Question: Hrm. Anything to watch out for with cash advances on credit cards? I’ve never done this before, and I’d of course rather not be doing it… but it seems to be the best way to get a little cash to pull me through until I get a job.
Seems as though the minimum charge is $5 plus the $15 finance charge(?)… So, with the payment percentage being 2% or something, I’d want to cash advance $200. (because I’ll have to pay the $5 fee, even if I only take out $100.)
See, I’m new at all this, and am worried that I don’t know all the potential pitfalls.
My situation is that I’m only going to have $40 to my name after I pay for my transportation pass… I’m currently looking for a job — any job, just to make ends meet. I need to have a little more cash on hand in order to buy medications and necessities.
Surely someone can tell me if there might be a better approach to getting some cash to get me by while I search for a job… I’m going to ask my parents for a loan, but it’s likely that they’re going to refuse.
Answer: CAUTION: there are the fees you quoted PLUS the interest rate for the cash advances is not the same as for purchases. It can be 25% or worse. Don’t even think about it until clarification of this. If you need money because you haven’t gotten a job yet, try temporary services that place in a job for a day/week/month/whatever at a time. I definitely would not go the route of cash advance on a credit card… you will be paying interest forever. It might be better to look into a small personal loan, with set payback time. Another similar problem I ran into was I had this charge with maybe $2000 on it and the interest had gone up to like %15 (didn’t start there, it was raised gradually and became a hated card) BUT then they did a special where you could transfer something and that would be 5.9% I transferred several thousand from higher cards that were 13.99% Unfortunately, all my payments are going to that low rate and and the purchases that were 15% are sitting there growing interest with no payment going toward that till the 5. 9 is paid. ugh…. I had had a card in the past where the payment was divided up between the 2 different balances and was horrified to find that this card (which is the norm now) was not working that way.
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