Compund Interest is amazing....part 2: $6286 later

So I finished going through my old files and I haven't put it through a spreadsheet yet to make sure my figures are correct but, it looks like that since 1999 - when I first got into debt. I have paid credit card companies nearly

$6,286 in interest alone!


I think I might be off a couple dollars or so because I rounded up for $0.50 and up, and rounded down for $0.49 and below but, still that's kind of impressive. I also am missing a few bills from 1999-2003 so it's likely that the total interest I've paid over the years is closer to $7,000!

If I had held off on these impulse buys I would probably have a pretty nice savings right now.

What I think is most odd though is the fact that I owed/paid the most interest after I moved back from Chicago, I would've thought it would have been the other way around.

I moved back to Ohio at the end of 2003 and according to what records I have, I paid $801 in interest alone that year.

In 2005, when I was well aware of the fact that I had a debt problem but, hadn't yet made up my mind how I was going to get out - I paid $1,579 in interest alone. I guess it didn't help that shortly after moving back all of my credit card companies decided to increase my interest rates.

I will try and upload interest-only debt to spreadsheet if I have time later this week. I'm glad I'm on the 'good side' of compound interest now instead of the bad side. 'Cause as it turns out, the bad side is expensive...