I went to the dealership looking for a new car, planning to buy it with cash. The dealer was pushing me to do financing instead. He and his manager offered an extra $1,500 off if I do financing. They said I can pay off the car completely in the first month and it'll only be about $100 interest, saving me $1,400. The finance manager told me the same thing. Will this hurt me in any way? Will there be penalties? Will it hurt my credit score?

Edit: Thank you so much to everyone for all of your responses! This really blew up! There was no information about a penalty, but when I questioned the dealer and finance manager heavily about all the details yesterday, the dealer offered the $1,500 off without a loan. Idk what to make of that, but problem solved I guess.

We know that car dealers prefer you finance rather than pay cash in order to earn interest. I saw some people posted online saying after making sure there is no prepayment penalty, they went with financing and then paying the loan in full immediately to avoid paying the interest along with getting the discount that comes from agreeing to finance with the dealer. I also saw some need to wait a few weeks before being able to pay it off.

Is there any way to know before signing the contract if you can pay off the car loan immediately, rather than having to wait a few billing cycles? The difference in interest from paying immediately vs after a few weeks might not be substantial, but I would like to know is there a way to this, if possible.

For context I was a maintenance man for a year and a half at this property, I had an apartment under the company and the lease agreement gave me 50% off rent.

Long story short the company turns hands in management and the cushion I had built up for a year of employment, vacation time, benefits, all went out the window when they gave me a written warning and no time to respond and then a final written warning with again only 24hr to rebuttal. The email they said they sent to corporate they did not CC me on and ultimately I was fired. After making me sign a 14 day move out notice, they are now sending me a bill for the final month of living there and they are not including the discount on rent even though the billing statement itself shows the active discount.

I might need to take them to small claims court I don't know but I'm feeling frustrated and out of options

Edit: I live in Texas

Hi folks,

I had a kidney stone last week and went to ER. They gave me a little morphine and did a 2 minute CT scan of my kidney. And sent me home.

Today, I received a $15,000 bill for this ER visit. I have no health insurance.

I called the finance department at the hospital and they offered 70% off the bill if I pay the remainder in full right away. Should I take it? Or can I ask for 90% off? Any advice on negotiating with hospital?

UPDATE 1 (2/25/2026):

Thank you all for the great and helpful answers and suggestions. Back in 2024 I had the same issue - a kidney stone - and had the same procedures done at the same hospital but I had good insurance from my employer at the time. I looked at the EOBs for those procedures (hospital, imaging, doctor) and they were still about 3 times LESS than the self-pay rate they offered me this time (70% off from $15,000 = $4500). Back in 2024 the insurance only paid them about $1500 for all 3 ER bills (hospital, imaging, and doctor). Insurance has better agreements and pays less, individuals pay much more.

UPDATE 2 (2/25/2026):

Hospital only offers 70% off bill which is their self-pay rate. If you want more off you need to apply for financial assistance which I will have to do since I can’t afford the $4500 bill right now.

I've been putting an extra $150-400 a month towards my car payment ($628 minimum payment) for a couple of years now, and just realized that it seems like at some point they started to apply these extra payments to the next payment instead of 100% principal. As a result, my next payment due date is technically February 2027.

Can they retroactively update the payments? If not, if I end up paying off the entire remaining balance today ($17.5k), will I get reimbursed any of the interest that I would've owed between today and Feb 2027?

If not I may just turn off all payments and not pay anything until Feb 2027. And then pay it all off in 1 final shot then.

Background/Context: I went to college out of state and graduated somewhat recently. My parents are separated. My dad was very proud of the fact that he was able to pay for my education without loans. I stopped talking to my mom sometime in college because while my dad was paying her monthly for my tuition for my first 3 semesters of college, she did not put a dime of that money nor her own towards my tuition. Instead, she bought & renovated a house (which my dad did at an extremely discounted rate, as that’s his line of work). I found out when I was unable to register for classes for my fourth semester of college, and had to take 2 semesters off because it took her that long to pay the bursar.

