Interest rates increase to nearly 35% on Macy's store CCs

[daisylu]

Jul 13, 2024 8:06:44 GMT -5 Opti said:

Jul 12, 2024 10:52:13 GMT -5 daisylu said:

The second relates to having to make tough decisions to avoid going into debt. IE - not living in the best neighborhoods, not eating out or eating expensive foods, having to have roommates, using free libraries for entertainment instead of expensive cable packages, delayed gratification, etc.

As for explaining, there is no explaining. Every situation is different. Shitty things that are outside of people's control happen all the time. My parents got married at 17YO and 18YO. 3 years later, they had to bury a 2 month old son that died from SIDS. Dad found him the crib, already blue. They borrowed money to buy a gravesite, one that went without any sort of marker for DECADES because there was no money for it. It only got one then because DGF left money for it in his will. Both parents were back to work within a week because they had no other way to pay their bills and keep a roof over their and their DD's heads. Did it suck? Yes. But sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do in order to take care of things.

Like the first part of my last statement alluded to, some people with an EXCUSE FOR ANYTHING. 

Look up and read about IDA and what happened in NJ in specific and NYC etc. if you will enjoy that more. The people in Manville for example were already living in the cheapest housing in the area. Same with all those flooded basement apartments in NYC and NJ.

One of the first storms that flooded CNJ when I moved here took out a good portion of Bound Brook, NJ. Fire peeps were rescuing residents from rental homes/apartments on the river. Some were fully flooded up to the start of the second floor and for a bonus some were on fire as well. It was pretty horrifying. 

And way to ignore to what I posted about my parents history. Keep playing the victim, nobody is buying it.

[djAdvocate]

Jul 11, 2024 12:04:37 GMT -5 nidena said:

Article on wthr.com

"...Rossman shared examples of other retailers with APR's over 30%, including Petco and Exxon Mobil.
The average of all credit cards is just over 20%."

it is not just credit cards.
our equipment line of credit at work is up to 15%.
the banks are raking it in.

but yeah, pay off those credit cards.

[nidena]

Seems relevant in this thread...

www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/1e2v7k4/when_will_be_the_day/ 

[mollyc]

How far back before credit cards are you going and are you talking about rural or urban?

There were company stores that kept a ledger.

Stores for food might be set up with accounts as someone else mentioned.

Other stores might have lay away programs or let you take the product with the promise of weekly or monthly payments. All of the department store had accounts set up long before they had credit cards.

My parents got their first TV in the early 60s before I was born. To watch it, you had to put in a quarter for an hour’s worth of TV. Someone came by once a month to collect the money from the box when it was paid for, they removed the box.

Business letting you get their services or goods before you pay in full have been around for a long time. That’s why historical romances can have all of the debtors prison drama.

Money lenders were a thing.

People you did work for might have been talked into pay advances.

Going without before credit cards existed was partially a matter of where you were and how good was your reputation.

[chiver78]

Jul 14, 2024 10:04:05 GMT -5 nidena said:

Seems relevant in this thread...

www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/1e2v7k4/when_will_be_the_day/ 

this link didn't work for me, on either phone or laptop. can you confirm it? thanks, I'd be interested to read it. 

[Opti]

Jul 14, 2024 11:33:42 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Jul 14, 2024 10:04:05 GMT -5 nidena said:

Seems relevant in this thread...

www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/1e2v7k4/when_will_be_the_day/ 

this link didn't work for me, on either phone or laptop. can you confirm it? thanks, I'd be interested to read it. 

Chiver if you haven't already found it, here's the link to the board it would be on -


www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/

[minnesotapaintlady]

Jul 14, 2024 12:14:38 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Jul 12, 2024 10:31:40 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

But it is having a job that empowered women to leave marriages, not credit cards. You stated that before credit cards, they were forced to stay in miserable marriages.

Even if a woman had a job, she had no credit.  That meant that doing things like signing a lease or getting utilities on her own was difficult, if not impossible.  There was a time in the 1960s where a woman could not even get a bank account in her name. Credit cards were merely another means to make being on her own difficult.  My mom never had a credit card solely in her name.  That ability didn’t come about until 1974.

I was born in 69.  My mom was divorced in 70 or 71 and bought a house on her own in 72 when she was 25.

I do think I have a skewed view because the women in my family tend to be the financially "strong" ones, even the ones in a marriage handle the money and are running the household.  All my aunts are/were and my grandmother was. It isn't until you get to my great grandmother that you have the traditional man controls everything situation.  Of course she outlived him by 40 years, so still had a lot of time on her own and I only knew her, not great grandpa.

