F-You Capital One! Hello, Chase!

So this month (post bonus) has been a how shall I call it? hmm. Spending orgy is probably accurate, haha. Anyway, combined with my business travel expenses, I'm about $500 from the $10,000 limit on my Capital One platinum whatever card. I never applied for this card -- it switched over when HSBC sold their card portfolio to C1. So I applied for a credit limit increase. I got rejected!! I was so mad. I pay in full on time every month on that card and every other card. Always have. Never have had a late payment. AND they told me my credit score is 793. I called and got bumped up to talk to a credit supervisor but they're idiots over there and can't tell me why I got rejected.

I had been thinking about ponying up for the Platinum Amex (it has good travel benefits like they reimburse the fee for the Global Entry program which I've been meaning to enroll in for forever because I'm gold on American and they will add me to their TSA Pre list if I do). Anyway, the Platinum Amex is $400 a year. Even w/ the monetary benefits (I figure I could get about $300 worth out of it), I feel silly spending that on a credit card.  Plus, I love getting cash back. I just got a $500 credit added to the C1 card as a cash back reward.

So I went on CreditKarma and found another cash back card. The Chase Freedom (I know anyone reading this now is like duh of course). Credit Karma has some really useful tools. It showed me that barely any of the cardholders have even the limit I have on C1. I think the C1 cards are more for people who don't spend as much, have worse credit, etc. I'm probably ideal for the Amex, but because I want to keep earning that sweet cash, I got the Chase Freedom card. And I'm pretty sure that they gave me a credit limit of $28K, which sadly I actually might need at some point because of all my work expenses (i pay them and then get reimbursed). There's no annual fee on the card, so it's a win-win.

Credit Score Blues

I checked my credit score today, something I hadn't done since September (spurred on by the NY Times story about dating and credit scores). So annoying!! Because my mortgage took 4 months to get and I applied with several lenders, I have like 3-6 inquiries on my report, which brought down my score a lot. I also (god forbid), opened up a Best Buy credit card and a new Mastercard in May after I moved. The credit scoring algorithm is dumb - too dumb to know that all those inquiries on my report are related to my mortgage. Whatever, I know my score will "recover" at some point, and it's not like it's low -- about 720-750 depending on the bureau. It is ridiculous though that someone who has never missed a payment and pays off their credit card every month has anything other than a perfect score!

All Settled

Finally I am fully moved into my new home and have all of my new financial accounts set up. The home buying process took forever i.e. about 4 months. And then getting all of my new accounts set up like the mortgage (it got sold immediately to a new servicer), new credit cards I've opened to purchase home items, new utility accounts, etc. has taken this long. I just now, a month or so into living in my new place, feel like I finally have a handle on it.

Besides home furnishing expenses (I'm not going too crazy, but there's a lot of even small things that I need like garbage pails and area rugs not mention window treatments), I just today saw my electric bill. At my old place, they usually averaged around $30 which is VERY low I know. The new bill is $90. But now I have a dishwasher, central AC and a washer and dryer, so that's the difference. However, I barely have any lights in my new apt yet (everything I want seems like it is on back order) so I wonder if this will go up even more once I actually have some lights at night.

I've decided to make additional $500 a month pre-payments towards principal. I really feel like I want to chop down the mortgage balance ASAP! I have to balance this desire with the need to keep some cash on hand, should I ever need it. Luckily the developer is still making all repairs to my apt. I've already had a plumber here 2x, an appliance repair person and the developer. That's one benefit of buying new. The cost of buying new was the transfer and other taxes. My closing costs were about 17K. Yikes! NYC is crazy with the taxes, as usual.

So far I like being a homeowner, even thought I really feel like I am just renting from the bank. I guess I own about 26% of my apt. at this point. But I hope to own a lot more over the next few years!

Spending all my money

When I first started writing (i think about a year ago now) I never would have envisioned that I would be writing about all the big purchases I am making! That said, I am happy to be doing so. Today I bought bedroom furniture. As the man put it in the store, "big girl furniture."I am so happy that I did so. I've never bought furniture. I have a bed w/out a headboard, a hand me down dresser that I dragged out of my grandmom's attic, an Ikea night stand from college and some sort of canvas tent contraption for an armoire. I've had all of these items since the beginning of time.
So, I'm happy that I was able to buy something nice for myself and that I don't feel guilty about spending the money.

That said, I tried to look for pieces of Craigslist, but got tired of waiting for the specific ones I wanted to come up. So full-price it is. I did open a store credit card and have six months with minimum payments at zero percent interest. I vaguely remember reading that these types of deals are bad for your credit score as they are counted as a cash advance or some such thing, but frankly I don't care. My score is in the 800s. Even if it goes down 100 points, I'll still be fine.