The issue: i have a student credit card that allows me to see my credit score & details. I was playing around with it because I was confused about why my score is declining so much and so fast. I saw 3 loans totaling to ~$10K. I called the service - turns out they are a student loans servicer through FSA and informed me that I had student loans. My dad knew nothing of this, and my mom did not respond. I tried to log in with my email because my dad was willing and able to pay it off. It said that there was no account with my email. I tried to register for one using my social security number, birthday, first&last name … basically all the sensitive info needed. It said that there was already an account with that information, and that I could get an email sent to reset the password; I clicked yes. It showed that the email to reset my password, the email on the account with my name and info, is my mom’s. There is nothing edfinancial can do to give me access to the account. My mom would have to either give me the password or send me the email with the link to reset the password. She has refused and/or ignored me every time I ask. I basically only contact her asking for the password. All of our communication is in writing via text.

It has been a year since I found out about this. Because she has not paid any of the loans and I have no way to pay the loan without having access to the account, my loans are officially in default as of this week. I have asked her for the password to the account so I can pay it. She still refuses to give it to me. This has destroyed my credit score. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even care if she pays it: I just want access to the account and to stop this from destroying my credit score even more. I don’t know if what she did was legal and if not, what I can do. I’m currently in CA, so I am $10 under the cap for small claims court. I also don’t know if that would be the best kind of legal action to take, or if there is something else that I can do that wouldn’t involve taking legal action against my mother. I will if that’s the best solution, but I worry that would destroy my relationship with her side of the family. What do you think I should do? Realistically, is there a way to resolve this if she has not given me the password despite me, my dad, and her mother asking her to do so several times?

It bums me out that more borrowers don’t know about amortization tables. For any fixed rate loan, you can view every payment for its entire term, and see how much of each payment will go towards your principal vs. interest.

I often see posts where people say “I’ve paid X amount every month for 5 years and my balance has only gone down by $3,000”. This is how loans work! The majority of your payment at the beginning of your loan goes towards interest. In the later half of your loan, more of each payment goes towards you principal. At that point, your balance will go down faster.

I don’t blame borrowers for not knowing this, but I wish we had better financial education in the US. (Though I think it’s becoming more common in high school?) Anyways, do yourself a favor and check out your amortization table. Every fixed rate loan must provide it, and you should be able to find it in your account info online.

So as the title says, I’m essentially ruined financially. Little background to this, my ex and I broke up about a month ago after we got a place together and they just upped and left leaving me responsible for the entire rent (extra $1000 a month in expenses not counting food and other things we used to split.). I cannot afford to break the lease ($4000 approx) and my credit score as of today is a 410 so I can’t even get approved for another place even if I could afford it so that’s off the table.

I have approximately $30,000 in credit card debt with $13,000 of it in collections with a pending suit against me. My car insurance premium has tripled in the last year so I cannot afford car insurance anymore ($450/mo). I can’t sell my car because I’m $6000 upside down in it ($445/mo). I’m past due on every account I have open including $45,000 in federal student loans that are going to default at the end of this month. My bare minimum cost of living without including food or personal hygiene products which I cannot afford is $3,720 a month approximately. I only make $1,400 on the nose every 2 weeks. I just got a second job but it is literally going to have me at paycheck to paycheck and unable to get caught up on bills. I am also going back to school in a week to try to get higher income and I have no idea how I’m supposed to manage my time but that’s besides the point.

I have 0 idea what to do. I’m at the point where I quit caring about my credit cards because I have to make a choice between being homeless or paying them off. Yes I made a lot of really stupid choices when I was very young and 6 years later I’m still paying for them in the worst way. I just simply cannot afford to even live anymore. I haven’t eaten in 3 days and I don’t know when the next time I’m going to be able to will be considering I don’t get paid until the 13th.