[NancysSummerSip]

Jul 14, 2024 12:39:13 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Jul 14, 2024 12:14:38 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Even if a woman had a job, she had no credit.  That meant that doing things like signing a lease or getting utilities on her own was difficult, if not impossible.  There was a time in the 1960s where a woman could not even get a bank account in her name. Credit cards were merely another means to make being on her own difficult.  My mom never had a credit card solely in her name.  That ability didn’t come about until 1974.

I was born in 69.  My mom was divorced in 70 or 71 and bought a house on her own in 72 when she was 25.

I do think I have a skewed view because the women in my family tend to be the financially "strong" ones, even the ones in a marriage handle the money and are running the household.  All my aunts are/were and my grandmother was. It isn't until you get to my great grandmother that you have the traditional man controls everything situation.  Of course she outlived him by 40 years, so still had a lot of time on her own and I only knew her, not great grandpa.

For some reason, MPL, I thought you were older. You sounded older in a responsible, mature way. And I do mean that in the nicest way.

I gave up on Macy's years ago, when Macy's gave up on me. The company cancelled me when I was told I did not spend enough money in their stores. Fine. Keep your stupid card. Shell Oil did the same thing.

I was in debt for years, until I did the adult thing and stopped putting myself there (I did have some medical debt also). I spend less because I think before I spend now. It's not about treats and whether I am "worthy" of something. It is about balance, need vs. want, comparison shopping, figuring out a cheaper way first (if possible) and taking stock of what I have before buying more.

[Opti]

Jul 13, 2024 11:51:17 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

Jul 13, 2024 8:36:10 GMT -5 Opti said:

<poof> You did not wish to be quoted. 

What have we, personally, done?  

When I was pregnant with child #2, XH decided we should move out of state for his career.  His new salary just covered housing in a HCOL area.  I had to find a crap job and pay for all the other expenses - utilities, day care for child #1, a commute to new work place, get clothes that actually would fit my expanding body (thrift shops), car repairs on his old BMW, etc.  And buy all the food.   The grocery budget was so tight that I took lunch to work every day.  It was always a small avocado and cream cheese sandwich. I could make a couple of avocados and 8 oz of cream cheese last the work week.  I would raid pockets and couch cushions to find change to buy an extra quart of milk.  It was no way to "eat for two." 

Growing up, my widowed mother was not disciplined financially. There wasn't much money and it wasn't always put to good use. She drove a beater car.  First, the passenger door wouldn't latch so she needed a passenger (as the oldest, that would be me) to ride whenever she drove anywhere.  I'd hang on tight to the door, and when she'd take a corner the door would sometimes try to open up. This was in the days before seat belts.  It got more interesting when the ignition key wouldn't stay in the on position and I had to hold the key in position. Left hand on the key, right hand on the door. 

I could tell you many stories of those days.  I had to become a mini adult at the age of 7.  Babysitter to two younger siblings. Making simple meals. Spending school vacations doing a deep clean in the house and catching up on the ironing. Going to work part time at age 14, not to help support the family per se but to earn money my mother could borrow until the next SS check. 

Please don't make the mistake to think that those of us who now have it easier than you have not endured hardship in our lives. 

Serious, I know you have. But some two or more decades younger than me assume my life couldn't have been that bad. That I am lying. Heck Virgil gave me grief said I was fake because there aren't many women in UNIX especially given my age. So, we had a slight throwndown when I told him I was at the first XWindows conference and there were actually female techie speakers. 

I can't find what I want to find, and I am just going to move on with my life today as best I can. I have $600 maybe less to live on and pay bills, which would n't be bad except I need to do FMLA for my knee and Dad estate stuff. I will get no $$$ until the FMLA is approved so my rent is at risk for August among everything else. So


As free software projects go, X is one of the older ones. The first X release, built with support from the company then known as Digital Equipment Corporation, came out of MIT in 1984. By the time X10 was released, the window system was beginning to be widely used outside of MIT, but it was X11 (released on September 15, 1987 - you could order it on nine-track tape) that established X as the definitive Unix windowing environment. Several vendors, wanting to support the continued development of a vendor-neutral windowing system, formed the X Consortium to further support development in 1988. The Consortium eventually lost its relevance when the Unix vendors decided they wanted to start "differentiating" their window systems, and the XFree86 project became the real core of X11 development. That, of course, is how things stand today.



X11 is certainly one of the longest-lasting major releases in software history; more than fifteen years later the X11 protocol maintains backward compatibility, and there has never been an X12 release.

lwn.net/Articles/26608/

Some cheatsheet from Princeton. Might read it later as I have never seen it until now.

www.astro.princeton.edu/~strauss/AST303/Xintro.pdf

[nidena]

Jul 14, 2024 11:33:42 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Jul 14, 2024 10:04:05 GMT -5 nidena said:

Seems relevant in this thread...

www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/1e2v7k4/when_will_be_the_day/ 

this link didn't work for me, on either phone or laptop. can you confirm it? thanks, I'd be interested to read it. 

