Same as Cash Trap

When hubby and I got married, the only bed we owned was my full size bed I used through college.  It is an extremely comfortable bed that I loved.  However, I thought it was too small for Hubby who is 6'2" and me being 5'7".  So we decided to get a king size bed.  After doing some shopping around it became apparent we couldn't afford to pay cash for a new bed.  Buying a used bed grosses me out, so that wasn't an option.

One of the local furniture stores was having the infamous "Same as Cash" deal.  Buy the furniture now and have no payments or interest for 1 year.  What a generous offer I remember thinking.  While we were at the store looking at mattresses, I saw a beautiful bedroom set.  And this is what I thought:  If I don't get this now, when will I get it?  We are already buying a bed on credit, might as well get this too.  We will be able to pay it off in time- Hubby is going to make a lot of money this summer.  And so I batted my eyes and made my plea to Hubby. Bless his heart, he didn't argue with me.  Probably because we were about to get married.  Most likely because he realized I had decided this is what I wanted to do and it would be near impossible to change my  mind.

Two weeks later a gorgeous bedroom set was delivered to our little apartment. 

It barley fit in the master bedroom.  I didn't care. It was the nicest thing in our apartment and the matress is incredible.

Throughout the next year I made small payments.  About four months before the year mark I started to get very nervous because we still owed a significant amount.  Luckily we didn't have any children or credit card debt so our monthly expenses were very minimum.  I was able to pay off the rest of the debt in time.  Big sigh of relief.

We didnt' learn our lesson.  A year and a half ago Hubby's laptop died.  We decided to get a new computer.  Best Buy was having a great deal on computers as well as "Same as Cash" offers.  And so we got ourselves into a mess.  What I should have done was calculated how much I needed to pay each month in order to pay it in full by the dead line.  Excuses kept coming up so I always paid the minimum amount due.  Now we have until March 9th to pay $970.30.  If the account is not paid in full by that day, we will owe an additional $529.18.   There is a good chance our tax return will be processed by then, so we might dodge the bullet again.

If I don't learn my lesson this time, I need to be beaten with a stick.