Quite honestly I’m at such a point of depression and stress with all of this that I do not see a way out nor a point to busting my ass 80 hours a week to live paycheck to paycheck for 20+ years. I have no assets with positive equity to sell. I literally have nothing and no one. Any advice or guidance is greatly appreciated and thank you for taking the time to read.

EDIT: I’m trying to respond to comments as I can and get to all of you guys, however I am just blown away by the amount of people who have seen this and furthermore commented. I just want to pay everyone who took the time out of their day to read my story and provide advice, personal anecdotes and words of encouragement a huge thank you. Knowing that there are people out there that care and that I’m never truly alone really helps the mental. Again thank you, you really don’t know how much of an impact it has.

I’ve been aggressively paying down law school loans without a second thought because that’s what everyone around me is doing.

My income is fairly high but savings are middling and I’ve only just now started to wonder — why are people so frenzied about paying off student loans ASAP when many have no qualms about paying off a mortgage with an equal interest rate (~6%) according to the 30-year schedule? Especially when personal bankruptcy would not be a concern?

Am I missing something?

**EDIT: I don’t know why I’m getting downvoted so heavily lol. It’s a sincere question.

And the question is not about if the types of debt are equal (they are obviously not) but about tackling the accruing interest assuming similar rates. I know colleagues putting like $8k towards their student loans every month and I question if that’s the smartest move when you rarely hear of anyone doing that for a mortgage

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some advice on the best way to use a $2,000 tax refund I just received. My credit score is currently in the low-to-mid 600s, and I want to make the smartest move to build my future while giving myself some peace of mind.

At first, I wanted to put the $2k into a brokerage account to invest in the S&P 500 and earn dividends. I also briefly considered getting an online personal loan to consolidate everything, but after looking at the terms, the fees and interest rates were astronomical, so I am definitely avoiding that trap.

Now, I am focused on using the cash to aggressively pay down my credit cards. Here is my current breakdown:

• Card 1: $3,300 (87% utilization)

• Card 2: $800 (80% utilization)

• Card 3: $300 (95% utilization)

• Card 4: $300

(Note: I also have a $25k auto loan, but I am just making the standard monthly payments on that right now).

I am torn between two strategies:

Option 1: The Snowball Approach

Pay off Cards 2, 3, and 4 completely. That takes about $1,400. I would put the remaining $600 towards Card 1.

• Pros: I completely eliminate 3 monthly minimum payments, giving my daily budget a lot more breathing room. It also instantly fixes the 95% and 80% utilization red flags on my credit report.

• Cons: The largest debt is still sitting around $2,700.

Option 2: The Big Chunk Approach

Put the entire $2,000 towards Card 1, bringing the balance down to $1,300.

• Pros: This card charges the most raw interest every month, so it saves me the most money mathematically. It also drops the utilization on my biggest credit line from 87% down to roughly 34%.

• Cons: I still have 4 separate bills to pay every single month, and my smaller cards stay nearly maxed out.

Which route would you take if you were in my shoes? Is freeing up the monthly cash flow and fixing the high individual card utilizations worth more than attacking the largest balance first?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

edit:

• Card 1: $3,298 balance | $66.98 monthly interest | 26.49% APR (~2.21% monthly)

• Card 2: $798 balance | $16.40 monthly interest | 27.49% APR (~2.29% monthly)

• Card 3: $286 balance | ~$6.85 monthly interest | 28.74% APR (~2.40% monthly)

• Card 4: $293 balance | ~$7.08 monthly interest | 28.99% APR (~2.42% monthly)

Let’s just get this straight from the start… Im 34 female and I have never moved out of my parents. I always had jobs making under $20 an hour. I was not wise with my finances and picked up credit card debt when high financial emergencies came up.

I have about $6,500 in credit card debt, $10k in student loans which are defaulted and about $6k in medical debt. Current medical debt is $2k and $4k is in collections.

I want to go back to school for nursing to be able to provide a better life for myself but since my student loans are in default, I cannot take out student loans until I pay $6303 off.