When Will Be The Day  -- maybe this will work better.

[chiver78]

Jul 14, 2024 19:18:02 GMT -5 nidena said:

Jul 14, 2024 11:33:42 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

this link didn't work for me, on either phone or laptop. can you confirm it? thanks, I'd be interested to read it. 

When Will Be The Day  -- maybe this will work better.

yes, thank you! I'll read it tomorrow. currently trying to wind down with a cooking show. I have this really bad habit of scrolling during commercials. 🤦‍♀️

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jul 14, 2024 10:51:04 GMT -5 mollyc said:

How far back before credit cards are you going and are you talking about rural or urban?

There were company stores that kept a ledger.

Stores for food might be set up with accounts as someone else mentioned.

Other stores might have lay away programs or let you take the product with the promise of weekly or monthly payments. All of the department store had accounts set up long before they had credit cards.

My parents got their first TV in the early 60s before I was born. To watch it, you had to put in a quarter for an hour’s worth of TV. Someone came by once a month to collect the money from the box when it was paid for, they removed the box.

Business letting you get their services or goods before you pay in full have been around for a long time. That’s why historical romances can have all of the debtors prison drama.

Money lenders were a thing.

People you did work for might have been talked into pay advances.

Going without before credit cards existed was partially a matter of where you were and how good was your reputation.

I remember reading in Laura Ingalls Wilder that Pa bought a stove on the promise of the future harvest.  Then it ended up being a bad year.  Credit has always existed in some form or another.

It's only now instead of bartering on the success of your crops you have a little plastic card that barters against a digitally generated three digit credit score.

[TheOtherMe]

I live in this some rural town.  The local grocery store, that has been here for 3 generations, has a file of ledger cards and people say add it to my account.  They pull out that person's card and write down the amount they have spent.
 
I have only seen elderly people say that.  They also do free delivery for the elderly, even to surrounding farms.

[movingforward]

I pay all my credit cards off at the end of the month. Get points on SWA and cash back on Discover. There are definitely some benefits to credit card use when able to pay in full.

I agree that no one NEEDS a Macy's card, and people should be responsible and take caution when using credit, yadda yadda yadda...but bottom line IMO is that companies should not have the right to charge 35% interest. To me it's flat out wrong and anything over 17% shouldn't be allowed. Just personal opinion.

[zibazinski]

Our Macy’s is not a very nice store in not a very good area so I think this interest rate is the death knell for Macys.

[countrygirl2]

When I was in college, we learned about usurious rates. They were only allowed by law to charge so high.

[Opti]

Aug 12, 2024 14:30:56 GMT -5 countrygirl2 said:

When I was in college, we learned about usurious rates. They were only allowed by law to charge so high.

And that has changed over the years. Short term loans are worse than they were in 2005. Plus, with internet banks and loan companies much of it is unregulated.

[Opti]

Aug 9, 2024 14:33:16 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Our Macy’s is not a very nice store in not a very good area so I think this interest rate is the death knell for Macys.

I doubt it. 

You are probably correct that your closest Macy's is slated for death, but Macy's is going to be around for a while. They continue to change their model based on consumer habits.  I personally am not going to expect their death until they cancel the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and stop sponsoring July 4th fireworks. 

If I were Macy's or its parent Federated, I would definitely consider abandoning FL altogether. 

[minnesotapaintlady]

Our nearest Macy's was closed in 2017. They are literally bulldozing the building right now...which is kind of weird because it was part of a mall.

[resolution]

Our Macy's closed in 2016 but it was replaced in the mall by a Tilt Studio and a fitness center, which split the space. At one point our mall only had one remaining anchor, which was a JC Penny's, but they have somehow managed to fill them all with alternative types of businesses. There is even a medical clinic in one of the old anchors.

[zibazinski]

Aug 12, 2024 23:48:18 GMT -5 Opti said:

Aug 9, 2024 14:33:16 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Our Macy’s is not a very nice store in not a very good area so I think this interest rate is the death knell for Macys.

I doubt it. 

You are probably correct that your closest Macy's is slated for death, but Macy's is going to be around for a while. They continue to change their model based on consumer habits.  I personally am not going to expect their death until they cancel the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and stop sponsoring July 4th fireworks. 

If I were Macy's or its parent Federated, I would definitely consider abandoning FL altogether. 

I had forgotten about the parade. I used to watch it thanksgiving morning while I prepped for the dinner. Last time I saw the parade it seemed bizarre except for the Rockettes. They are always good.

[Opti]

Aug 16, 2024 15:28:59 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Aug 12, 2024 23:48:18 GMT -5 Opti said:

I doubt it. 

You are probably correct that your closest Macy's is slated for death, but Macy's is going to be around for a while. They continue to change their model based on consumer habits.  I personally am not going to expect their death until they cancel the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and stop sponsoring July 4th fireworks. 

