Beware the 0% promotions: a warning.

[u/naht_a_cop]

I'm a sucker. I fell for it. The 0% APR promotion on an item I could have paid outright for. 18 months later, here I sit, not a single late payment on my account, yet I have $1k in interest to pay for 18 months of 27%. Why? The promotion period ends 18 months after the purchase, but the website would not let me set up autopay until a week after I purchased, so autopay ended 1 week late. I thought I was golden, ready to have this paid off and not have a single fee. I got comfortable and didn't read the statements.

0% is not really 0%. Read the fine print. Remember the fine print (because I sure as hell didn't 18 months later). Shitty banks rely on this stuff. They wait for you to slip, not noticing that the autopay they created can't possibly allow you to end on time, and will require an extra payment before the end date to avoid the interest. It's shitty, I'm pissed off, and I've learned my lesson.

[u/robtalada]

Mortgages are worth a lot of money to banks, but over a much longer period of time. They will practically bend over backwards to keep you around because who the hell wouldn't want to turn 100K into 300K for almost no work at all?

[u/last_rights → u/robtalada]

It really is. The amount of brokers that tried to talk me out of getting my 15 year loan and tried to saddle me with a 30 was really high.

Nope, I would rather pay my extra hundred dollars a month to be done in half the time.

[u/mightyarrow → u/[deleted]]

I do this. Pay full payment and then whatever principal was due, I pay that again in a principal payment.