~10ish) acres down here with a house, or have one built. Remarkable ~200k could get that down here with all the land we've got. We're both about 25, no debt besides her college debt which she just finished paying off, and my bike which is just about paid off(only 1k left, was a personal loan from a friend, no interest). I was thinking of getting in on a mutual fund and a MM account, and was wondering what you guys would suggest. I was thinking ING for the mutual fund unless you've got any other suggestions. Also, I'm checking with my institution about a 401(k) and looking into a Roth IRA(not sure where to go for that though). Edit:the QPP is with Valic Edit2:derp, spelling Talran fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jul 7, 2011 |
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Jul 7, 2011 16:33
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Talran posted:Okay guys, I'm working for a college, in on TRS (Teachers Retirement for Texas) that will pay ~70% of my last 5 years salary to me anally in monthly payments after I retire at 60 matching 80years life+service (I'll reach the 80at 52). I knew teachers got screwed in general in this country, but this seems a bit much.
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Jul 7, 2011 16:55
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Dragyn posted:I knew teachers got screwed in general in this country, but this seems a bit much. Fixed, thanks. And I'm a programmer, I'm used to being gently caressed as the newbies may put it. It's interesting we get TRS all the same though. 
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Jul 7, 2011 17:07
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Can using a debt consolidation service negatively affect your credit? Like, if the service negotiates no interest, or the credit card company offers a settlement of half of your balance, or whatever, does that show up on your credit and lower your credit score? I guess this would also be a good time to ask if there's a debt consolidation thread already...
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Jul 8, 2011 06:20
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Fire In The Disco posted:Can using a debt consolidation service negatively affect your credit? Like, if the service negotiates no interest, or the credit card company offers a settlement of half of your balance, or whatever, does that show up on your credit and lower your credit score? I dunno, but the one thing I do know about debt consolidation companies is that there are a lot out there that are huge scams. Be careful  I've heard also that you can often negotiate directly with the people servicing your credit (either the original company, or if it's in collections, the agency it was sold to), especially if your debt is still in the quadruple digits or so. As for your credit rating, I should think that a PAID debt (a closed issue) would be a hell of a lot better than a continuing payment to a collections' agency for delinquency.
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Jul 8, 2011 14:30
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Fire In The Disco posted:Can using a debt consolidation service negatively affect your credit? Like, if the service negotiates no interest, or the credit card company offers a settlement of half of your balance, or whatever, does that show up on your credit and lower your credit score? We have a debt collections thread http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3234974 I have not seen a debt consolidation thread recently; this is probably the best place to talk about it. Debt consolidation companies deserve their bad reputation. If you absolutely had to go with one, the only one I recommend is the official industry supported one Money Management International. They have local branches all around the country, they have good people working there, and they do good work. The others range from incompetent to downright fraud. Like they take your money and then promptly go out of business. But even MMI doesn’t work miracles, they do charge fees, and in the end they don’t do anything you personally couldn’t do. Pretty much they help you develop a budget, you give them money, and they send most of it along to the creditors for you. They will beg them to lower the rate and waive fees, and sometimes the creditor does and sometimes they don’t. The money usually (but not always) goes to the right place. If you listen to Dave Ramsey and learn how to budget and attack debt, then you can do what they do for free, and be way more engaged in the process. Does it hurt your credit? I don’t know. Maybe. Where are you at now? Are you current with everything but making little headway because of the enormity of the debt? Are you behind? Have things gone to collections? You didn’t say too much about your situation, send me a PM if you don’t want to share it here in public. To generalize, credit cards will almost never settle unless you are late, the later you are, the bigger discount they will take. To do 50 cents on the dollar you are probably taking about a collections account a couple years old. I nearly always tell people to work on themselves and then the credit will take care of itself. Being late and maxed out destroys your credit and is way worse than an account that says “settled” or “managed by a credit counseling service”.
