Credit Card First Not the Car

Those of you that know Matt and I well know that we have been following Dave Ramsey's get out of debt principles. We are finally nearing the end of our battle with debt and will be debt free by the end of the summer. We have two more big debts to pay off. One of them is our fleece on our Toyota Sienna minivan and the other is a chase credit card. They both are within a couple thousand dollars of each other. But the plan states that you pay off least to greatest. So the minivan was next on the list. Notice I said "was". That's right, "was". This next week we were going to pay off our remaining balance of approximately $15,000. I know that is a lot. But recent dirty activities of JPMorgan Chase Bank have changed our plans.

In January Chase decided to start charging a $20 monthly fee to credit card holders that have a fixed low rate of 2.99%-5.99% for the life of the balance on their card. They are also doubling the minimum payment on those cards from 2.5% to 5% of the balance. So far this has not happened to us. But we have decided to go ahead and pay off Chase first just out of principle. We think what Chase is doing is wrong. So, all the money that we have been saving up to pay off our van is now going to Chase. As of next Saturday our last credit card will bite the dust. This will in no way change our busting debt deadline. We will still be out of debt by the end of the summer.

We have also decided to change banks too. Yes, we bank with them too.