Insanity Unchecked

Debt is STILL sin.
Creditors are slavers NOT friends.

It is insane to equate success with debt. We do it every day. We ‘judge’ people by the color of the credit cards in their wallets.
Capitol One [Capitol One is a federally registered trademark. All rights reserved] has been running an advertising campaign for years with the tag line, “What’s in your wallet?”
It is an interesting question. What IS in your wallet? Think of a credit card as a “Slaver’s Identification Card”. Every credit card identifies a company that enslaves one.

Recently, I received an offer from a ‘friend’. The slaver’s offer had a big bold print banner across the first page of the offer, "GET THE CREDIT YOU DESERVE!"

One might ask, “What credit do I deserve?”
According to the slaver, I deserve:
23.99% Annual Percentage Rate (APR)
23.99% APR on cash advances
29.99% APR for late payments and defaults [that would be $29.99 for every hundred dollars of their money I use]
$100 Account origination fee [I get to pay $100 to become a slave.]
$60 Annual fee [I get to pay $5 a month, every month, in addition to everything else - to remain a slave.]
$5 or 5% Cash advance fee [not only do I get to pay 23.99% interest on the cash advance, I also get to pay an additional $5 or 5% fee for using their cash]
$0.50 Minimum finance charge
0 days Grace period for Repayment of Balances for purchases.
$30 Monthly fee for accounts closed with a credit balance.

If I accept this offer, how does that ‘add up’?
If I use the credit card one time to get $100. How much does it cost?
$100 [to open account]
$ 5 [monthly portion of annual fee]
$ 5 [cash advance fee]
$ 4 [interest (actually $4.19824980)]
$100 [the cash itself]
$214 is the amount I would owe, the first month I use the credit card to ‘get’ $100 cash.

The second month I get another $100 in cash.
$214 [Balance carried forward]
$ 5 [monthly portion of annual fee]
$ 5 [cash advance fee]
$ 6 [interest (actually $6.4772784)]
$100 [the cash itself]
$330 is the amount I would owe (less any payment made) the second month. That means for the ‘privilege’ of using a credit card to ‘get’ $200, I would owe $330! That is what it would cost for JUST two months! What could I do with the $130 that is ‘Given’ to the slavers? If I said, “This is crazy!” and closed the account, it would cost me an addition $30 A MONTH until I paid off the balance!

Creditors are not your friends; they are SLAVERS.

We talked about lowering standards of living to get out of debt. It is true. Most will have to lower their standard of living to get out of debt. However, once one is OUT of debt, and one is living debt-free, one’s standard of living IMPROVES.
Return to the autopsy budget, go through the credit card, car payment, and mortgage documents and just add up the ‘FINANCE CHARGES’ one is paying every month... When one is debt free, those finance charges become cash in one’s pocket. What could one do with JUST the finance charges one is paying every month?

Change the way one thinks about credit cards. Credit cards are Slaver’s IDs. They tell the world who OWNS one. Think about how insane it is that one’s status in the world is based upon how far into debt one can go! A ‘platinum’ card is more ‘prestigious’ than a ‘gold’ card...a platinum card means one can go further into debt.

How insane is it that we equate ‘status’ to depth of slavery?