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Jul 8, 2011 15:07
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Here's where we are: We make minimums every month. We're not behind on anything, but we're not making headway either because we can't afford more than the minimum payment. We're slowly sinking; we have a big loving mortgage, and we don't qualify for any sort of refinancing because we're really far upside down in our mortgage, and yet the Making Homes Affordable federal plan or whatever it's called would literally only save us $10 a month and it does affect your credit negatively from what my husband has learned. I want to do the whole "pay off highest interest rate card first" thing, but we can't afford to put more than the minimum at it. So I guess, since we're not horribly behind, we should probably just see if we can negotiate lower interest rates ourselves. For the record, we were looking into not-for-profit consolidation with a debt management plan and not the kind where you get settlements for your credit cards, because I know those ones do affect your credit.
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Jul 8, 2011 15:47
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Fire In The Disco posted:Here's where we are: We make minimums every month. We're not behind on anything, but we're not making headway either because we can't afford more than the minimum payment. We're slowly sinking; we have a big loving mortgage, and we don't qualify for any sort of refinancing because we're really far upside down in our mortgage, and yet the Making Homes Affordable federal plan or whatever it's called would literally only save us $10 a month and it does affect your credit negatively from what my husband has learned. I wouldn’t put too much faith in the “Making Homes Affordable” plan. I saw in your profile that you are in Tucson.  Probably there is no reasonable prospect of it coming back anytime soon? Not that it matters that much, but was this payment always unaffordable, but now its obvious? Or were you at one point fine and you had a drop in income? Also, what is your debt to income ratio? The way to calculate it is to take your before tax income and add together your debt payments (mortgage, minimum credit card payments, installment debt like car loans and student loans) and figure out the percentage you are paying to debt.I don’t know what will happen, but it sounds like your house is 90% of the problem. Unless there is something I’m missing (always possible) your choices are to either:
2. If you think values will recover (probably unlikely but you know Tucson more than I do) you can hang on by your fingernails, cut back, don’t charge anymore on the cards, and sell when the market comes back. 3. If you like the house, then work extra jobs while you look for another job that pays more, cut your lifestyle, move down in car, etc to make the numbers sustainable. Either way, your credit is likely to take a hit. Life will go on, but at some point you might not be able to keep fighting this. It goes without saying that you need to be on a written budget, but if the math doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Something will have to give, and if the choice is between your credit and the things that are truly important in your lives, like each other, then let your credit suffer.
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Jul 8, 2011 17:08
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Yeah, we had a drop in income when I left work to be a stay-at-home-mom. Going back to work full-time isn't an option right now, though I may have a very part-time job soon watching my soon-to-be-born niece a couple hours a day. Before I left my job, we grumbled about the high mortgage but didn't have a problem paying it. We already don't charge anything, we are just paying off the cards (or trying to) that we used when we were younger and dumber. I don't like the house, but to be honest, I think that is more related to the big mortgage than it is to the house itself. I'm just bitter, I guess, that we bought at the exact wrong time, literally weeks before the real estate market crashed. Our house is now worth approximately $60k less than we paid for it. We're not going to do anything silly like purposely foreclose or anything, I just with the drat housing market would come back up some.
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Jul 8, 2011 17:31
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You didn’t tell me what your debt to income ratio is. I’m guessing it is pretty thigh though. If I were to guess, you are making it on a month to month basis, but even when nothing goes wrong there isn’t a lot left, and it wouldn’t take a very big hit to throw you over the edge. Is your husbands job and income stable? Are you on a written budget right now? If not, and you actively plan on how you are going to spend the money before the month begins, you will be surprised how much further things stretch. Do you have car payments? Any toys that have motors in them with payments? Sometimes moving down in car can free up some money. Are you able to take more kids in along with your niece? As you know, daycare is expensive so its not like you need that many. I also know it’s not easy taking care of them, but if you can bring in a few hundred dollars and you can cut your expenses by a few hundred dollars, that is enough to move the needle. If you can’t increase your income, cut your expenses, or both, you really do have to get out of this house, and that probably means short sale. You can live on the edge like this for a few months or a year, but eventually your luck will run out if you try to do this indefinitely.
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Jul 8, 2011 18:33
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We're totally month to month. I think that after bills we have about $100 left for food and other expenses. We can do it, because food is fairly cheap and I cook, but it totally sucks. My husband's income is very stable though and he's a rising star in his department, so I think it will get even better as time goes on. I'm in negotiation with my SIL as we speak, but I think she's agreed to $100/week, so hopefully soon we'll have $400-ish more a month. That will make a huge difference; we can tackle the highest interest credit cards then. All of a sudden it feels like things are looking up! 
