One of the ways I was able to pay our tax bill in full was by putting other purchases on some 0% credit cards we had. I probably could have paid them off a month ago, but I wanted to be able to officially say the money had come in to cover the tax (and dental) bills.
Now that the on-paper deficit is wiped out, I feel comfortable paying them off. So I set up the payments today. I have 0% interest rates until early 2017, but I feel more comfortable not carrying debt if I don't have to.
I never counted them in my debt totals because I felt confident I'd pay them off quickly, so this doesn't change the total household debt. But it does feel good!
The total balance we were carrying across four cards was $6,133.07. There are also some new purchases on one of the cards, but I'll pay that in full when the next bill comes, as I typically do with credit card balances.
Another bonus to being done with the tax bill is that we can start maximizing our rewards by using the Target card for Target purchases (5% off each purchase), the Amazon card on Amazon (5% rewards you can redeem toward future purchases), and the Amex for groceries (6% cashback). The cards we were using only had 1%-2% rewards.
Paying off 0% credit cards!
July 10th, 2016 at 08:17 pm
July 10th, 2016 at 11:06 pm 1468191984
I have an outline to reimburse EF as sums slowly reimburse and could take sums from house maintenance for all the fixes but it's mostly a spread sheet transaction. Hosting visitors adds costs so I'll enjoy the experiences and sort out $$$$ later.
July 11th, 2016 at 03:55 am 1468209349