Our credit card for this past December was $3,400!
The amount $3,400 isn’t the largest credit card bill we’ve ever received, but it is still a lot for me! In fact, if I received this last January, I’d be sweating until I got the year’s tax refund.
This year is different though! This year I have plenty of money in my checking account to cover the December expenses and still have a buffer left over since we no longer have a mortgage payment to make every month. While I’m not jumping up and down about paying that $3,400, but it’s just a normal credit card bill like all of the others!
In the past since I never carried a balance, I always dreaded receiving this particular present-filled bill. We buy presents for 4 birthdays and Christmas, not to mention the Christmas traditions (Christmas Tree, Christmas Dinner Out) that we follow every year.
It’s great that I can now more easily afford the December bills now and in the future, but to just accept that and go with the status quo doesn’t seem like a good long term answer. So instead, sometime this year I have a loose goal of buying stocks that provide a dividend so I can buy Christmas presents with the dividend yield, or at least us the dividend payment to help with the cost!
-MR
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Yuck. I don’t like credit card bills over 3K either. We had a few of those at the beginning of the semester when we had all those unexpected home repairs.
Considering that we like for a maximum credit card bill to be $2,000, then we are way over our norm. I say this, but we always know that the December bill is high, so it’s not to big of a surprise.
We rarely hit as little as 2K, but we also put everything but the mortgage and daycare on the CCs. And usually there are some reimbursed travel expenses on there too, though not so much this year.
You are one of the very few who managed to pay off the mortgage! That is a huge achievement! You ought to be proud of yourself.
Sure the bill looks big, but now you have a lot of breathing space and I’m sure you’ll manage this prudently!
Thanks, now I’m at the point where I have to think about wealth accumulation. In many ways it was simpler paying off the the mortgage. Now it’s a battle trying to determine the proper mix of risk and wealth growth. I may even go into debt to grow money more quickly. Lots of decisions.
Very cool accomplishment Don. You are experiencing heightened solvency since you have dramatically decreased expenses. Cheers!
Thanks, now I’m trying to strike that perfect blend to maximize life and wealth accumulation. It’s harder than I thought (especially with kids).
Good for you! It is a good feeling of accomplishment.
Thanks, surprisingly it still an uphill battle. I thought it would be much easier now, but now it an entire different line of thinking around finances.
Doesn’t it feel great to just get rid of the CC Bill? It took me years to get rid of it all, and pay it off monthly as part of a routine.
I’m fortunate (and perhaps unique) in that I’ve always paid my credit card balance in full each month.
You would die if you saw our credit card bills MR. We are almost always over 3k, although several of our expenses are put on the bill like cell phone and such. (We ALWAYS pay our bill off every month.)
Glad you aren’t stressed about it, good job!
Yes, I’m not complacent about it, but this is on of the few years that I no longer want to do my income taxes fast to get my tax refund back to pay the bills (or replenish my money buffer in my checking account).
I think in 5 or 10 years I will be catching up on my credit card bill amounts. I can imagine things becoming more and more expensive as my kids get older…
Our spending is usually split across at least 3 different credit cards (different rewards for different situations) so it’s harder for me to see the grand total unless I add it all up.
We’ve had lots of months where the total would be over $3000 though. We also put everything on our cards. Good that you were able to pay it off with no problems.
We use different reward cards too, but our primary family card is used 95% of the time.
Welcome to the Yakezie group!
Wow, terrific that you’ve paid off the mortgage. $3K CC bills don’t hurt as much in that case.
Thanks yeah, it’s always been tight in Jan, Feb since I way my bills off every month.
We splurged this year as well. Our statements aren’t up until the 13th, so we’ll see how bad it is (so far, it is around $3200 instead of our normal $1600…). But we budgeted for it, so we too will be okay. 🙂
Your bills sounds a lot like mine if you add $300 to the balance. We’re pretty close in expenses…
Dec and January’s bill will be bad. December was $3600 and I already have over $1000 extra expenses on Jan with plane tickets.
I usually start my savings goals at the end of January as that’s when things start to settle down. The other thing about Xmas is I usually take a week off, so I do things like buy things I’ve been putting off or start planning the family vacation and so the bill is always immense.
Sounds like a very clever way to go about it!
I’ve been thinking of doing something similar this year.
Wow, that’s a big bill. No mortgage payment??? That is just too awesome.
We try to keep our CC bill under 1k. $500 would be just about right, but we rarely hit that goal.
I’d be jumping for joy if I could get my credit card bill (and mothly expenses) under $1,000! That would be totally awesome!
Yeek. If I knew I had that bill coming, I’d probably shoot into the doc for a quick heart check-up (you have to prepare the ‘ol ticker for any value over the triple digits). LOL! I’m just kidding. I’m sure you’ll get rid of the debt, one chunk at a time. We splurged over the last month, too, so just hang in there, good buddy. We’ll pull through this together! 🙂
lol, we’ll pay it off in full this January, we always do… this year is one of the few months that we won’t be so tight with our money available.
I’ve seen my credit card as much as $5000 in a particular month, but thats only because EVERYTHING hit at the same time. But, I managed to pay it off in full by the end of the month… psychologically, its not fun owing that much!
After our Disney vacation, we were in the same boat! That was a hard bill to pay in full, but we managed to do it. We almost had to let that month’s credit card bill float though…
It was late in the year, so luckily our tax refund replenished out money in our checking account.
Our highest CC bill ever was around 10K… but that included furniture, some moving expenses, and a year’s worth of insurance for several policies. (And of course we paid it off in full!)
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