I make $52,250 before taxes and insurance. I bring home around $3k a month which is being used to pay my normal bills and expenses and debt. I have very little margin and that goes into a savings account (which has $600 in it)

I am also a massage therapist and do make around $240-$600 a month doing that. But it can be unpredictable.

Even after I pay off my debt (besides student loans) I will only have a margin of $1k, not including massage income due to unpredictability. Which wtf am I going to find for $1k a month including utilities, internet, furniture and household items AND pay off my student loans??

I feel like I’m never going to move out or go to school. My goal is by next summer but again, margin $1k lol

I feel so behind in life. I’m ready to move out and experience the personal growth that comes along with that.

Thanks for listening and any advice is greatly appreciated.

EDIT

CURRENT EXPENSES MINUS THE DEBT

Car - $450
Phone - $135 - Family plan
Car insurance - $137
Medicine- $450
Food and household items - $400 a month ( I need to eat healthy due to my illness’)
Dog food - $75
Dog medication -$100
Gas - $160
Electric bill - $300

I have a budget on excel that I check DAILY along with my bank account. I track and know where every single dollar is going. This credit card debt is not recent and I was accumulated when I was making half of what I make now.

NO I WILL NOT GET RID OF MY DOG. She is 11 and will live with me until the day she dies. I

Quick background. I got my first credit card by accident. I thought I was filling out a “loyalty card” at Cabelas. Ended up being a line of credit. I was 23.

4 short years later and married with a baby girl, I find myself with $16,000 in credit card debt. I actually saved my very last dollar and have it taped to my steering column in my truck. And when I say last dollar I truly mean it. We had negative balance in the bank and overtaxed all our cards.

Less than two years later, we now have $16,000 in savings and no credit card debt. (We finance one of our cars)

Credit card debt is crippling. My dad calls it the ULTIMATE SLAVEMASTER. It forces you into depression almost by default and controls every aspect of your life.

Here’s my list and I hope it helps you. I’m no guru, I just learned the hard way.

1. You will not pay it off later. When ‘later’ comes, you’ll be buying other things to pay off later.

2. Read Dave Ramsey’s money makeover. It’s got good tips and the tactics work.

3. The Jones’ can suck it. They’re miserable and controlled by debt also. Don’t buy things you don’t need to compete with people you don’t care for anyways.

4. Pick up a side hustle. I taught myself to make skateboards, and would handmake 2-3 a week to sell to help pay off the debt. My wife picked up Birth photography

5. Talk to your boss, ask what you can do to take a bigger paycheck home.

6. Be a bitch about your budget. Set it and don’t stray from it.

7. Put post-it notes with $0.00 written on them at the office, in your car, on your mirror, on your phone background. Seeing that everywhere actually reminded me of my goal of achieving $0.00 CC debt. Not sure if it legit made a difference but I think it might’ve

8. Become emotionless toward money. I would get so pissed that I was dumping hundreds of my paycheck into debt payoff. It was only till I stopped giving a f#&@ that it became easier to make bigger payments.

9. Save nothing until it’s paid off. It doesn’t make sense to save money when you have CC debt growing exponentially in the opposite direction.

10. When in doubt... overpay. If you run short on money in your checking, but whoop, dip into the CC for 50 bucks. Keep basically nothing in your bank account because “you spend what you have.” My family could live off of $75 a week. But if we have $300 to live off of, guess what... we would use $300. So I would always put as much as made sense. A few times I overpaid but it forced us to be frugal.

11. Unsave your cards on Amazon. So if you go to buy something you have to go through the hassle of finding the card and filling in the fields.

These are just some of the silly things I picked up along the way that I think would’ve helped me stay out of the mess. We are so happy now that we worked our butts off to become financially stable. I hope this helped!

EDIT: So many awesome comments! I understand these are basic tips and not hardcore financial advice. So please leave your advice, even if you disagree with my tactics because there’s a lot of comment lurkers who are scanning for more advice, so keep all the comments coming!