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Jul 8, 2011 18:36
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Fire In The Disco posted:Going back to work full-time isn't an option right now, though I may have a very part-time job soon watching my soon-to-be-born niece a couple hours a day. Have you thought about legit stay at home jobs that have flexible hours like Leapforce or Lionbridge or doing some freelance writing for something like Demand Studios to bring in some extra cash? The online money making thread has similar ideas. http://en-us.lionbridge.com/Company.aspx?pageid=1718 http://www.leapforceathome.com/qrp/public/jobs
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Jul 8, 2011 18:38
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Fire In The Disco posted:We're totally month to month. I think that after bills we have about $100 left for food and other expenses. We can do it, because food is fairly cheap and I cook, but it totally sucks. My husband's income is very stable though and he's a rising star in his department, so I think it will get even better as time goes on. I'm in negotiation with my SIL as we speak, but I think she's agreed to $100/week, so hopefully soon we'll have $400-ish more a month. That will make a huge difference; we can tackle the highest interest credit cards then. All of a sudden it feels like things are looking up! It still seems like you are avoiding a lot of his questions about budgeting, cars, etc. Are there other ways that you can cut down?
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Jul 8, 2011 18:52
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Sorry, I wasn't purposely trying to avoid them. We don't have any car payments. We live in an area where there's absolutely nothing in walking distance, so we need our cars. My husband works about 15 miles away, and since I try to keep the baby and myself within a 5 mile radius of home, and we don't go somewhere every day, it doesn't make sense for us to drive him in, drive home, drive out to get him again, drive home every day. Budgeting-- not the easiest thing in the world, but we are managing the best we can. We cook most everything, we hardly ever eat out, and when we do it's generally with gift cards or kids eat free day or whatever. The biggest area we have to cut down in, and we're getting better about it, is buying stuff for our daughter. We're working hard on curbing the "SHE IS SO AWESOME SHE NEEDS TO OWN EVERYTHING AWESOME IN THE WORLD" impulse. As I mentioned above, when we're done paying mortgage, bills and utilities, we have around $100 left for the whole month, so too many of our non-necessity purchases end up hitting our savings, which has dwindled down to a couple thousand at most. If we can stop buying adorable stuff for the baby, then that whole $100 is enough to feed us for a month, as she doesn't eat much. And then when I'm pulling in extra with my niece, we should be able to put at least part of what I am making towards our highest interest rate credit cards to pay them down.
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Jul 8, 2011 19:21
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If you pay off the debt smallest to largest, hitting the smallest hard, pay the minimums on everything else and then when the smallest is done, hit the next smallest, etc, you may find yourself plowing through the debt quicker. Dave Ramsey will have you do that independent of interest rate. For me, I think you have several that are in the same ballpark as far as size, like one is $4000 and another is $6000, but the 6K is way higher, do that one. But if you have a bunch of small ones, just plow through them. But I think first step before you pay extra is to stabilize your budget so you are not bleeding your savings month after month. And yeah, she isn’t going to remember the toys you buy for her. I know at that age I was getting the hand me down toys my aunts played with a decade before. As annoying as the interest rates are, keep in mind it wasn’t the interest rates that got you where you are now, and while there is no reason not to find lower rates, there is no amount of interest rate magic that will do it for you.
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Jul 8, 2011 19:48
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Fire In The Disco posted:Budgeting-- not the easiest thing in the world, but we are managing the best we can. Do you have an actual budget? Are there any cell phone bills or cable or anything like that that can be easily cut?
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Jul 8, 2011 20:14
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I have a random question. How do these financing deals on credit cards work? I bought a TV through Amazon.com a year ago where it was 24 months no financing if I used their store card. It's been fine and I've done the minimum payments each month since it's been a nice loan. If I make an additional purchase on this card, what happens to the no financing clause? Will they charge interest on the new purchase? I just don't understand how it works and I've only used the card for the one TV purchase.
