Tuesday, June 16, 1998

Some Holiday!
By Michael Maham ([email protected])

We interrupt this program on the Loose Change Network to bring you the following special announcement: You've just won a Holiday!! What kind of holiday, you ask? A "National" Holiday like the Fourth of July? No. A "Banking" holiday like President's Day that only bankers seem to get off? No. One of those cool "Floating" holidays that the company gives you to take when you want (to observe Martin Luther King Day or a religious observance of your flavor of religion, or whatever else)? Well, no.

You've won a Payment holiday. Actually, I won it from MBNA , for my MasterCard account. Apparently just because I'm such a wonderful guy. I'm willing to pass this holiday on to you, though, because it's a bit pricey for me. It always surprises me to open my statement and see, there in the "Payment Due" block "Payment Holiday." Down in the text of the statement they congratulate me and tell me "Hey take the month off from that arduous task of writing a check, licking an envelope and licking a stamp (it wears me out just reading about it). Oh, by the way, finance charges still apply."

Ah, there's the rub. Right now I unFoolishly have a balance on this account (hey, give me a break! I'm working on it!). [Editor's note: For some encouragement see our Foolish Debt area.] With a $990 balance, my minimum payments would be about $18 a month, and my finance charges about $12. So I'm paying $6 of principal. Let's see 6 goes into990… 165 times. 165 months! 13 years and 9 months to pay it off paying the minimum!!! And if I take this all expenses paid (by me) holiday, they'll tack on $12 in finance charges, wiping out two months' worth of principal, which means I'd have two more months of Indentured Servitude (not to mention two more checks to write, two more envelopes to lick and two more stamps to lick!). No wonder bankers can take every holiday marked on the calendar!

I don't know about you, but I'll wait for the Fourth!

Keep on Foolin'!

InvestorHuey

p.s. a special "Hi" to my wife who taught me Foolish Lesson #2 before the Fool did. Thanks for saying, "Pay that debt, Fool!!"

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