Dealing with credit card companies is like playing Monoploy

Y'all have a couple of these in your wallets I bet. I used to have 3 of them, but I cancelled one and have been slowly paying off the balance. In October I made my last payment of about $35. I felt really happy that I had finally paid it off, and was looking forward to seeing nothing but zeros on my next statement.

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I had always thought when you pay off a balance in full, that you are not charged interest. Anyone else think that? But today when I got my final statement, I noticed that they had charged me interest! It was only 9 cents, but I was annoyed enough to call up my CC company. The guy on the phone said "Well lets not make a big deal out of it, it's only 9 cents." But in my mind, those cents add up.

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In the end, I got the 9 cents credited to my account, and I got a tutorial on interest charges. Here's how it works:

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They send out your statement and estimate the number of days it will take to get to you (about 4 days). They then charge you a daily interest fee from that day forward. In my case 6 days worth of interest on a $35 balance. So if you are like me, and pay your bills just before they are due, you are getting charged extra interest. TIP #1: pay your bill as soon as you get it to avoid the daily interest charges.

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My other tip of the day, (let's call it TIP #2) is that if your credit card ever charges you fees (like overlimit fees, late fees etc) call them up. A quick phone call is all it takes- as long as you ask nicely. They have never said "no" to me. The one time they hesitated, I just calmly asked who I should talk to about cancelling my card. That changed their tune. Same applies to having your interest rate decreased.