Capital One Year-End Summary

I don’t recall receiving one of these last year, but Capital One sent me a year-end summary for 2007, which I got in the mail yesterday. What’s it look like? Ugly, of course. Since the categories are essentially useless (for example, I buy smokes mostly at gas stations, just like everyone else, and they show in the Gas/Automotive category), let’s focus on the monthly numbers. I should also mention, first, that it is nice that it includes every purchase I made throughout the year (since I don’t have all those statements and their site only keeps them for a few months).

January and February, I spent nothing. I suspect I was riding the credit limit, and that’s why. It’s pretty safe to say the end of March is when they boosted my limit by another 5K, and here’s why:

• March: 33.85
• April: 838.07
• May: 159.87
• June: 0, apparently
• July: 264.63
• August: 371.95
• September: 203.44
• October: 125.35
• November: 658.16
• December: 2339.21

What happened in December!? Let’s see… I bought over $300 in gas, spent $92 at PetSmart for who knows what, a $476 charge at Wal*Mart for the XBOX 360 and games, and then another $200 at GameStop for games and accessories for it, a $50 XBOX Live 12 month membership, $365 to get the propane fired up so I could have hot water, $142 for 1000 Ron Paul bumper stickers, $100 to Sallie Mae to defer my payments another 6 months, as well as a million other things, some of which were to furnish my apartment, as that is when I moved in.

Grand total 2007 purchases: $4994.53

Woah.

P.S. Debt Sucks was the 50th blog to join the Money Hackers Network. No, I still didn’t get a prize.

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