Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Credit Card Worksheet - Catrina Carson

Jenny charged her $2,500 credit card to the max within the first month! She paid the minimum every month with an interest rate of 19.8%, taking her 47 years to pay off. Jenny ended up paying a total of $12,483.63!

  1. It took Jenny 15-20 years to just cut her balance in half!
    • That interest rate was a killer! At 15 years she owed $1,330.01 and at 20 she owed $1,077.69. She will finally reach her half point right in the middle; and still have over 20 years to go!
  2. As said before, Jenny paid a total of $12,483.63.
    • That's over eight times the amount she started with!
  3. She paid $9,983.63 just in interest!
    • That's roughly 4 times what she originally needed to pay and almost half of her ending total!
  4. During her 45th-47th years, her payments will finally be going more to her principal than to her interest.
    • As the balance gets lower, so does interest!
  5. After 25 years of paying minimum, she will still owe $873.23.
    • Keep in mind, she still has about 20 years to go before she pays it off! Just over eight hundred may seem low now, but it's still climbing!
  6. At the age of 65, Jenny will have paid off her account, spending roughly $10,000 on interest.
    • First things first; if Jenny hadn't charged to the max, she wouldn't have been in this situation.
    • If Jenny had paid more than minimum each month, she wouldn't have payed nearly as much in an even lesser amount of time.
    • She could have payed it in full right from the beginning and she wouldn't have had to worry about the large interest amount.
    • If Jenny was employed; she could have set aside a certain amount of money each month, just for paying off the credit card. It wouldn't be as fast as a better option, but it's much better than only paying minimum each month.
    • Jenny also could have split up the $2,500 owe into several groupings, instead of monthly payments for 47 years. 
      • Example: split into five payments of $500. Sure, there would still be interest, but not nearly as much.
What do you think? Should Jenny have made better, wiser choices?

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