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Denied!

phillipjfry

phillipjfry

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 12, 2006
847
1
Peace in Plainfield
:(
So I tried signing up for that juniper visa card after much waiting and paying off other bills only to find out....DENIED!
They wouldn't give me a card :(
Now I guess I will have to wait ANOTHER month until I can either try again, or get my other card low enough under its limit so I can buy my iMac.
I feel like something in the universe is keeping me from getting my new machine, tryin to tell me to wait, that something important is coming this month that I might want to be apart of. I just hope that anything that comes out this month will be imac or software related. :)
 
do not buy a computer on credit - by the time it's paid off, you've paid WAY more than what the computer's worth.

just save up and then buy with cash.
 
mrkramer said:
Could that be that it sounds like you have a lot of other debts to pay off that is holding you back?
Click to expand...

No...well not anymore anyways. I have a job now that actually pays bills in full :)
Plus it's hard for me to keep money around without it burning a hole in my pocket.
I'm young and still haven't learned this "pay in cash" that people speak of :)
 
phillipjfry said:
No...well not anymore anyways. I have a job now that actually pays bills in full :)
Plus it's hard for me to keep money around without it burning a hole in my pocket.
I'm young and still haven't learned this "pay in cash" that people speak of :)
Click to expand...

it also seems you haven't learned about the concept of saving.
 
Open an ING Orange account, dump a set amount into it each month (you would be dumping it into a credit card bill anyway and you would have to pay the interest not earn it), then when you have enough to buy your iMac, you can buy it in full. Then I would buy the machine on a credit card and pay it off in one big payment, this will help your credit score. Also, the interest on the ING accounts are awesome. It sounds silly b/c i know that you want the computer now, but is having the computer tomorrow worth paying for 1 and a half of the computers in the long run?
 
Start saving now, while you're still young. Buy a new computer next year. Just think of how awesome that computer will be.

ING account is a great idea.
 
Listen to what these people are telling you. When I was 20 years old I had accumulated $18,000 of credit card debt spread over 5 different credit cards before I knew it. I had to learn the hard way to wait to buy things. I'm 26 now, and thank god, I paid off all my debt, bought a house last year, and have the ability to save 30% of my take home pay.

Do yourself a favor, no more debt! If you have the ability to pay off your debts now then do it. Applying for more credit only hurts when you have other cards that are above 75%(could be 80%, can't remember) of their limit. If you don't know your credit score, find out. If its below 700 kiss that apple goodbye until you can bring that score up or pay cash.

Pay off your credit cards then call each of them and demand the best fixed rate possible. Keep the card with the best rate and cancel the rest. Don't be afraid of these people either. Tell them what you plan on doing.

Just playing around with the calculator: $2500 mbp @ 19.99% paying the minimum payment each month will eventually cost you $2500(cost of mbp) + $2862.43(interest charges) = $5362.43. Not to mention over 16 years to pay. Think about what kind of mac pro you could have next year for that kind of money. Even if you paid double the minimum payment and only half the interest it would still be close to $4000 for a stinking laptop. Nothing against the mbp, of course :D

Enough of my rambling, sorry :p
 
if you start now and save fast, you'll still a couple of months until leopard is released anyway. you could save even more money by not needing to buy the new os and iLife software.

easier said than done and all that :eek:
 
Even if you have a job that pays enough cash to pay your bills obviously the little computers that approve/deny you for credit see you are spent and you shouldn't take on more debt. Just because you spend exactly what you make doesn't mean you're ok. You should be able to bank at least 25% of your pay...if you can do that then you are only halfway on your way to being ok.
 
Do as these people say - pay in cash, keep your debt low (preferably zero) and SAVE.

Revolving debt is not very desirable. The interest rates are often too high, especially for young people and you can get into trouble fast if you don't watch yourself. As a general rule, if you choose to take out revolving debt, keep it UNDER 30% of your total credit celling.

Cases in point of credit management:

ME: I got my first credit card when I was 19. I kept the balances low, paid it off off in full and was very conservative. As a result, at 22 I have below average interest rates (1.25% + Prime) and excellent credit scores.

