Quick What is Your Credit Card’s Interest Rate?
Gail Vaz-Oxlade pointed out that a lot of folks who are supposed to be teaching kids about money don’t know the basics of their own financial situation. She sighted one important piece of information which is “How much does your credit card charge as an Interest Rate?”, which is a very important thing to know.
I thought about it, and realized, I don’t know this, but I am also not worried.
I pay off my credit cards, so they could easily be charging over 50% annual interest rate and it wouldn’t affect me (unless I forgot to make a payment, which I did once).
I am not having a go at Gail (far from it, I read her site every day), just pointing out that maybe the real statement should have been “What are the interest rates on the credit vehicles that you use?”, (and I do know the interest rates on my lines of credit, so I do pass that part of the test).
I also don’t really know my credit rating (another thing that Gail thinks we should all know), but then again, I don’t plan on making any large Credit Applications either, I think before you do that you need to know your rating, that is for sure.
Here is an excellent question, How Many Credit Cards do you have?. This is important because how would you know if one was being defrauded or stolen if you didn’t know about each and every one of them? You need to have a list of all your cards and maybe the phone numbers of where to call to CANCEL them quickly (or report them stolen).
Christmas Laziness and Cheer
I am planning on doing a Top 10 postings for the Christmas/New Year stretch (given I may or may not be around), so if you have any suggestions for this kind of a list (top 10 for this year), please leave a comment with a title or story you may have particularly liked (written by me, that is).
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December 15th, 2009 at 7:33 AM
I thought the same thing when I read Gail’s post. I don’t know the exact interest rate on my credit card (20% maybe?), but it doesn’t matter much because I don’t carry a balance.
December 15th, 2009 at 3:32 PM
In theory, 9.9%
In practice, 0%.
I have a second credit card on the off chance a store doesn’t take M/C. I have no idea what they charge, but I think it’s been 8 or 9 months since I last used it, anyway.
As for credit rating, I’m a big believer that this is massively overstated in importance by almost every PF commenter on the internat, and particularly by popular gurus like Gail. A good credit rating flows from good financial choices. If you’ve made poor financial choices and therefore have poor credit, you really shouldn’t be taking on more loans, so your credit score shouldn’t matter. Most of the things that people worry about (hard pulls and utilization rates in particular) have tiny impacts on your score compare to whether you pay all your bills on time.
I know I’ve never been turned down for a loan, and have always gotten a rate that I think is reasonable. Therefore I don’t care what I score.