Post Christmas and New Year’s Hangover Cures
Some of you might have noticed that it was Christmas a couple of weeks back. Christmas is a time when many of us spend time with the family, give gifts and take a few days well earned break to enjoy the season and summer weather. Hopefully you’d been good and Santa came to all of you.
Christmas is also a time when many of us can get carried away and there can be a tendency to overspend, often on credit with money we don’t have. Credit is a bit like toothpaste. If you squeeze too much toothpaste out of the tube, it’s pretty tough to get it back in. Credit is a bit the same and if you overspend, it can get away from you a small piece at a time for all those ‘must have items’ and festival tickets then it’s tough to pay back.
Like everyone else I had a few days off over Christmas and I was driving back from the beach one afternoon when I flicked the radio on (I’m an old fashioned kind of guy and my i-pod was flat). My wife had picked me up from the pub the day before and left the radio on a commercial station rather than my usual one so it only took around 30 seconds before they went to an ad break.
The first ad was an ad for hair extensions ‘for those Christmas and New Year’s Eve Parties’. As a guy, I get the fact that chicks want to spend their money on different stuff . Would I pay for bits of other peoples hair which has been washed, dried, ironed flat and cri-vac packed to within an inch of its life like a piece of steak and then stick ’em to my head. No, but like I said, I’m a guy and it’s not my thing but I’m OK with it – whatever floats your boat. I’ve got no doubt we guys spend our money on a whole range of stuff which is equally perplexing to the fairer sex.
The whole hair extension part of the ad wasn’t what set me off. The bit I wasn’t OK with was the part at the end where they invited customers who could meet their terms and conditions to take the cri-vaced bailing twine on a clip home now and pay for it later with their “easy repayment terms”. Sorry, did I get that right? Translated that means you can take the vaccuum packed hair-do home today and pay more for it later, on credit…………
I changed the radio station but it did get me thinking about buying stuff on credit, debt and post Christmas and New Year’s credit hangovers associated with maxed out plastic and the exorbitant interest rates which go with it. Sound like you, well don’t worry, we’ve got a 5 point hangover cure for your credit card which will do it a lot more good than a bacon and egg roll and a red bull. Count ’em off people:
1) Arrange to make disciplined regular repayments starting today – preferably by direct debt straight out of your pay.
2) If you’ve got more than one maxed out credit card, take a good hard look in the mirror and re-read point one and then think about consolidating the debts to the lowest interest rate possible after you read points 3 and 4.
3) Make sure that the interest rate you pay on your credit cards is as low as possible or nil so the interest bill doesn’t chip away at your repayments. To help you with that, we’ve jumped on google and found the website www.creditcard.com.au. This is a free site which allows you to compare credit card products by product at the click of a mouse. My favourite section is the balance transfer section which compares the features of around 20 difference credit cards which offer low or nil interest rates for balance transfers for a range of periods. With 20 to choose from, you should be able to clear your debt and not pay interest for quite some time.
4) If you decide to consolidate debt to a low rate credit card, when the new card arrives, cut it up. Yep that’s right, give credit the chop so that you can’t spend any more on it and make the problem any worse. Otherwise, you’ll end up like the mouse on the wheel – paying, paying, paying and getting no where.
5) If you decide to do a balance transfer or consolidation DO NOT LEAVE YOUR OLD CARDS IN YOUR WALLET. Contact the bank to reduce the limit to a manageable level which you can pay off in full every month and avoid further interest. Better still, close the accounts and cut the card(s) up and open a debit card facility to pay bills from now on.
We’ve already put the hang over cure in place here in the office and had the scissors out for our first real life credit card exorcism earlier this week which was wildly celebrated! So, we know it works. Go on, give it a try – and you’ll clear your credit hangover and feel better in no time!
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This is excellent advice! I put all my Christmas purchases on credit after already having a fair bit on it following a trip overseas. I thought I was stuck with the regular (and high) monthly repayments, but I used the website recommended and have a low interest rate for six months on my balance transfer. Brilliant.