quite a busy day today......

First off, I have several items at work I am working on, and of course evryone want's there stuff ASAP. The big event today though was mailing out the checks from my Home Equity Loan.

I have been working on this loan for about a month. I figure it will be a very good deal. I refinanced my 2nd mortgage and also took enough to pay off the credit cards. I have drastically reduced my interest rate, cut my payments in half, 15 year term and of course the interest is deductable.

I had my credit cards in a Credit Counselor program in which I sent them a single large payment which they doled out to the creditors. They had got me some rate decreases and they were doing a pretty good job, but now I will be doing much better. The big key though is STAY OFF THE CREDIT CARDS !

I did learn something today though. When I started with the Credit Couselor I had to set up an electronic debit from my checking account to them for the monthly payment. Anyway, about 2 weeks ago I called them and told them to close my account and stop the monthly debit; I also went to my bank and told them to stop payment on the monthly debit from the Credit Counselor. Anyway, the bank charged me $30.00 for a stop payment, which is fine, if they do what they say they will do.

Well, lo and behold, I check my account this morning and see that the Credit Counselor had taken their monthly debit !! I called them and they told me they will reverse the debit. Later, I went to the bank and told the manager that I wanted a refund on the $30 fee, which he agreed to credit my account for that. The bank manager told me that a stop payment is really only effective with checks or 1-time payments, it does not work with a monthly debit. He said they have my account # and the only way to stop the debit is to get them to stop doing it, or to close the account !

Lesson Learned: do not set up automatic debits with anyone, pay your bils yourself !

all for now....

DJR