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May 18, 2006
Wow - Those Little Pieces of Debt
I don't know about you but it certainly seems every store and service out there offers a financing program with short-term interest free periods to entice the sale but the interest sky-rockets after the intro period.
Sitting at the kitchen table with my wife going through all our bills we realized that we are getting hammered on all the store financing for furniture and appliances we bought. At the time of purchase all we seemed to hear was "interest free" so heck why not, interest free money, I would rather pay something off slowly that doesn't cost a dime in charges. I guess we neglected to ask all the right questions such as "how long is this purchase interest free?". It would be nice if sales staff would mention this, at least do it after closing the sale. I guess they worry that might result in returned merchandise, that would not have been the case with me though, I simply would have liked a straight-shooter sales person.
While each bill isn't that large by itself when we add up all the small bills and store interest it IS a sizeable amount. We will be heading off the bank to take out a lower interest consolidation loan. If you find yourself in a similar situation you should consider doing the same, in our case consolidating loans will save a few hundred dollars every month which we are going to use to pay down the principal on the loan at an accelerated rate.
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