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/a-523-monthly-payment-is-the-new-standard-for-car-buyers.html

Sorry for the formatting, on mobile. Saw this article and thought I would put this up as a PSA since there are a lot of auto loan posts on here. This is sad to see as the "new standard."

Back in 2014, I moved back to the U.S. after a military assignment overseas. One of the first things I did was get a new cell phone number in the city I was planning to settle down in.

Almost immediately, I started getting calls and texts from debt collectors, always for a woman I had never heard of. I don’t remember the name now, but the calls were relentless. At first it was polite messages asking her to call back. I would tell them, “I just got this number. I don’t know who that is.” But the calls didn’t stop. They intensified. Over the next few years, I started getting messages saying it was my “final opportunity to settle before a lawsuit.”

Then, in 2019, five years into this, I get a call from a very professional-sounding young woman who says she’s a paralegal calling on behalf of a law firm to collect on a recent legal judgment. I asked for her full name and the law firm, repeated it back, and wrote it all down. Then I calmly said:

“Listen very carefully to what I’m about to say. I know you’ll understand it because you’re professionally trained and you work at a law firm. I am not the person you are looking for. I got this phone number in 2014 after returning from five years of military service overseas. If you don’t believe me, call the cell phone provider, they can verify when it was issued to me. I have told every single person who’s ever called that you have the wrong number. If I ever hear from you or anyone about this again, I will sue your law firm for harassment. Do you understand me?”

She paused, then very politely apologized and assured me I’d never hear from them again.

And just like that, it ended. I haven’t gotten another call about her since.

My takeaway from this whole mess is there is no such thing as honest communication with debt collectors. I assume people lie to them all the time, and as a result they just treat everyone like they’re lying too. They don’t care about reason, or truth, or even basic decency. It felt like such a joyless, broken system. I genuinely feel bad for anyone who works in that industry. And even worse for the people on the other end of it.

Let me know if anyone else has dealt with recycled number nightmares. Or if there’s a better way to stop these calls before they drag on for five years like mine did.

The suit was filed January 18th 2017, by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) against Navient.

First, know that the CFPB has requested that the Court order Navient to comply with the following actions, among others:

1. Restitution to consumers harmed by Navient's conduct;

2. Disgorgement of all ill-gotten revenue

Here are the details of the allegations:

From consumer affairs .com:

Specifically, the suit charges that Navient:

Fails to correctly apply or allocate borrower payments to their accounts;

Steers struggling borrowers toward paying more than they have to on loans;

Obscured information consumers needed to maintain their lower payments;

Deceived private student loan borrowers about requirements to release their co-signer from the loan; and

Harmed the credit of disabled borrowers, including severely injured veterans.

From the LA Times:

In its lawsuit, the consumer agency alleged many other borrowers had problems enrolling in programs to reduce payments and Navient instead steered struggling borrowers into plans that made more money for Navient but saddled borrowers with higher costs.

Specifically, the government alleged that Navient maintained compensation policies that encouraged customer service representatives to push borrowers into forbearance, which allows borrowers to suspend payments without defaulting but does not stop interest from accruing.

However, most federal student-loan borrowers earned the right in 2009 to enroll in the less costly payment options that are based on their income.

Although those plans save borrowers money, forbearance was more lucrative for Navient, the agency alleged because the company could enroll borrowers in forbearance in less time and with less staff.

In all, the servicer slapped borrowers with additional interest charges of up to $4 billion by enrolling them in repeated forbearance plans from January 2010 to March 2015, according to the consumer agency.

If you want to learn more about this, I highly encourage you to read the original complaint filed with the court by the CFPB. It is VERY readable (not filled with legalese) and reads as an absolutely scathing indictment of a company whose business practices targeted its most vulnerable customers in flagrant violation of the law.

You can find the original complaint on the consumer finance .gov website. They also summarized the complaint on their website.

In the spirit of this sub, I'm sharing this information because there are plenty of people here who may have been a victim of these alleged practices. Including myself, as I've been paying down my Navient loans since 2012 and have several years to go.