If I were Macy's or its parent Federated, I would definitely consider abandoning FL altogether. 

I had forgotten about the parade. I used to watch it thanksgiving morning while I prepped for the dinner. Last time I saw the parade it seemed bizarre except for the Rockettes. They are always good.

One of my customers goes and acts as a balloon handler. I asked if I might be able to join her one year. Given my knee, it won't be this year. I'll be lucky if I am back up to a .5 mile walk by Thanksgiving. Some folks I know go in the night before the parade to see all the balloons. I'd love to do that once as well.

[zibazinski]

Aug 16, 2024 15:37:20 GMT -5 Opti said:

Aug 16, 2024 15:28:59 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I had forgotten about the parade. I used to watch it thanksgiving morning while I prepped for the dinner. Last time I saw the parade it seemed bizarre except for the Rockettes. They are always good.

One of my customers goes and acts as a balloon handler. I asked if I might be able to join her one year. Given my knee, it won't be this year. I'll be lucky if I am back up to a .5 mile walk by Thanksgiving. Some folks I know go in the night before the parade to see all the balloons. I'd love to do that once as well.

It does sound like fun. When I was young my parents always took me to NYC for thanksgiving and we always watched the parade.

[jerseygirl]

Aug 16, 2024 15:42:03 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Aug 16, 2024 15:37:20 GMT -5 Opti said:

One of my customers goes and acts as a balloon handler. I asked if I might be able to join her one year. Given my knee, it won't be this year. I'll be lucky if I am back up to a .5 mile walk by Thanksgiving. Some folks I know go in the night before the parade to see all the balloons. I'd love to do that once as well.

It does sound like fun. When I was young my parents always took me to NYC for thanksgiving and we always watched the parade.

Son and now GS live on upper west side of NYC close to where balloons are inflated. When DGS was about 4 they were watching the balloons. He asked if the Giant Rat would be in the parade
Unions on strike in the metro area often use the Giant Rat for strikes. It’s maybe 3 stories high

[Opti]

Aug 16, 2024 19:07:54 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Aug 16, 2024 15:42:03 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

It does sound like fun. When I was young my parents always took me to NYC for thanksgiving and we always watched the parade.

Son and now GS live on upper west side of NYC close to where balloons are inflated. When DGS was about 4 they were watching the balloons. He asked if the Giant Rat would be in the parade
Unions on strike in the metro area often use the Giant Rat for strikes. It’s maybe 3 stories high

I saw the giant rat in Princeton NJ once. I forget which FT short term job I was working at the time. At first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but then I walked closer, and sure enough that's exactly what it was. 

[Opti]

Aug 13, 2024 8:33:18 GMT -5 resolution said:

Our Macy's closed in 2016 but it was replaced in the mall by a Tilt Studio and a fitness center, which split the space. At one point our mall only had one remaining anchor, which was a JC Penny's, but they have somehow managed to fill them all with alternative types of businesses. There is even a medical clinic in one of the old anchors.

Similar things have been planned for various NJ malls in the past few years. I believe Jared, as in Jared & Ivanka is the developer redoing the Monmouth Mall in I think Eatontown NJ. Its Monmouth County in any event. Some stores and restaurants are coming in and some apartments/living spaces will be built on the property as well.

The Mall near me and its satellite locations are undergoing changes too. Actually, it feels like almost anything and everything in the town I am in, that I work in and all around me has medical offices popping up. At least two competing Hospital chain/conglomerates are tossing offices everywhere it seems. And of course, yet more standalone medical offices. It feels like they are breeding faster than our suburban deer. 

[nidena]

My cousin is a float designer for the Macy's Parade.  It's pretty awesome.

In line with the OP, the current highest non-store card is First Premier Bank Mastercard at 36%.

[Opti]

Jul 11, 2024 14:13:58 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

I no longer have a Macy's card I guess? It was a combo store card/Amex. I got a letter a month or so ago that said the store line was being closed off the card. The reason it gave was a single card can no longer access two accounts. I'm unsure if it becomes a regular Amex?

Good question, I do not know. Since Macy's is my oldest CC, I did call them weeks ago. I guess I missed when they started using AMEX instead VISA or MC. What I was told is that I needed to apply online separately for the AMEX. Not sure if AMEX remains a true credit card or not, but they are usually stricter in their requirements than VISA/MC. 

Back when it was Macy's/VISA it was one card, and you could use it either way. If you used it at Macy's it defaulted to a store card and if you used it at a non-Federated dept store it defaulted to VISA. I think some of what I am personally getting in the mail is that CCs are changing policies, and my BK fell off my record finally, so I am back to 800+ credit scores even though I do not have a mortgage or car payment. 

[obelisk]

Macys sucks today.  We are not in the last century when Macys had acceptable products for the average person.