This past weekend I began reading “Start Late, Finish Rich”. My husband and I are in our mid-fifties so we are definitely ‘starting late’. Although I had heard the idea of calling the credit card companies to lower the interest rates, we were like everyone else – Really? sure, me dealing with a big corporation? Well, yesterday I decided to try it for myself. Here is what I emailed my husband after talking with the first credit card company.
Guess what!

I called the credit card company about lowering our interest rate.(This card has been at the outrageous rate of 24.98% since forever.)

The first personI spoke with immediately said she could lower it to 13.9% from 24.98. I thought to myself wow, that is awesome but courageously went on.

I asked if I could talk with someone about lowering to below 10%

Matt – the next guy asked what I was paying elsewhere and I told him another card was at 9.75%. Without a pause, he said he could go one better to 8.96% starting August 19th. Amazing! In just five minutes time the interest rate went down 16%! I was excited and armed with that courage I called another card company. I had an Aerogold Visa which collected the Aeroplan Miles – had an annual fee of $120 and an interest rate of 19.5%

In one short call this was switched to a Visa Select card which has an annual fee of $29 , no aeroplan miles and an interest rate of 11.5%
Originally I had planned on only calling the first credit card company that day. But having experienced so much success, I forged on to the last card. This card’s interest rate was at 18.50% The first person I talked with tried to find a lower rate 2 times with various departments – but apparently nothing was available at that time.I questioned why another card company was able to give something immediately but here I would have to wait for some promotional letters or calls from the company. Again she put me on hold and I ws put through to another supervisor. – James.

He was able to lower the rate to 12.99% starting Sept 2/08

This is exciting – all these will save so much in interest! Following those calls I put together an aggressive repayment plan with the help of a debt repayment calculator. We are looking forward to being credit card debt free in a little over a year PLUS saving literally thousands in interest!

Thank you! Now we are looking at the Latte Factor – somewhat hesitantly on my part – what will I have to give up? Seriously, I am excited to Finish Rich – even starting this late. Where was this teaching when we were in school?
Bev Rempel
Canada