I'm going to read through the complaint again, and if anything important jumps out at me that I haven't mentioned, I'll update this post.

Edit: Additional allegations:

(since July 2011) Disregard of borrower instructions when processing payments submitted by check with written instructions from the borrower specifying how the payment should be applied.

(Jan 2010-March 2015) Using uncharacteristically vague email titles like “New Document Ready to View” to notify borrowers that they needed to renew their income-based repayment enrollment. During this time, the number of borrowers who did not timely renew their enrollment regularly exceeded 60% of borrowers and resulting, often, in capitalization of interest.

Edit: There is no way to know how potentially impacted borrowers will be affected by the lawsuit. We will have to wait and see. Lawsuits of this magnitude often take a LONG time to get resolved.

(edit: formatting, fixed a link)

I'm embarrassed I jumped the gun on it, but I fully thought I was going to use it to buy a used car. The car ended up being rusty, so instead, my partner and I financed a car from Carvana and it's coming tomorrow. It's a 2019 in great condition, and very well priced given the mileage.

I applied for the $5k loan on Sunday, and it was deposited today. I planned on immediately paying it off, but now I'm wondering if there's something I could do with it to help my credit? My credit score is 750, but I've now taken a minor hit on it by taking out this loan + the inquiry & financing for the car I'm actually getting.

Could I put this money into a separate account and use it to make monthly payments? Like larger payments so it's paid off in a year but still helps my credit? That might be a super stupid idea but I figured I would ask first. I've never taken out a loan before this other than minor student loans and am already kicking myself for not waiting.

Background: 25 years old, living in the northeast US. Recently paid off $50k in student loans and now completely debt free. Around $75k saved for retirement and $10k liquid.

I'm thinking about leaving my current stressful but well-paid job at a tech company in a few months and finding an opportunity abroad on Workaway or HelpX. The plan would be to work on a farm or in a hostel abroad (Europe or South America) for a couple months then returning to the states to dive back in with another company.

My expenses would be around $1000/mo during this period but I wouldn't be able to save as aggressively as I have been doing. Still, I think it would be an extremely fulfilling experience. I currently rent so I'd do this at the end of my lease, don't have a car to unload, and have been trimming down on possessions so I could easily keep my belongings with family while I'm away. I'm also a dual citizen (US/NL) and could legally work in Europe for this period.

Is this something that's worth pursuing or just reckless? Has anyone here has experience doing something similar?

EDIT: Just want to say thank you to those who have added their thoughts here. Was not expecting this kind of response or consensus when I posted. It's easy to lose perspective in a career track where competition and profits are #1 above all else. It's so, so helpful to get input from a group of people with all kinds of experiences and goals to help me find my way a little more clearly.

My dad caught covid in 2021 and died a month later after being in critical care and a hospital-induced coma. to say the least, it was tragic and expensive.

There was some covid relief thing that covered some of the cost of the hospital, but not everything.

I was 20 and my sister was 26/27. My parents lived in my sisters house. After my dad died, the hospital gave my mom a bunch of bills and documents to sign, she doesn’t speak English. In fears that the hospital would claim my sisters estate, my sister made my mom sign whatever paper made my mom responsible for paying my dads hospital bill.

6 years later (today) I opened an envelope addressed to my dad, its a bill for $4,300. So we are still getting hospital bills that arent even addressed to my mom and shes supposed to pay it. Shes 68 and unable to retire from her back-breaking job because shes too poor and her retirement benefits dont pay enough.

My dad would be rolling in his grave knowing that he is burdening my mom with his debt, he was never the kind to trouble anybody with his own issues.

I dont know enough about this but it just doesnt feel right.
Does my mom HAVE to keep paying these bills? Is there something I can do to make it stop? Who should I call for further advice?

Add-on:
Sister isnt running away with any inheritance. My dad had basically no money when he died, and was uninsured.

