FNBO Direct

HSBC dropped again this morning to 1.65%. I'm currently in the process of moving all our savings to FNBO Direct, their current rate is 2.15% as of 3/30/2009:


Our Bank of America savings account is now $853.13. This is what I consider our emergency fund and it has never been that high. The goal now is to make it $1000 and continue to build on, the ultimate goal is to have $5,000 for emergencies.

Where do you keep your money these days?

HS

Discover 12 Month Summary

Today I decided to take a look at our year end summary for Discover. I was amazed at the numbers, as you can see we spent close to 9,300 dollars from March 2008 to February 2009. We paid it all back but we don’t make a lot of money so this makes no sense. Keep in mind we spent the last 12 months paying down 2 Citi cards, Best Buy and furniture.



As we become credit card debt free we been talking about going back to blow money allowance every 2 weeks, maybe $200 dollars each, $400 total for both of us. As you can see from my Twitter updates, our money spending is out of control and after looking at the Discover numbers above I’m speechless…

I wonder what Suze Orman would say LOL

HS

Credit Card Debt Update

The current balance on our CITI PremierPass card is $518:



There’s 714 dollars sitting in our Bank of America savings account. Part of me wants to pay this off and be done with credit card debt. The other part of me knows the whole point of an emergency fund is to have money available for life’s misfortunes.

Tricia over at Blogging Away Debt finds herself in a similar situation:
Credit Card Debt Update - It’s a Biggie!

Would you dip in to savings to be out of credit card debt? Or delay the gratification of being debt free?

HS

Citi Forward Card

I’ve been tempted to open the new Citi Forward credit card. This new card claims to lower apr (starts around 12%) every month by .25% for using credit wisely. They also give 100 Thank You points for paying on time and not going over the credit limit. What we like the most is they also offer 5 Thank you points for every dollar spent on food and dining purchases. If you read my Twitter updates, this would greatly benefit us. The current promotions also offers 6,000 Thank You points for opening the account and 5,000 bonus points for going paperless. It is also a Visa:



My goal for opening this new account would be to replace the PremierPass card and also keep the Citi Professional card. The wife would keep her Discover card and I’m hoping she will give up the Macy’s card.

In the future I would like to charge all our daily spending to the Citi credit cards. The only problem is that we haven’t learned how to use credit wisely. If you read my previous Discover posts you can see we are not there yet. We need to treat credit like cash and not spend lavishly with credit cards. It would be nice to pay for things in full when the bill comes due and not have to blog about feeling guilty for charging $2,200 dollars.

The ultimate goal would be to put everything on credit cards and reap all the rewards. Recently I cashed in a $25 gift card to Wal-Mart courtesy of Citi and we also have $40 in Discover Cash Back bonuses.

HS

Our Debt Blog Twitter

You can now track all our daily spending with Twitter. I been posting all the stuff I buy on a daily basis and send updates throughout the day. Anything bought with cash or a check card will be posted on there. I still need to load the Twitter application to my IPhone, as soon as that's ready I plan to update right after purchasing an item. Here is the link:

http://twitter.com/Our_Debt_Blog

I will add the link to the sidebar in the coming weeks.

Enjoy,

HS

HSBC Direct Savings Account

HSBC Direct dropped their savings account rate again this month, their new rate is 1.85% effective March 6, 2009:



After we get paid the interest for this month from HSBC, we are going to move our money to FNBO Direct. FNBO seems to always have better rates and they have 4 star rating in bankrate.com Star Rating program compared to HSBC’s 2 stars.

I find it funny that credit card apr’s continue to rise while saving account rates constantly drop. I really miss the 5.05% days we had back in 2007.

HS

Citi PremierPass Balance

The current balance on our Citi PremierPass card is $1,461.80 . We received our tax return and thanks to Uncle Sam the balance was reduced by $2,200:





This is our last credit card debt! Click on the label below to see the balance a year ago and the monthly progress up until today.

The goal is to reduce this amount by $1,000 in March and pay it off the first week of April. The wife and I have decided to go 100% cash only, NO more Discover, Visa or Master Card. The only exception is Macy’s for her, which is paid the day she makes any purchases. Her shopping allowance is $100 a month.

HS