Dear Cheapskate: This is petty perhaps, but how does one ever completely pay off a credit card account?
We paid off a credit card recently (Hallelujah!) by sending a check for the exact amount of the balance due taken from the monthly statement. The following month we received a bill for $1.91—all of it a finance charge! Sure, it’s not much, but that was discouraging. Any suggestions?—Alan
Dear Alan: You have just discovered another of the credit card companies’ tricks. Because companies use the average-daily-balance method to compute interest, it is nearly impossible to pay a credit card balance off to the penny if you’ve been carrying a balance of any amount….