There’s nothing like credit card debt to paralyze us. The sad part is that most of us don’t have a clue how the cards we have really work. When you were reading Caryn’s story, did you already know as much as she had found out about how the cards work? Probably not. The only thing most of us pay attention to is the interest rate they are charging us, and even then some of us don’t take any action. Even though we know there are credit cards at lesser rates, we just don’t want to deal with it. Grace periods, average daily balances, the forms we might have to fill out . . . most people would rather keep paying 18 percent or more just so they don’t have to deal with it.
Throwing away hundreds of dollars in unnecessary interest payments every year is truly being disrespectful of your money. Caryn was so close to getting the formula right that I told her simply to keep obsessing about it—and acting on what she learned. She has, and little by little she is erasing her debt. She has also become something of a crusader and is starting a business creating a newsletter to keep people up-to-date on all the rates and scams: all she wishes she had known about before.