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Jul 9, 2011 00:04
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I have a couple of semi-related questions: 1) I'm with a credit union right now but we are moving cross-country. Am I better off closing my account and opening a new one with a more local CU once I get there or is there some reason I shouldn't do this? If the answer's yes, are there any good resources for choosing a credit union? Should I just call them all up and see who offers what's best for me? 2) Right now my b/f has a good job and I have a crappy one. When we move, he'll be a student and I'll have a good job. We have one car. It's currently in his name but he wants to transfer it over to me and have me refinance it since I have better credit than he does. That and I'll be paying the bill on it, not him. Is this a good idea? How would we go about doing this?
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Jul 9, 2011 03:50
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I've really developed quite a passion for personal financial management (budgeting, managing costs, expectations, etc) and think that making a Personal Finance circle on Google+ would be really kickin' rad to share ideas and such without cluttering this thread with links and all the stuff that irritates people. Unfortunately, at this point Google doesn't let you share Circles, so the most efficient way to replicate a group is to have everyone post a comment on a thread and then each person adds them to their own created Personal Finance circle. Here is this thread: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104433279204177154444/posts/JkctDMxbicy (also, if you need an invite, send me an email to stavros (at) bezas (dot) com and I'll shoot you one, DO NOT CLUTTER THIS THREAD WITH REQUESTS PLEASE!) edit: Updated for proper way to organize! TraderStav fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jul 9, 2011 |
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Jul 9, 2011 04:00
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Fire In The Disco posted:Budgeting-- not the easiest thing in the world, but we are managing the best we can.
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Jul 9, 2011 04:35
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TheShineNSB posted:It'll become the easiest thing in the world if you talk to Pillowpants. He's been a big help for a lot of goons. This. It's seriously worth the money, he provides a really great service.
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Jul 9, 2011 14:54
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brenter posted:I have a random question. How do these financing deals on credit cards work? I bought a TV through Amazon.com a year ago where it was 24 months no financing if I used their store card. Make ABSOLUTELY SURE you pay off the TV by the end of the 24 months - or check your agreement. Many of these offers have a clause that says if you do not finish paying it off within the 24 months then the interest applies retroactively (i.e. they charge you 24 months of back interest). This may not be the case, but better safe than etc etc. If you make new purchases, your statement will reflect two interest rates: 0% on your TV, and the regular APR on your other purchases (of course if you pay off the other purchases by the time the statement closes, no interest). Be cautious of a trick that I think is now illegal thanks to the CARD act - they used to apply your payments to your lowest interest balance first (i.e. any payments will go towards the 0% balance and you won't be able to hit the APR balance until it is paid off). I don't think this is legal anymore, but double check. HondaCivet posted:I have a couple of semi-related questions: 1) Don't close it until you've found one you like better - you can keep it alive for a bit. 2. Terrible terrible idea don't do it. You may not think this is a possibility, but if anything ever happens you will be stuck with the bill. Unless you really want to keep the car (it will be in your name, then). Just make sure you don't get a situation where the car is in his name and the loan in yours - because then he can take the car and leave you the loan.
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Jul 9, 2011 16:46
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kaishek posted:1) Don't close it until you've found one you like better - you can keep it alive for a bit. Thanks a lot for the help! 1) Yeah I wasn't planning on closing it until I found a new one, haha. I guess I just wanted to see if it made sense to change credit unions if you move, or if there are enough tools now to where it's fine to work with them from a distance. I'm guessing it's more the former though, I really doubt my CU has any ATMs over here. 2) Yes, the car was going to be signed over to me in every capacity, as far as I know. I'll be the "breadwinner," have better credit and get better deals on insurance (older than him, female). I didn't even know you could take out a loan on a car that wasn't in your name, that would be terrible. I guess I'm wondering how this process would work. I've never owned, bought or sold a car that still had a loan on it so it's just something that's new to me.
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Jul 9, 2011 19:56
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In terms of credit union access, the one I just joined has a partnership where you can go to branches of other participating credit unions around the US and do whatever banking you want there. (http://www.cuservicecenter.com/) The same goes for ATM access. I just moved and set up an account here, so I haven't used it yet, but it negates the only real disadvantages of credit unions and local banks.
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Jul 9, 2011 22:39
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HondaCivet posted:I guess I'm wondering how this process would work. I've never owned, bought or sold a car that still had a loan on it so it's just something that's new to me. Of course this still requires you to pay sales tax, and I don't know if there is a different process for "gifting" a car that would help you avoid that. Maybe one of the loan folks around here can weigh in.
