Low Interest Credit Cards

I just read Fortune magazine’s article on famed financial forecaster Meredith Whitney’s predictions on the future of credit, of which she says there will be little to go ’round.

In case you aren’t familiar with Whitney, Fortune writer Scott Cendrowski encapsulates her success as such: “Whitney’s warning shot in 2007 made her one of Wall Street’s first analysts to see that bad lending and rating standards across America had artificially raised the U.S. homeownership rate, and that banks weren’t financially prepared for the equally unprecedented rates of consumer default.”

To sum up the article quickly, Whitney says the new Credit CARD Act’s restrictions on card issuers — especially in regard to restrictions on instant interest rate increases — will, in effect, prevent banks from lending “en masse” like they had before.

Her conclusion: small businesses, the unbanked population and consumers who rely on credit cards to make ends meet will turn to predatory lenders and end up paying dearly in fees and interest rates.

But weren’t we already paying dearly for our debt? Read more…

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by CESI Debt Solution for a blog post on frugality tips. They asked me and 18 other personal finance bloggers a series of questions about frugality and posted it as a group interview. I was inspired by this concept and decided to do something similar: I interviewed seven of my favorite personal finance bloggers about their thoughts on credit cards and debt.

Read on to learn some tips and tricks about paying off debt and using credit cards wisely, and find out what these bloggers think of the new Credit CARD Act. You will also find out whether these bloggers think it’s possible to live without credit cards. Be sure to leave a comment and give us your two cents, too!

1. There are many different strategies people use to pay off credit card debt. What do you think is the best approach?

You have to make a commitment to pay off credit card debt. This has to be something you are going to do every day until your debt is gone.

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What a week. This Wednesday, the U.S. stock market surged and hit major milestones it hasn’t reached in nearly 19 months. Those of us with investments were finally able to do a happy dance! Very appropriately, the cover of this week’s “Newsweek” issue says, “America’s Back!” It seems that things are finally on the upswing.

Meanwhile, this Thursday was probably the most dreaded day of the year: tax day. Most of us were scrambling to make sure our returns were filed and payments submitted before the clock struck midnight. I was actually quite happy on tax day for the past two years as I received a refund of around $2,000 each time. Then I realized that I was giving the government an interest-free loan and was missing out on around $166 of income each month. I changed my withholding amount, and apparently went a little too conservative, because this year I was smacked with a $454 tax bill.

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Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past week, you know that a volcanic explosion in Iceland on April 14 rocked Europe. Flights were grounded for nearly a week in more than 20 countries, leaving countless travelers across the globe stranded, many of whom had to sleep on cots at airports and live on a diet of airport food while running up their credit cards.

Those with travel insurance fared better than those without, but it was a pickle for everyone. Some countries resorted to sending boats to various countries to retrieve some of their citizens and military personnel. People missed weddings, funerals, birthdays, vacations, work and more.

The volcano also crippled the airline industry. The companies lost millions of dollars each day the flights were grounded, and have faced a logistical nightmare trying to sort through the backlog of travelers while trying to maintain regular operations.

How does this apply to those of us not directly affected the volcano whose name nobody can pronounce?

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A couple weeks ago I published a post about Dell Business Credit and the fact that you will automatically be denied once you do not have a DnB/Dun and Bradstreet rating. I got an email from a reader who mentioned that they used the free way that I suggested to get the DnB Credit Builder package 1 to update and create a file in Dun and Bradstreet Database, and although the financial estimate was provided, we did not get a rating. I myself then went ahead and called DnB about this, and as I expected, they claim that my business credit file was not complete and I needed to pay the $150 to complete. I just didn’t feel like it at the time, although in my mind I decided that in the future, I pay for it.

Today I logged onto DnB’s eupdate and see that I have a rating. Apparently the system is updated periodically. I called into DnB today to find out what changed. The confirmed that I had my financial projections in previously, but when a company reports, they tend to update all information. Wha

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