Standard intro: My large credit card debt is all at 0% APR interest. Please see my posts on taking advantage of no fee 0% APR balance transfers for more information. In short, I’m borrowing the money for “free” and depositing it in various safe short-term investments where I can earn up to 6.7% interest. I don’t pay interest, I get paid interest!
The numbers for this month look funky because one of my 0% APR offers expired and I paid it back in full, causing lots of money to go from cash to credit card payments (see 1st paragraph for why), but I’m looking to pick up another balance transfer this month. The combination of free money still being given out for 12 months and higher interest rates are just too good to pass up! Savings bonds, T-Bills, and CDs, oh my!
But if you look at the Net Worth value, this month was solid. I got a partial tuition refund for testing out of a class, and there were no unexpected expenses. The stock market had one of it’s bi-monthly ‘corrections’ so that hurt a bit. Still, our net worth increased by over $1,200 this month!
Accordingly, our non-retirement assets went up a healthy amount to $45,744, inching us closer to the half-way mark of our $100,000 Mid-Term goal, a hefty future downpayment in real-estate-bubble-land (or so we hope right now). Moving forward is awesome.
(A reader asked why I have $1,700 in a 529 and no kids. It’s because it is linked to one of my favorite rewards credit cards, the MBNA 529 Card which gives me 2% cash back on purchases.)
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Good month for you (always is when the final numbers are green and not red when compared to the previous month). Keep up the great work!
Your wife must make a lot of $!
Very good – will be interested in seeing what card you apply for next to get the new BT.
it has to be the universal card from citi.
I’m confused.
In the October 2005 Financial Status Update, you list your credit card debt as $19,572. In your November 2005 Financial Status Update, you list your credit card debt as $10,744, correctly shown as a decrease of $8,828. You paid off $8,828 of a $19,572 debt, meaning you paid off 45.1%. However, the November amount is shown as a -82.2% change from the preceeding month, instead being a -45.1% change.
Why are you measuring the decrease in debt as a percentage change of the new value, as opposed to the old?
Additionally, in your October 2005 Financial Status Update, you state that all of your credit card debt is stored at 0%. However it lists there being a 15.1% increase in the debt for that single month. Pourquoi?
Ha! You are the first person to point that out. I guess up to now the changes have been so little that it hasn’t made much difference. You’re right, that’s a mistake in my Excel spreadsheet.
As for the credit card debt, since it is a real-time snapshot of my credit card balances and bank accounts, it will also include things I have paid for with a credit card (bills, plane tickets, etc.) that I have not paid off yet. Since I always pay it off within the grace period, I still consider it 0% APR as I don’t pay any interest.
should be fixed now!
Cool site. One thing I don’t understand is why you would bother to take the time and credit risk to borrow credit card money to make short term investments. Even if you get paid 6.7% interest, that’s still only $67 bucks on $10,000 at the end of the year… and it’s taxable! Why bother!?! Seems like this strategy misses the forest for the trees.
6.7% of $10,000 is $670, not $67. Would that change things a bit? It’s all personal preference – the risk / reward ratio is worth it to me =)