[speaker001:] hello hello hi boy it took forever to find somebody
[speaker002:] hello hello oh well I'm glad you found me
[speaker001:] good well I'm my name's Gail and I guess we have to talk about credit cards
[speaker002:] yes my name is Carolyn
[speaker001:] okay well if you're ready then uh
[speaker002:] okay I'll just let you start
[speaker001:] I'll okay I'll press one  okay well I'm not this is kind of an interesting subject to come up for me because credit cards are my downfall I just find it so easy to to charge something when I don't have the money to pay for it and really trying to get out of that habit so I think they're kind of dangerous
[speaker002:] I think they are too and unfortunately um we use ours in we don't use them all the time but we use them like at Christmas time and then it seems like it takes all year to pay them off when you use them like that but um I would love to just take some scissors and cut them in half
[speaker001:] um-hum  yeah me too
[speaker002:] I think sometimes when you look at the interest that you're paying on them um that's what gets to be the really scary part you know if you think when it comes around to income tax time and you look at how much money you paid out just in interest all year you could really get a lot more stuff
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] if you were just able to pay outright for it
[speaker001:] yeah that's true that's true seems just like our society is so um pushes so hard for you can have it you know and then no interest no payments for a year and stuff like this they're really trying to get you into that uh situation because they know they've really got you then
[speaker002:] that's right
[speaker001:] so
[speaker002:] yeah all I know is some of my credit cards like um we have a Sears one and we always get a maintenance agreement every year and it's just easier to say you know just put that on my credit card well that's
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] probably four or five hundred dollars you know that goes on at that point and then it seems like
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] takes forever to pay that off
[speaker001:] it's funny that uh we've got a Sears card and we bought a washer and dryer on it four years ago
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and we still owe I mean I I think like half of the amount that they cost in the first place
[speaker002:] wow
[speaker001:] it's just uh you know you just never never get get it out and uh that's that's real irritating to have
[speaker002:] it sure is we eventually did one time we just borrowed you know took a personal loan and paid off all our credit cards and the interest on the loan was cheaper than it was you know to just have that
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] we haven't done it lately we probably need to do it again
[speaker001:] well we did you know one time we wanted to buy a truck a used truck and so we went down to the bank and they said sure we'll give you a personal loan it was only a thousand dollars that we needed
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] for the truck and they said sure that's no problem but you know why don't we consolidate your bills and at the time we thought oh that would be great you know we could and it's gonna be a lower payment than it was for all of them you only have to write one check a month not all those you never miss one or whatever and we did that but we didn't realize at the time
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh until several months later that we we were real I mean this was four year three years ago we were pretty young and we were just kind of like well I guess that means these credit cards are closed and we didn't you know about six months later we realized we could use them and so we charged them all up again
[speaker002:] oh no
[speaker001:] yeah so then we were not only paying those bills regular like we were before but also adding the lower payment problem so we were paying like twice
[speaker002:] oh
[speaker001:] um so we didn't ever made that mistake again luckily but uh we're definitely working on not doing that credit thing we just as a matter of fact this it's real interesting the subjects I get they always seem to be so pertinent but we just discussed this last night at church talking about debt and things like that I just it's so so alluring and uh so easy to get uh sometimes
[speaker002:] um-hum I know they really encourage you not to go into debt for anything except for maybe your house and your car
[speaker001:] um-hum yeah
[speaker002:] and uh if you could stick to that you know we'd get rid of a lot of indigestion and everything else
[speaker001:] yeah  yep sure that's true oh I just picked up my daughter and she was eating a cupcake and there are crumbs all over her yeah what a mess you are
[speaker002:] oh dear
[speaker001:] oh so I don't know if I if I I just feel kind of I my big thing was my husband really wanted to get rid of our Visa card and I just thought you know if we ever had something go wrong with our refrigerator or something you know and we had to had to buy one and we would really need that and
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] so he said okay we'll keep it and then we weren't smart enough to not use it so
[speaker002:] you know one thing you might do with in a situation like that though it's just like keep
[speaker001:] now we just don't