Brother: He got his around the same age (he's a year younger tham me). He got a little happy with his buying. He maxed his card out by buying just crap (e.g., computer parts) and took out other lines of credit (e.g., credit accounts at best buy). He never worked enough to pay things off right away.

The Bank credit card as a result lowered his limit. Becuase he was maxed out, that then put him over the limit and they slapped him with a $35 overlimit fee plus a 32+% interest rate. He would stabilize, they would raise his limit a little again and he would max it out again, triggering the same thing above.

His credit card from our bank now sits at like a 750 limit and a 23.99% APR. All because he was financing things he obviously couldn't afford.

Sister: She just threw her credit down the toilet for similar reasons above. I think she is destined for the secured credit card market for a long time now.

Moral of the Story

Wait until you can afford it. Credit can be an excellent short term financing took (<3 Months) but don't get in trouble by getting things you can't afford today. Especially computers.
 
bldgengineer said:
Listen to what these people are telling you. When I was 20 years old I had accumulated $18,000 of credit card debt spread over 5 different credit cards before I knew it. I had to learn the hard way to wait to buy things. I'm 26 now, and thank god, I paid off all my debt, bought a house last year, and have the ability to save 30% of my take home pay.

Do yourself a favor, no more debt! If you have the ability to pay off your debts now then do it. Applying for more credit only hurts when you have other cards that are above 75%(could be 80%, can't remember) of their limit. If you don't know your credit score, find out. If its below 700 kiss that apple goodbye until you can bring that score up or pay cash.

Pay off your credit cards then call each of them and demand the best fixed rate possible. Keep the card with the best rate and cancel the rest. Don't be afraid of these people either. Tell them what you plan on doing.

Just playing around with the calculator: $2500 mbp @ 19.99% paying the minimum payment each month will eventually cost you $2500(cost of mbp) + $2862.43(interest charges) = $5362.43. Not to mention over 16 years to pay. Think about what kind of mac pro you could have next year for that kind of money. Even if you paid double the minimum payment and only half the interest it would still be close to $4000 for a stinking laptop. Nothing against the mbp, of course :D

Enough of my rambling, sorry :p
Click to expand...

You are right.

Only thing is that closing accounts on a young person though is that at times it can be harmful. Just having an idle account at 0 is building history.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/creditcardpay.asp

That's a calculator that will tell you how long at a given rate and payment it will take to pay off. A $1600 balance at 19.99% interest and $30/mo pmt will take 126 months (10.5 years) to pay off. Although, assuming only minimum payment, it may take longer b/c minimum pmt usually goes down as balance decreases (1-3% of balance + interest).

126 * 30 = 3780 ... take that less the original balance and that $2180 in interest.
 
Many good points have already been made! :)

To the OP:

- Credit Cards are good when used responsibly. That usually means paying off your balance in full each month. There are exceptions but this should be the norm.

- Get started on saving. Shoot for a 10% minimum from your gross earnings. If you want to retire early, save/invest more.

- If you buy a computer on credit, chances are the model that you purchase will be out of date by the time you pay it off.

- If a credit card company denies you credit, chances are that you just received a wake up call. It's time to really take a hard look at your charging history/patterns.

Please consider the advice above and from others on the board. Most of us probably learned these lessons the hard way. You can benefit from our experiences! :)

Reference a bank to choose, may good ones are out there. HSBC for example has 6% plus savings right now. Get a good bank which has the features that you need.
 
Just another voice in the crowd, but maybe the chorus of voices will get through to the OP in a way that didn't get through to me back in the day: don't do it!

The savings account idea is the way to go. You'll have your machine in no time, and as already noted think how awesome it will be, and with Leopard, maybe 10.5.2 or so and mostly kink-free...sounds pretty good to me. and sheee-it if an American is turned down for credit that's a message in and of itself, as sushi mentions above; we have the most irresponsible, profit-mad credit industry on the planet, so you gotta figure it's time for a financial-plan overhaul if even a US creditor doesn't want to take your debt.

