Check Your Statement

I have written before about the cost of credit. I'm not sure if this is part of the new credit card law, but I have noticed recently that our statements now include a section with bold type reading Minimum Payment Warning.

This is not the responsibility of the creditor (at least it wasn't under the old laws), but it is kinda handy. In the Minimum Payment Warning section the creditor has figured up for you how much you will pay in interest and how long it will take you to pay off the balance. For example, our Sam's Club bill this month would take two years to pay off with only minimum payments according to GE MoneyBank. We would pay an extra thirty per cent on the amount of our purchases. No thanks. I think we'll just pay for what we bought.

Let me be clear. It is not the credit card company's responsibility to keep track of your spending. That falls on you. It's also a good idea to look over each item on your statement to make sure there are no charges that should not be there. I just looked at one today that had on one line "***APR*** This Period 51.92%." I called to make sure that was incorrect and it was, in fact, a typo. While there was no balance affected by this rate, a rate like that means your credit is probably not that great and you want to take care of it before it becomes a problem!