There's a joke that Woody Allen tells in 'Annie Hall' and it goes something like this: two old ladies are sitting in a cafe eating dinner and one says to the other, "the food here is terrible." The second one agrees, "and such small portions," she says.
Allen uses this as a digression about love - that it's suffering and pain and there's far too little of it - but it could equally apply to anything which we find ourselves attracted to and continually confused in almost equal measure.
I'm going to go out on a tenuous limb here - if I ever meet Allen he have every right to punch me no doubt but I doubt he's read this far - and say that it's a maxim that applies to credit cards.
Allen uses this as a digression about love - that it's suffering and pain and there's far too little of it - but it could equally apply to anything which we find ourselves attracted to and continually confused in almost equal measure.
I'm going to go out on a tenuous limb here - if I ever meet Allen he have every right to punch me no doubt but I doubt he's read this far - and say that it's a maxim that applies to credit cards.
We go to a credit card comparison and we know that we want a low rate, an introductory rate, rewards or whatever it is that the credit card providers are promising us that month but we're stymied the whole thing's a huge pain but still there are far too few good options. The portions are too small.
Getting, not so swiftly, to the point then, this guide will offer three guidelines on credit cards for the continually confused, those who feel that the credit card market really is awful but partly because it's so awfully difficult to get in there and get accepted.
The first tip is this, a lot easier in the credit card market than in any other part of life: know what you want.If you're a big spender, going into an overdraft or another credit card and just want to spread the cost of those purchases over a number of months then 0% purchase credit cards could be for you.
That's obvious but it's actually not obvious enough. Knowing what you want involves more than that: it has a start and end date.
In the case of a 0% purchase offer that means working out that you'll be able to pay the balance in full before the end of the period. Otherwise a low rate purchases card would be much better.
The second tip is: know your credit report.
You don't have one credit score but you do have one history.
If you know it inside out you'll know when to go for instant decision credit cards too and that could be a big saver.
The third tip is the hardest: don't mess around.
Once you've compared, thought about it and decided then apply. Credit card deals change all the time and you may not be signing up for the same card you thought so carefully about getting a month or a few months later on in the day.