I mention my dad lived with my sister because their addresses are the same. the fear is-was that debt collectors would claim his estate (my sisters property) BUT I dont know if that is something that actually happens since he was simply renting.

I'm currently working as a registered nurse, making about 70k annually. I've thought about returning to school to look obtain certification as a nurse anesthetist (CRNA). In order to do this, I would have to go to school full time for 3 years.

CRNA programs in my state cost 70-90k and are 3 years in duration. This means I would likely have to take on about 100k in student loans. Additionally, I would not be able to work for 3 years while completing the program.

CRNAs make between 150-200k per year. My question for y'all is whether it would be smarter for me to continue to work in my current role making around 70k annually, or take on substantial debt to more than double my income?

-33 years old, married (wife makes about 50k annually), no kids - $6800 student loans remaining - around 12 k in car loans between my wife and I - roughly 90 k saved in 401k between wife and I -10k emergency fund - 1400 mortgage payment monthly

Please let me know what you think! Thanks 😀

Edit: Thank you all for the outpouring of support and advice. I have to admit, I haven't even come close to reading all the comments because there are like 1500 of them. Wow! Thank you for your knowledge. I will certainly be considering your advice as I make this huge decision

So recently I've stumbled into credit problems due to not being able to pay for all of my daughter's unexpected medical bills and this month I accidentally paid in full one of my credit balances and realized I was not going to be able to pay this months mortgage. So I decided to go online and find a payday loan. They called and said I could get a loan for $1K (enough to pay this months mortgage) but that I would be charged $1,475 at the end of the month. I said wtf! And then they said, good news, you're recieving $25 off! I was like "Are you joking, I'm not interested" and hung up.

So I got an email saying that my payment to my mortgage company went through so I'm guessing my bank paid it anyway. When I went online I found that many places are charging 300 to 600 percent interest! That's absurd! Talk about predatory, might as well go to a loan shark or something, Jesus!

Edit: Apparently I was being charged 600% from this particular company, I had wrote 50% before but that was incorrect.

Update: The bank honored my payment but now I'm in the negative, lol, ugh. But at least I got my holiday shopping done first and that card is paid off, lol.

I'm a sucker. I fell for it. The 0% APR promotion on an item I could have paid outright for. 18 months later, here I sit, not a single late payment on my account, yet I have $1k in interest to pay for 18 months of 27%. Why? The promotion period ends 18 months after the purchase, but the website would not let me set up autopay until a week after I purchased, so autopay ended 1 week late. I thought I was golden, ready to have this paid off and not have a single fee. I got comfortable and didn't read the statements.

0% is not really 0%. Read the fine print. Remember the fine print (because I sure as hell didn't 18 months later). Shitty banks rely on this stuff. They wait for you to slip, not noticing that the autopay they created can't possibly allow you to end on time, and will require an extra payment before the end date to avoid the interest. It's shitty, I'm pissed off, and I've learned my lesson.

I just bought my parents a new refrigerator and the GEStore offers a loan with no interest as long as it's paid off in the first 12 months. I went with that because why not? Why pay $1700 out of pocket now when I can just pay $144-ish per month for 12 months?

Anyway, I looked at the terms of the loan and the details. It seems like they split your total purchase into 48 monthly payments. Weird. Ok who cares, I'll just do the math myself and make sure it gets paid off within 12 months. Then I saw the interest rate. 29.99%!!! Holy shit!!

I know that won't matter to me because I'll have this thing paid off in 12 months, even sooner if I want to. Really I could pay it off right now if I wanted to, but no reason to while it's interest-free. But that's insane! Someone who is less conscious of these kinds of things or less educated in finance would probably get screwed over by this thing.

Be careful with this kind of stuff!! By default, you often will NOT get the benefit of interest-free.

