The Main Event

I've had this credit card for the longest of all the rest. I took it when I was just starting to work. At least there are no cosigners on it.

 

I would've waited for the statement to come in the mail but I decided to give you the numbers right now. Currently it has a balance of $7046.51

 

The thing that bothers me the most about this card is that just 10 months ago it had almost no balance. Well except for the dollar amounts. I used it to purchase airline tickets for my wife (who made 2 trips to the US in 2007) to start businesses here that just failed. I also used it to lend money to relatives on my wife's side who never payed me. I used it to buy company stuff, including some $2000 worth of software. Then I got refunded by the company and used only part of it to pay this card and the rest to pay other cards.

 

Remember I told you I had taken an extrafinancing to buy my car and my dad helped me with rest? well this is the card that gave me that extrafinancing. Right now that balance I wrote before probably includes several of the payments I should've made on my extrafinancing.

 

My last statement said they were charging my payment #25 out of 36. The monthly payment of that is $253, so with 11 payments to go that's $2783 to add to the balance stated earlier. At least this payment is fixed at at lower rate.

 

The way extrafinancing works with most credit cards here is they set up a loan for you at some reasonable rate. Mine was 25%, then each month they charge the credit card the amount of one payment. It's up to you to pay your credit card (preferably the whole balance). Most credit cards will set the minimum payment to something a bit more than the extrafinancing monthly payment, so if one could say where the money goes it should be going to pay the extrafinancing.

 

In reality you really don't know since they are just slowly transfering the loan from one rate to a higher one. It's up to the person to keep up and not let the credit card balance rise (as I so miserably did).

 

Credit cards in Honduras actually have two balances one in Lempiras and one in dollars. So my Lempira balance was well, but my dollar balance was going up high. I started paying the dollar balance but in reality I was taking money from the lempira balance to pay for the dollar balance and to pay other credit cards too! I was desperate to keep up. 

 

One positive thing is that the lempira balance is in the same currency as my paycheck so I know that I owe that specific amount. The dollar balance could become more difficult to pay if our currency slides against the dollar. Right now it's at 19.02 Lempiras for one dollar. But if it were to slide just a few cents I could mean that i would have to pay more lempiras to cover my dollar balance payments. Let's hope it's stays the way it has been for a couple of years now.

 

Deep in my gut I feel that I will have to go to them and request a payment plan. I've done it with 2 other cards that I will write about later. It's an awfull feeling of shame. However at least in the previous cases the people have been nice enough since they want to get payed someway. At least I don't have to worry about this card until August 1st. That will give me some thing to think about what to do. Right now, getting a payment plan (preferably a long one) would seem to be the way to go.

 

 

Honor Thy Father

My father has always been interested in me looking the social level I should. He felt that by now I should own a couple of cars and a house. About two years ago this month i finally caved in into his wishes of me getting a new(er) car.

 

I have a very old car. it's a 80's car and the only original parts on it are the chassis and the body I think. So I really did think back then that I should get a newer car. He even said he would help me with the loan. And I was about to finish paying an extrafinancing on my main credit card so I told him my limit of about $6000 for a car and he went off to search for one. He's retired so he has a lot of time every day.

 

During that month he showed me about 6 cars, he would tell me that this or that car was ok but not good enough. Finally he showed me one that I really liked, he liked, and my wife liked too.

 

So when it came to money I had no money available, I was going to use my extrafinancing credit line on my credit card to buy the car and pay it in 3 years. But it wasn't enough with my part so he "chipped" in. He got an extrafinancing on his card and just told me to pay it as I would pay mine. That was his help.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think it's fair but he had given me the impresion that he would give me part of the money. I was already liking the car and my family too. Plus it was "only" $75 a month extra on top of my other expenses and debts and payments. So I said yes.

 

I got the car, and soon enough my wife learned to drive it since it's an automatic. The old one is manual. Now I rarely get to use the newer car but it's the family car and it's in ok condition.

 

it's 2 years now and I'm having trouble paying my extrafinancing (that will be another post), and more importantly i'm having trouble paying my dad's extra financing!

 

Right now I should have made payment #24, and last week I just made payment #22. My dad payed one month several months ago and he reminded me this week that I still need to make another payment soon. I'm also paying any interests that run up when I miss a payment. It's a small thing usually but 2 months ago I payed $99 instead of $75 to clear it up.

 

So, right now I owe my dad (actually I owe my dad's credit card) 14 payments of $75 each. That's $1050 right there and we have just scratched the surface of my debts.

 

In hindsight, I still like having a new car. I just think that I should've been better with money BEFORE getting a new car to the point of having some money for a down payment rather than financing the whole car.

 

Aditionally the upkeep is not terrible but it all comes at the worst times. Like a ripped tire or an air conditioner that doesn't cool anymore. It's like if the car would hear when i'm money-less and decides to break then. I think it also has to do with the driver (wife).

 

I really don't want to leave my dad hanging with this debt. He's a retired man who got professionally and personally frustrated at the peak of his carrer. So I would really feel bad for him to see that his son is "failing" too. It's one of the debts that worries me on a different level than the others. I know my dad could pay it off, but I could never look at him in the face again if I let that happen, or I wonder if he would ever look at me again the same way.

 

Anyhow.. that's another little debt that I have to pay for 14 months. Let's tally it on the right side.