Thursday, March 05, 2009

Suze's New Credit Card Strategy

Now y'all know how much I LOVE Suze Orman. BUT she just confused the heck out of me. So ironically on my birthday Suze posted a new credit card strategy.

You can check the link to read the whole thing but the first section of her posting summarizes it:

"If you have an unpaid credit card balance and not much saved up in emergency savings I need you to listen up. My advice has changed. I want you to only pay the minimum due on your credit card balance and instead make it your top priority to build as much of an emergency cash fund as you can."

WHAT!?!??! For years Suze has been telling me to focus on reducing my credit card debt and now she has completely switched gears. I get that you have to change with the times, situations and circumstances but to go from paying more than the minimum to JUST the minimum. My brain is just refusing to accept. I understand her reasoning, to focus on the emergency savings but I just can't bring myself to pay only the minimum. When I think about how long it would take me to pay off my credit cards if I only paid the minimum my ears start burning and my head starts throbbing.

So for me this just goes to show as much as I LOVE Suze and value her advise and wisdom there will be times, like this, that I just don't agree. I am so close to being credit card debt free that I just can't reverse course and pay only the minimum.

She also says, "My new advice is solely for those of you who do not have an emergency savings account, or too small of an account." I am one of those people. The issues I had in 2008 with keeping a viable tenant in my house in Atlanta drained my savings. I'm no where close to having eight months of living expenses (also her new standard for what you should have in emergency savings). But as crazy as it sounds I'm still more concerned with the credit card debt than with the emergency savings. My logic is if I was to lose my job I wouldn't be as worried about the bills being paid if I had less bills to pay...i.e. why I focus on the credit cards.

Is anyone feeling me or do you agree with Suze?

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