Credit and debt

The credit/finance gods have decided to be good to me. I was just happy to even be approved for the CareCredit card, even if the interest rate said it was like 22.9% or some ridiculous  rate. Just before we went over to pick pup up I got back on their website, just to look around some more. Apparently, depending on what deal they have worked out with each provider I might be offered 6 months terms, or 12 months etc. Different promotional periods I guess. Not that it mattered as I planned to get this paid of in 2, 3 payments max.

When she put the bill on my new account and gave me the paperwork to sign - I read it and it was 12 months, No interest!! Thank you, thank you! Now I have some leeway to pay it off over a longer time, rather than the 2 months I was going to split it over. There was no way I was going to drag it out and pay that interest rate! $38 a month for 12 months is much more do-able with the monthly budget than trying to pay off $233 each of the next 2 months. That would have drained whatever I would have been able to put into reserves for other emergencies that will of course come up.

Credit is a blessing and a curse, but when it's interest free I'll take it! It allows me to rebuild my credit score, without having to spend money on interest. My dentist and endodontist are part of this CareCredit program too. I'm thinking I might add my root canal or crown expense to it, when I have to pay that. If it's going to be 12 months no interest too, I might as well spread the cost out and give myself more wiggle room in my monthly budget, rather than using all my reserves and then some at once to pay it off. I owe $290 to the endodontist and my share of the crown (haven't had that procedure done yet) will be approximately $450. The endondontist wants full payment now...Funny thing there - I'm pretty sure I was supposed to pay upon leaving my appointment Thursday, but my appointment ran so long it was well into the noon lunch hour (they even switched assistants towards th end of my root canal so the one assistant could have her lunch break!). I waited at the front desk for a couple of minutes, but the front desk gal never came back and no one was waiting in the waiting room, so I have a feeling she was at lunch. I just left and figured she could call me for my debit card or they could just mail me the bill, so it hasn't been paid yet.  The regular dentist has offered to spread the $450 out over 3 payments, so that is a good offer, but now I'm considering putting that on the card, if I would be offered 12 months no interest on that too.  Still thinking on that. Since I'm not exactly sure how the promotional offers work (I'm thinking it could vary per provider), if I'm not given no interest on the dental work, it would be better for me to take the dentist's offer of 3 monthly payments.

Hopefully, none of this will even be an issue or owed in a couple of months. If my company gives out the bonus for the first 6 months of the year I can use some of that to pay all this off and not have the debts hanging over my head. After not having/using credit the past few years, I much prefer not owing anything, but since we're not independently wealthy, guess we gotta do what we gotta do. Teeth gotta be fixed and pups gotta be taken care of.