I never realized it until I lived abroad, but most people in the world still live without credit and get by just fine: here in France many people don't even buy cars on credit. We (Americans) have really been bent over the barrel on this one in the past 30-40 years, and only we have the ability to re-steal our financial lives back from giant banks that don't give a rat's ass about our futures.
 
Listen to their advise. Save up for the computer. Will you get a decent tax refund? That may speed up your savings a bit. In my early twenties, I was just going to buy a couple of items on credit. Then I bought a couple more, and a couple more. Then, we had an unexpected loss of income. Now, I am working all the overtime I get just to pay my bills. And, I don't have time to enjoy all that stuff I bought back then. Fincancing is for homes and maybe cars. I will be a slave until I pay off all the crap that I have financed.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070201...soDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDhxNDFzBHNlYwNtZW5ld3M-

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1 percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases. The 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in 2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933 during the Great Depression.
Click to expand...

Buying things that we can't afford is one of the many things that's speeding up the day of reconing for the U.S. It's going to be a brutal shock when, in a few years, we realize that the U.S. isn't as rich and powerful as we've all been used to believing.
 
I never or rarely use credit cards but I have done before when I was 19 or 20. Now I'm 24 and I live by the concept of "don't spend money you don't have"

I'll rather save an amount if I want to buy for example a Mac. Credit is a bad habbit don't get into it and if you are then try to make it your first priority to pay it of.

I keep one credit card on me for a rainy day or emergency circumstances (stranded in some European city and in need of hotel, food, women, internet, etc):D
 
my interest is up to 24.99%
i still have about 3200$ to pay off (not including school loans) until im debt free. I do hope that my tax return will make a dent in what's left to pay off. Also I am thinking about selling the PC I have now (maybe I'll post it on this forum if my cousin doesn't buy it from me) which will also go to the card I have now. I wanted the juniper card cause I was hoping maybe it would lower my interest rate of what I have now on this card (which I can proudly say I haven't used in almost a full year). It's all good advice from here and I'm tryin hard to fight the urge to use the card I have now and I know if I just hold off for two more monthly payments. I'll finally be debt free...on the credit card side. I give up on figuring when I'll be out of debt with the school loans. :)
 
crees! said:
Or buy it with American Express and double your warranty.
Click to expand...

Can you explain how this works? I bought my Macbook with my American Express (Blue). Don't worry, I paid it off immediately... I just wanted the reward points. To the OP - there is much wisdom on this board. Don't buy something unless you can pay for it! Good luck with your savings.
 
rockstarjoe said:
Can you explain how this works? I bought my Macbook with my American Express (Blue). Don't worry, I paid it off immediately... I just wanted the reward points. To the OP - there is much wisdom on this board. Don't buy something unless you can pay for it! Good luck with your savings.
Click to expand...

It's a thing Amex does.

Whatever the manufacturers warranty, Amex will cover warranty issues on the item for 2x the OEM warranty period. Since Apples waranty is 1yr, purchased on an Amex, it's 2 years.

I'm sure there are exclusions/exceptions, but it's been several years since I've had an Amex, and I don't recall the details

Also, I think you have to register the product with them, but I could be wrong.
 
Some other cards (Gold or Platinum cards) also offer features like double warranty, theft/loss protection, etc.

I screwed up when I bought my PowerBook. Apple was offering 180-days-interest-free payments if you financed with them. I didn't actually have $3000 on hand to buy the PB, but I thought, hey, I don't have to pay up right away and cost of borrowing is zero. We can make this happen!

My mistake was ordering additional software with the PowerBook (at the time, Apple had a deal where Final Cut Express was half price).

The 180-days-interest-free deal was good on the initial charge placed on the account.

FCE is a stock warehouse item. My PowerBook was a BTO.

Guess which item in my order got charged first?

Yeah, I got a 6-month interest free loan on $150 :(, and had to pay something stupid like 28% interest on the remaining $2800 to finance the PowerBook over the following year.

Had I saved the $3000 first, I could have paid off the whole account and saved what amounted to be HUNDREDS of dollars in finance charges. That was one expensive PowerBook.
 
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