Stupid Tax

No, I'm not talking about doing my income taxes (although I should get cracking on that fairly soon). I've been charged another round of "Stupidity Tax". I realized that I didn't have enough money to pay both the overdue portion of my cell bill and half of the amount I intended to pay on my MasterCard.

There were clever things I could have done. I could have paid half towards each bill. I could have paid the amount I intended on my cell and then just put $15 or so on the credit card. I could have paid the credit card and left the cell bill for a week or so. But I didn't. I stuck my head in the sand and, as a direct result, went overlimit on my credit card for the first time ever.

So, how much is the tax on stupidity this week? $29. I went overlimit by $12.84 and incurred a charge of $29. If I had paid $15 on the card I wouldn't have gone over! Adding insult to injury, I didn't go over because I bought something. I haven't used the card since I put the fuel oil on it in December and I paid it down by the amount I was charging beforehand. No, this was all purely interest. Because, you know, I have so much extra money that I don't know what to do with it all, so I like to give the nice people at MasterCard at least $90 per month. (Excuse me while I wipe off the excess sarcasm that oozed out all over the computer.)

So, do you know what my minimum payment is this month? $41.84. That is the exact amount by which I'm overlimit. So, if I just blindly paid the minimum payment what would happen? I'd get charged another $90 or so in interest, I'd go overlimit again and they could charge me another $29! That means I need to pay at least $150 before the due date of March 12th in order to be sure that I'm not going to go over again.