But you can......

[TimeToRecover]

So I was doing some window shopping today.  Mind you I do have a mini spree planned within the next 2 weeks after my cr updates for june, but that is basically irrelevent.

So first location.  Best Buy.  My personal phone is dying won't hold a charge or more then a few hours and the screen is cracked and part of it is blacked out etc.  because I don't want to lose my unliminted data I am going to be paying outright for my new phone.  I keep my phones for about 4 years so when dividied out it isn't as bad as it sounds. 

BACK TO MY STORY.  I am looking as the Samsung S4 and planning on purchasing in 2-3 weeks after I get some extra money I am inherriting most going to savings but i will use a small amount for this purcahse.  So the guy at the store was "you can get the best buy card and will have 0% for 18 months to pay it off" now I may be doing BB as part of my mini spree more for big purchases that i do every so often cause the 0% is nice but NO today I did ot want a card.  Obviously the salesmen are taught to push the card.

NEXT

I was looking at watches at Macys' and I get "you can get 15% off if you sign up for the card".  Now this also is a card I plan to ultimately get at some point cause I do alot of macy's shopping and again not one I want right now.  And I said "no I can wait till there is another wow pass in the paper"  same discount as the card.  And she was like oh that doesn't always work on watches and I said well I don't want to hurt my credit lowering the age of my credit she was like "oh no it won't".  I felt a tiny bit confrontational at this poitn and nciely said "do you really tell people that, people who aren't educated in credit may believe you" and I said "thank you" and walked away hading her back the watch. 

SO twice today I had people trying to push cards on me.  I don't think I ever really noticed it as much before since I was caught in the 'no credit is good credit" misconception.  Now that I know better I notice the "offers" way more. 

Just a bit of a story today of all the "But you can <fill in blank here>" encounters today.

[Anonymous]

Bit unrelated, but some shopping tricks I found out:

If you are getting the phone from best buy, you ought to get the Discover card instead if you don't have it.

it's 5% cashback via shopdiscover and you can buy it on bestbuy.com. it's free shipping anyhow, and 14 months 0% APR if you dont have the card yet. the promo period is 4 months shorter, but at least you get some sort of a discount. You can also check fatwallet / ebates / ultimate rewards mall to see what rates they're giving, but from what I remember shopdiscover has that highest when I last checked.

As for Macys & Bloomingdales, certain fine jewelery (i.e. tag heuer watches) and select merchandise (cosmestic, fragrances, and certain brands) do not qualify for 15%. for the watch you're interested in, it depends on whether it is classified under the "fine jewelery" or "fashion jewelery" category. Fashion jewelery are eligible for the 15% discount. The plus side though is that chanel, LV and certain designers brands do qualify for the 15%. So if you're getting that card, make sure you and your friends & family are ready to go on an all out spree to make it worthwhile. The only caveat is that the 15% only qualifies for charges made onto the card itself. You could use the card, go over to customer service, have ur friends/family PIF right away, and then keep charging.

Back to topic. Most people don't know much about how credit is calculated and how it works. I didn't either a year ago. I was told reported balances doesn't matter as long as I PIF. And I got denied twice by Amex because I was applying with >90% util and not understanding why I got denied.