The credit card trap

After getting divorced and filing for bankruptcy I was so proud to get approved for a credit card with a $300 limit. I thought that meant I was on the path to fixing my money problems. I was only going to use that card for emergencies.

Funny how many "emergencies" there are when you have a credit card to use. Soon I was living at the $300 max, paying minimum payments. The credit card company so kindly kept increasing my limit and I kept increasing the amount of debt I carried on the card, all while making minimum payments.

Right now I have two cards, Kohls and a MasterCard, neither are maxed out but they could be at any time. My spending habits are terrible. I can't tell you how many Christmas' I ran that Kohls' card up to it's limit, overpaying for things and then paying interest on that increased cost.

The MasterCard is no better. Let's go to Mexico! Put it on the card. My daughter is getting married! Put it on the card. Let's go to Disneyland! Put it on the card. Right now I catch myself trying to decide if now would be a good time to book a trip to Disneyland. As you can see, I suffer from a large amount of  "emergencies."

Time to get honest.

My Kohl's charge. Is it just me or do department store credit cards seem like a rite of passage to adulthood? I was so excited when I got that card with it's $500 limit. Now the limit is $3000 and my balance is $1699.92.

I can't believe I'm admitting this but I just looked at the interest rate on my Kohl's card for the first time. It's 26.74%. What in the actual hell? I have not purchased anything at Kohl's in over a year but I paid $607 in interest in 2019. This needs to stop.

Now for the MasterCard. The interest rate on this card is 14.40%, the interest for cash advances is much higher but I've never taken a cash advance so I guess that's one thing I've done right. My credit limit is $7900 and my balance is $6813.20. They also charge a $59 annual fee.

I've always paid a little more than the minimum on my MasterCard, but I need to focus on Kohl's first. Each card shows that the interest accrued every month is half of what the minimum payment is. It's the old two steps forward, one step back. I need to fix that.

I'm working on creating an emergency fund so I won't be so tempted to use my credit card. It's much easier to swipe that plastic than to hand over actual cash.

I do have a reoccurring charge of $49 a month for a self publishing course that gets charged to my card every month. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I'm cringing. I should have had that monthly payment come out of my checking account but I didn't want to have another bill to pay- not very smart. There are four months left of that payment, then it will be done.

I plan to use my stimulus check and some of my savings to pay off the Kohls' card. Even as I say that I  have a list of things in my head that I would love to spend that stimulus check on.

I need to get it together!