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Jul 10, 2011 02:41
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My aunt and I did something similar with her car. Short version of the story: She was going through a horrible divorce and probably going to have her credit and finances ruined by her rear end in a top hat husband on the way out. She would have had 2 cars in her name, one of them still mostly unpaid for, and no way to afford the payments. Just so happened at the time I needed transportation very desperately. We agreed that she would give me the car (in the sense of just "giving" me the first 10 months of payments she had put into it), and I would take over the rest of the payments until it was paid off, at which time we would transfer the title to me. We had a good talk about it, including all the risks to both of us. This took a lot of trust. She's been a paralegal for 30 years so she easily wrote up a contract outlining the details and I took over. I made regular payments on it for a year, until I came into some money and was able to pay it off completely. Title came in the mail, and we transferred it to me, and now it's all done. The state let us treat it as a gift between family members so there was no tax applied to it. The only catch is the insurance. During the year I was paying it off, I was paying double insurance because the company wouldn't let me insure this car, which was not titled to me, under my name. However, my mother had added me as an additional driver onto her vehicle, which meant I was covered for any car I was driving. So I reimbursed my mom for the additional insurance charge. But then, as a vehicle with a lien on it, my aunt's car still had to have mandatory insurance, so she had to include it as another vehicle on her policy, which I also had to reimburse her for. Only when I had the car in my name could I open a new policy unto myself with only my newly officially owned car on it.
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Jul 10, 2011 17:30
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Any consensus on best virtual banks? I have no need for B&M services. Highest APY i've seen is 1.1% at http://www.smartypig.com/ with the rest pretty close around 1%. Although the concept to tie it in with social networking is idiotic Pizer fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jul 11, 2011 |
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Jul 11, 2011 05:09
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Pizer posted:Any consensus on best virtual banks? I have no need for B&M services. Their rates aren't the highest (0.85 checking, 1.01 savings), but I'm so happy with them that I wouldn't switch banks even if I got a better rate.
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Jul 11, 2011 08:23
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kaishek posted:Be cautious of a trick that I think is now illegal thanks to the CARD act - they used to apply your payments to your lowest interest balance first (i.e. any payments will go towards the 0% balance and you won't be able to hit the APR balance until it is paid off). I don't think this is legal anymore, but double check. I think they can apply the minimum payment however they want but any payment over the minimum goes to the highest APR balance.
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Jul 11, 2011 15:34
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Pizer posted:Any consensus on best virtual banks? I have no need for B&M services. Discover Savings seems to be 1.15% which is barely better than SmartyPig.
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Jul 11, 2011 18:42
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Hey, I'm looking into getting my first credit card soon. My parents have recommended I get a secured CapitalOne card, specifically this one. Is this a good choice? If not, what do you goons recommend? I'm pretty clueless about this stuff. I'm in Canada if it matters.
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Jul 11, 2011 22:57
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fineX posted:Hey, I'm looking into getting my first credit card soon. My parents have recommended I get a secured CapitalOne card, specifically this one. Is this a good choice? If not, what do you goons recommend? I'm pretty clueless about this stuff. I'm in Canada if it matters. Do you have an existing bank account with one of the big banks in Canada? Do you have a preference for visa vs mastercard? Are you a student? That seems like a bad first card because of the annual fee. Look into a no fee rewards card like this one: http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/tdvisa/rebate.jsp I bank with TD, they only offer Visa, fee free to go with something else. Only thing to watch for is no annual fee and try and get a good rewards card if you plan on using it a lot.
