It is common knowledge that if you have a credit card, it"s almost always better to settle the balance you"ve charged in full by month"s end. After all, if we succeed in doing that, the credit card functions very much as a debit card really, but we gain the benefits that credit card companies periodically provide to responsible customers. Of course, this good deed may not be what it seems: it is the very fact that most people fail to pay the balance in full each month that keeps the entire credit industry in business (indeed; close to $115 billion that they gather in in every year comes directly from this). Most of us comprehend and abide by this as quintessential to credit-card-life; indeed, borrowing money from strangers probably shouldn't be free.
Hidden - more often than not - in the tomes of credit-card lore, a practice that would widen most of our eyes were we aware of it. There are many credit-card companies that begin charging you interest not from the moment they actually buy the item you charged from the merchant, but from the moment YOU charged it, which can be several days' difference. This means that they are hitting you with an interest charge for no defensible reason, logically, because interest can't accrue on the promise of a charge; only on the charge, itself. Right??.
Why does this matter, you say? Consider: one could argue this shouldn"t be a problem since you bought the merchandise on that date. In truth, however, it isn"t really fair, because this means the company has started charging you interest for merchandise they haven"t bought yet! The databank of a credit-card company reflects the effects of their purchase in the time it takes an electron to fly from one end of the building to another! After all, if you were to annull the purchase in the interlude between when you charged it and they paid the store, you wouldn"t lose any money; so, it makes no sense for you to be charged interest on this "phantom" purchase. Since only some credit card companies do this, it is best to find one that doesn"t, if you either intend or anticipate not being able to pay most of your credit-card bills by the end of the month.
With credit card companies, there"s so much that goes on behind the scenes, it is easy to get lost in the details of so many little things we need to be mindful of with our daily responsibilities. Consider the industry-prevalent 25-day-grace period you have to pay off your purchases before the interest rate actually matters and hits you in the wallet. As though to prove the previous statement that while credit companies often appear to bestow gifts to those who settle their balances by the end of the month - and so aren't hit with interest-rate charges - this is mostly just for appearances, so that they can ensnare more patrons; after all, they"re only in business solely because most card-holders don"t pay off their balances each term, and their research makes it clear that this will occur. Their true colors are shown by an increasingly common practice of decreasing this grace time-span to 20 days (almost without warning!). As if to make it even worse, the wait period is decreased to around 23 or 20 days solely for those cardholders who settle the monthly balance in full. It"s almost as though they"re trying to catch you unawares, and of course, they do take a cut that makes this action worthwhile. All is not lost, however; all you have to do is request that they return to the previous due date of 25 days.
Hidden - more often than not - in the tomes of credit-card lore, a practice that would widen most of our eyes were we aware of it. There are many credit-card companies that begin charging you interest not from the moment they actually buy the item you charged from the merchant, but from the moment YOU charged it, which can be several days' difference. This means that they are hitting you with an interest charge for no defensible reason, logically, because interest can't accrue on the promise of a charge; only on the charge, itself. Right??.
Why does this matter, you say? Consider: one could argue this shouldn"t be a problem since you bought the merchandise on that date. In truth, however, it isn"t really fair, because this means the company has started charging you interest for merchandise they haven"t bought yet! The databank of a credit-card company reflects the effects of their purchase in the time it takes an electron to fly from one end of the building to another! After all, if you were to annull the purchase in the interlude between when you charged it and they paid the store, you wouldn"t lose any money; so, it makes no sense for you to be charged interest on this "phantom" purchase. Since only some credit card companies do this, it is best to find one that doesn"t, if you either intend or anticipate not being able to pay most of your credit-card bills by the end of the month.
With credit card companies, there"s so much that goes on behind the scenes, it is easy to get lost in the details of so many little things we need to be mindful of with our daily responsibilities. Consider the industry-prevalent 25-day-grace period you have to pay off your purchases before the interest rate actually matters and hits you in the wallet. As though to prove the previous statement that while credit companies often appear to bestow gifts to those who settle their balances by the end of the month - and so aren't hit with interest-rate charges - this is mostly just for appearances, so that they can ensnare more patrons; after all, they"re only in business solely because most card-holders don"t pay off their balances each term, and their research makes it clear that this will occur. Their true colors are shown by an increasingly common practice of decreasing this grace time-span to 20 days (almost without warning!). As if to make it even worse, the wait period is decreased to around 23 or 20 days solely for those cardholders who settle the monthly balance in full. It"s almost as though they"re trying to catch you unawares, and of course, they do take a cut that makes this action worthwhile. All is not lost, however; all you have to do is request that they return to the previous due date of 25 days.
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