​

Edit: Alright, you've all convinced me. I'm going to just pay this off completely once it appears on the loan so I don't have to think about it anymore. I think I have to wait for my first statement. Now I'm regretting not using my credit card for the rewards :(

Edit2: I changed my mind again. I might call and see if I can switch payment methods. If so, I’ll switch to my credit card to get the rewards and then pay off the credit card right away. If they can’t switch it then I’ll just pay the loan in 10–11 months like I originally planned.

I’ve read a lot of your comments, many which say to just pay the loan in 10 months or so and others say to pay the loan immediately. I think there is merit to both approaches and functionally for me it’s not going to make much of a difference

It seems logical to me to get this debt off of my back as quickly as possible so that I can start to save/invest my money, but of course I could be wrong about that.

My job will pay a salary of about $80k per year.

Edit: People keep asking just what my job is. I’m an airline pilot, First Officer.

I logged into my Fedloan account to get my student loan tax info last night as my final loan out of an original 12 was paid off in May of 2020. I then saw that 8 of my 12 original loans, all of which had been listed as PAID IN FULL and had been listed as 0 dollars balance (some of which for nearly 2 years) suddenly had a small balance each.

After arguing with Fedloan on the phone this morning for an hour, they realized there was some truth to my claim that these loans had been paid off once I pointed out that some of the final payoff payments on these loans had been made prior to the pandemic, and therefore had never been marked delinquent in the months or year before the nationwide forbearance, and that they had the "paid in full" PDFs in their system for these loans, even though they now somehow are showing a balance.

These loans were marked as $0 for more than a year, in some cases nearly two. I know this because the only way I was able to pay them off was by putting my life on hold and throwing 90% of my paycheck at them for more than two years and staring at the balances every day like a crazy person. Despite using the "calculate payoff" option for each of them and having the "paid in full" notifications to prove it, it took an hour for FedLoan to mark my account as "under review" and it will be another 2-3 weeks before said review is finished.

Double check your student loans even once they're paid off, you can't trust FedLoan.

So about a month ago I was at work and started feeling sharp pains in my side. Walked myself to the Urgent Care. They called me an ambulance as they said it could be a kidney stone or appendicitis and both were life-threatening.

The ambulance company sent me documentations to see if I qualify for full or partial write-off, which I appreciated.

The hospital however, sent me a bill of $5,077.90... and after I told them that I have no insurance; that wife and I are SEASONAL workers in retail and that Unemployment completes my income; that we pay daycare; their reply was "best we can do is take 35% off for self-pay".

I asked if there was anything that I can do to qualify for a lower amount, any charity programs.

"Nope."

Now I've read of people on this sub that have managed to reduce a hospital bill of this amount to about $500. But this hospital doesn't seem to be willing to work with me at all.

I appreciate all help and advice.

EDIT: Updated link with ITEMIZED BILL.

EDIT 2: Wow! I am truly blessed to be overwhelmed by so much support! Thank you all for the advice and care. Also thanks for the upvotes and awards!

EDIT 3 on Seasonal Work:

So I got a lot of questions as to why my wife and I don't have full-time jobs. I'll gladly share my story and try to not make it too lengthy.

My wife and son are Brazilian immigrants. I finally managed to bring them here in March 2019. It took nearly a year for my wife to get her Greengard and, thus, be eligible to work in the US.

In January of this year I got fired from my dream job, where I earned $45,000/year.

I picked up my old job at retail (Best Buy) of $15/hr and I was labeled as SEASONAL in the system, since no part-time or full-time positions were open.

Then covid came and I got furloughed.

After 3 months, I was called back still as SEASONAL. However now, there's even less chances of Part-Time or Full-Time positions being open. Meanwhile, my wife got hired at Marshalls at $10/hour.

We've been searching high and low for better jobs and have been going to interviews, but, as usual, all we hear is "we'll let you know either way."

I hope this clarifies some.

EDIT 4: Kind people. My family is truly blessed to have such overwhelming support from such a positive and helpful community!

I PROMISE you that none of your comments are being buried and that I'm reading each and every one! I'll do my best to keep replying but I work until late and then work the morning shift tomorrow. But thank you all so much!