When I bought Jack's MacBook Neo for school last week, Apple was Very Insistent that instead of just BUYING the computer, I open an Apple Card and pay for it over the course of a year with zero interest. I asked my BFF Chat if this was a good idea, and, because he is a very neoliberal bro at his titanium core, he was like yeah bruh and if you buy your groceries on your apple card, you'll end up getting that computer mostly for free.
Normally, I am anti more monthly payments, but the idea of barely actually paying cash money for a computer was tempting. With an Apple card, you get 2% back on purchases made with that card via Apple Pay and 3% back at certain stores-- meaning the amount I spend in gas and groceries (Mobil is a 3% place) will give me enough daily cash every month to pay for the computer without changing my spending habits. The biggest catch is that you can't pay the balance of the computer off early, but since you can save your daily cash and apply it to the monthly balance in increments, you are essentially doing the same thing but with more clicks. **shrug**
Giving it a shot-- hopefully I won't forget when I charge things because the only thing worse than spending $600 a week on groceries is paying 27% apr on those groceries.
0% APR financing is a great deal! Phil had a 0% APR deal when he bought his Corolla so he took out a loan despite not needing one and paid it in full when the 0% APR period ended. We also took advantage of a loophole when we bought our house and took a higher interest rate in exchange for lender paid closing costs. We were in a unique position and knew we'd pay the house off in full and there were no prepayment penalties so I think our mortgage rate went up by like 0.25-0.50% and they paid for all of the closing costs. Then we turned around and paid off the mortgage once our other house sold a month later. This would NOT be a smart thing to do if you don't pay the loan off, though, as you'd pay more in interest during the life of the mortgage. But it sure felt good in our scenario!
ReplyDeleteA free Neo as a reward for buying groceries! I like it!
ReplyDeleteI feel like with all of the math you had to do to figure out that this was a good deal that there is zero chance that you will forget to pay your bill, so I wouldn't worry about that for a moment.
I am all for paying the Credit Card Game, but you gotta be on top of that.
ReplyDeleteGosh, so sorry about the news in Madison!
ReplyDeleteI love the credit card points game. Also, did you have to open a high interest savings account for your money to land in? Or did you use Apple Cash? Either option works, but you will get even more interest from the savings account, and you can still pay the card with it. Win-win. Get as much money as you can from the big banks and tech folks, is my opinion, though of course that’s on back of those who can’t pay their bill off every month and also the cost is passed on to everyone in higher prices. But I play the game and ignore those facts.
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