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Jul 12, 2011 17:05
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fineX posted:Hey, I'm looking into getting my first credit card soon. My parents have recommended I get a secured CapitalOne card, specifically this one. Is this a good choice? If not, what do you goons recommend? I'm pretty clueless about this stuff. I'm in Canada if it matters. It’s going to be hard to get a great card with rewards as your first card. I’m not that familiar with the Canadian banking system, but I always recommend that people check out their local credit union or community bank first. Smart people often fall into the trap of carefully researching the pros and cons of all the various terms of all the cards out there, looking at all the rates, fees and screening everything against the potential perks and rewards to make an informed choice. What they fail to do is to do is to use the same care and caution in researching the bank that issued it. At least in the States, the big banks are notorious for stuffing their cardholder agreements with complicated verbiage and loopholes and regularly find ways to flout the spirit of consumer protection laws while following the letter. They live based on the strength of their marketing departments. A more local option where you can actually sit down with someone is almost always a better choice. I imagine Canada is similar. Are you a student? Is there a credit union that serves the student population? Zeta Taskforce fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jul 12, 2011 |
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Jul 12, 2011 17:37
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Zeta Taskforce posted:It’s going to be hard to get a great card with rewards as your first card. I’m not that familiar with the Canadian banking system, but I always recommend that people check out their local credit union or community bank first. Smart people often fall into the trap of carefully researching the pros and cons of all the various terms of all the cards out there, looking at all the rates, fees and screening everything against the potential perks and rewards to make an informed choice. What they fail to do is to do is to use the same care and caution in researching the bank that issued it. At least in the States, the big banks are notorious for stuffing their cardholder agreements with complicated verbiage and loopholes and regularly find ways to flout the spirit of consumer protection laws while following the letter. They live based on the strength of their marketing departments. A more local option where you can actually sit down with someone is almost always a better choice. I imagine Canada is similar. There are a lot fewer banks in Canada compared to the US and our "big five" (TD, CIBC, Scotia, RBC, BMO) are all very good. Our regulations are much tighter and I've never heard the same level of horror stories like I have about US banks. (I'm sure they are out there though, always is) While a credit union is still a good option, and in many cases offers higher rates, going with one of the big five usually guaruntees more branches to choose from. It's really quite different from the US. That said, definately research what you have available in your area, what the branch hours are etc. There are numerous choices for a credit card and what is best for you really depends on how you plan on using it. One example is a PC financial card where you can earn points towards groceries at places like superstore. I personally started out with Scotia, did not like the local branch, switched to TD for better customer service/hours of availability and have been with them since I was a student. You can get any of their cards as a secured card also.
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Jul 12, 2011 19:15
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Thanks for the advice guys, sorry I didn't give you too many details. I am really new to all this and appreciate all your help. I bank with BMO here in Canada, who have a reputation for being pretty decent, and who have been good to me for the ~3 years I've been banking with them. I live in a large city (Edmonton), so there's no shortage of branches, but I also travel around the country quite a bit so I don't want to go with a local bank or credit union. I am currently a student, so I took a look at some of the student cards for BMO and I found these two student cards, which look promising and have no annual fees. I'd be more likely to go with the air miles card since I do fly long distances a couple times a year and 0.5% cashback seems like very little when I would only use it to purchase maybe $2,500 of stuff per year. However I'm concerned about whether I'd be approved at all, as I have no credit history (if my income matters w/r/t to this I make around $2,000 a month, but during the summer only - during the school year it will be more like $1,200). Basically I'm just looking to be able to build credit, any purchases I make on my card I would probably pay off almost immediately. camgirl fangirl fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jul 13, 2011 |
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Jul 13, 2011 00:13
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fineX posted:Thanks for the advice guys, sorry I didn't give you too many details. I am really new to all this and appreciate all your help. Those look fine. What you are going to want to do is go into the branch and talk to someone about applying for a card and mention you haven't had one before. Most likely you will end up needing to get a secured card. That means that you give them a deposit that they hold equal to the limit on your card so they can recover the money if you defaulted on your payments. If they won't give you a secured card, look into one of the other big banks here in Edmonton. Not that you don't need a secured card if they will approve you for a regular one, they are typically just for people with no/bad credit.
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Jul 13, 2011 21:40
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So I'm in the process of finally closing out my checking account with BofA and moving all my funds over to my ING Direct accounts. My only worry is, Capital One apparently just bought them and while I don't see any issues yet, I'm trying to keep my options open for the future just in case Capital One does what they do best and ruin a good thing. Are there any comparable banks or credit unions I could switch over to? I know Navy Federal is supposed to be pretty good but beyond that, I'm clueless. If it helps, I have about 2,500 dollars in liquid assets right now in my checking and savings accounts. Handsome Ralph fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jul 14, 2011 |
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Jul 14, 2011 17:01
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