Disagree with those 2. If u quality for such 12-month, NO INTEREST plan why not? There's really nothing to loose EXCEPT they say if you have too many of those CC, they lower your credit score. 1-2 should be OK. You pay full in 12 month, there is no interest charged, but you have to be diligent on paying each month. If u let it slip and just pay the minimum, it piles up easy.
Never, ever pay just the minimum amount required. Always pay as much as you can. Rule of thumb: if you won't have it in your account my next paycheck, DON'T BUY IT!!
No interest loans are great, as long as your disciplined enough to pay them off. They count on enough folks not paying off and collecting the substantial interest payments to make money.
The Apple store offer is basically for a credit card and, if they approve you, go for it. Nothing to loose.
Silly question, but do you need to apply for a new credit card each time you want to finance a Mac?
Because you are (potentially) paying extra to buy something that will lose value. Makes no sense to pay money to lose it! On the other hand, borrowing to buy something that will potentially rise in value can be a good thing.
On the other hand, it is a highly risked move to borrow money to invest, say, in RRSP, or any other type of stock investment. Most financial planners will discourage people from doing so.
If one can afford the payments, interest free financing makes total sense.
The cost of the money is FREE, why pay upfront for it,when you can pay over time...money is pretty much always worth less in the future.
On the other hand, with a short timeframe such as is for the financing of a Mac, depreciation of money would probably stay minimal.
best thing to do is get a low interest low limit card from your bank or credit union and pay it off every month. save up for the computer or other big but manageable purchases and either pay cash or put it on the card and pay it back without carrying a balance the next month.
A great way to do this is to only put monthly expenses on the card - internet, power, phone etc and pay them off each month. expenses that don't change. everything else should be cash - including food and computers.
just my advice based on not following any of this when i was younger despite knowing then and now that is precisely what I should have done ;-p
FWIW i am 32, 2 kids, just at 6 figure total household income, house, 2 paid off used cars, 830 credit score.
Agree with you. Additionally, avoid credit cards that have rewards on them. They end up costing more for the consumer as well as the retailers, who in the end are raising prices to make up for the losses.
Low interest credit cards, on the other hand, are not strictly necessary as long as you're paying within the grace period (usually 21 days). But if you tend to overdue your account even by a slight margin on reasonable amounts, then the $40 annual it costs for the reduced interest rate will definitely be wisely spent.
I won't trust a Canadian cell phone company to act decently if given access to a credit card. On the other hand, I put many small expenses (including food from big chains that can absorb the cost to accept credit cards) on my card, and Internet access (independent ISP), and home insurance, and pay it off every two weeks. Last time I saw a balance on the "interest charged" line, it was about 3.08$. Ironically still, my income has been in the low 5 digits, but I managed to keep a top credit rating, currently at 780, mainly because an old sh¡tty ISP charged me $700 of unpaid debt. I can't have them delete that from the record as these documents were lost in a hard drive crash
Now you know why I am always recommending doing your backups not once, but twice, and pay for them as necessary.
Building credit is slow, but easy. Even without a credit card, subscribing to post-paid services and paying them on time will build your credit. Despite constant solicitation, I just have one credit card at a standard low-interest of 12.9%. My other bank has proposed that I get a Visa from them, but I politely refused, as I seen no clear advantage in having both a MasterCard and a Visa. I told them that I may be considering an Amex since one or two big chains here only accept it as a means of payment, and they didn't have any.
Same here, but I've called them to have our credit limit reduced so if I really needed credit for a major purchase I could get it (and not at credit card rates!). Helping things out, our credit cards all have "auto pay" of the full balance so I never have to worry about missing the payment.
I did the same just before confirming my $30k line of credit, reducing my card limit from $18k. I just stayed wise with $9k on the card, but still can't figure out what I would ever buy for that amount on a card. Ironically enough, the day I called in to activate my renewal card, I was told that I have been approved for a credit limit increment. I kept my card at $9k mainly because I know that hitting more than two-thirds of the limit on a card is detrimental to one's rating, and that it was historically harder to get a limit increase than a decrease. Does this still holds true?
One thing I still don't know: I was told that a credit card account that has been opened a long while ago was worth more "positive weight" in the credit rating than a recently-obtained credit card. Is that true?
