Got in over my head with spending

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by ivank

And I just wanted to warn you guys about the dangers of the cards.

Uh, thanks I won't go down any dark alleys where debit cards lurk. lol

[Ducimus]

The one truly sad thing about debit cards, is being good with them doesn't help your credit score. Only real credit cards do.

[mookiemookie]

www.mint.com

A great site to help you budget your spending. It sends you alerts if you go over your pre-determined budget for a category of spending. If you tie it to your online bank account, it helps you categorize your spending and see where you may be overdoing it.

[Sailor Steve]

I used to have trouble with cards, but I have one debit card from a local credit union and that's it. I check my numbers every day, and only buy things on days I get paid, and only what I plan for very carefully.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

The one truly sad thing about debit cards, is being good with them doesn't help your credit score. Only real credit cards do.

That's not sad to me. A debit card is just like a check, only handier. I carry very little cash these days. On the other hand when I did have a credit card I ended up with a bill that took me years to pay off. Then I worked briefly for a credit card company and ended up swearing I would never have one again. And I haven't. Of course the afore-mentioned bills kind of made so I can't have one anyway.

For me the secret is to check every day, know exactly how much I have and how much any particular thing is going to cost me. I never buy more than one item (book, movie, music) per payday. Of course the last three have been pretty hefty for my limited budget - video card, external hard drive and memory upgrade. No purchases at all for three more weeks, and then it all goes for a new five-string bass. Professional expense, you know.

[GoldenRivet]

its very easy to do... several years ago when my wife and i first got married we were very bad about monitoring our spending when it came to debit cards. We didnt budget things we used it for and it is very easy to lose control of it in a hurry.

our total overdraft fees for that year so long ago - im embarrassed to admit - totaled about $2,200... that translates to a little over $180 per month in overdraft fees. Considering that overdraft fees at the time were $20 thats around 9 or 10 overdrafts per month...

quickly realizing that a majority of our troubling transactions were the result of debit card spending we had to reel it in and tone it down.

I mean we were paying for one awesome vacation per year in overdraft fees alone - an entire month of my salary at the time.

needless to say we were living well outside our means, and the debit cards were allowing us to do that.

So...I took both debit cards and hid them in the pages of a book and packed the book away in a box one new years as a resolution of sorts... and we tried to forget of their existence for one year to see what a difference it would make.

Im happy to admit, the first year of the little experiment we didnt have any overdraft fees - i dont know... may have been one or two, but your talking down from $2200 to $40 .

When we moved some time later we agreed that instead of having 2 debit cards... one for her, and another for myself... we would only have 1 debit card, and it would be tucked away for emergency expenses.

it was a learning experience, but since then we have become quite frugal and nothing of the sort has really happened to us since then.

debit cards are very convenient, and sometimes the only suitable way to pay for something. However, as you pointed out there is no tangible cash changing hands so its easy to lose track of it in a hurry. you dont get the sensation of your wallet getting thinner. But there is a great deal of sticker shock when you get your bank statement or you visit an ATM etc and you realize you have spent all or almost all of your money.