The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Need to buy a Desktop from Best Buy no idea what to do
nightmarenny
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So yeah the title says it all mostly. I need to buy the computer from best buy because I want to use my newly acquired best buy credit card to improve my credit to help with renting a home and stuff in the future. I have a 1000$ limit and can easily spend around 400$ out of pocket so I figure my total possible budget is around 1300$. I don't really know what I'm doing though. I know approximately just enough about a computer to know how to do things but not enough to know why a computer might be good at doing X. Along with surfing the internet I plan to use it for two things. I intend to get back into some light gaming. I'm planning to play starcraft 2 right now but I'd like my new computer to be able to run newish games reasonably well if possible. I also produce music demos which I've been using my Mac Air to do and I'm planning to upgrade to a MacPro and continue using it for that but I'd like to be able to work on my desktop as well.
That is all the information I am aware I need to give you. Sorry if I missed something obvious. If anybody has any suggestions at all that would be great. Thank you.
That is all the information I am aware I need to give you. Sorry if I missed something obvious. If anybody has any suggestions at all that would be great. Thank you.
Help me raise a little cash for my transition costs
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
0
Posts
With regards to your credit score, you do not get "extra credit" for using a credit card somewhere specific. You do not get "extra credit" for carrying over a balance.
The easiest and best way to improve your credit? Never be late with a payment. Setting up auto-payments via your bank is a great way to manage this.
The easiest and best way to ensure your long-term financial health? Never spend more than you need and never, ever carry a credit card balance long enough to get hit with interest payments.
If you want to buy a computer then great, go buy a computer. But don't use "building credit" as an excuse to do so. That is a terrible reason to buy a computer.
Also, plenty of places will be happy to give you a financing plan outside of using your credit card. I believe Best Buy is one of those places. I would strongly recommend going with that approach if you cannot afford to pay for the computer outright (which, again, is how you should think about the purchase even if you were to put it on a credit card - because you should not be carrying over a balance ever). Oftentimes they do not charge additional interest for using these plans (although they might check your credit), and if they do charge interest it will almost certainly be at a significantly lower rate than your credit card's.
You have $400 to buy a computer. Check The Wirecutter for budget laptop picks.
The ONLY exception to this is if Best Buy is offering one of their 0% financing for 12 month deals, but even that means you have to pay off the entire balance within the 12 months or you still get hit the interest charges. And if you make any other charges on the card in that 12 month period, prepare for it to fuck with your delicate payoff plan royally.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
I was in a very similar spot as you. Not horrible credit, but not great, and I used my credit cards more than I should have. I buckled down, set some recurring charges on my card that I would pay at the end of the month (Utility bills are great) and then I would make sure that before the due date on the cards I would calculate all spending of that month + the interest charge and pay that. That way at least my balance didn't go up. Then if I had any extra cash from budgeting it went to it.
Being doing that for a year. I'm all but about to pay off one card ( from a 2k balance previously) and my credit score is now in the "great" section.
There were times I def wanted to indulge and buy something big, like a Switch, but man, I'm glad I haven't.
Couple of things you need to see and understand in this picture.
$1,391.88 - that's how much the Surface + keyboard cost after tax
"Deferred Interest:" $223.95. That's how much interest has been accumulating on the card since I bought it.
Expiration Date: Aug. 5. That's the date when that $220 interest charge hits my account.
Now, I went into this eyes open, knowing that I had a set to date to pay off the computer before getting hit with the extra charges. I made my final $115 payment a couple of weeks ago and got out interest free. But most people don't do that. Most people end up getting hit with that extra $220 charge - and then, they get charged additional interest every additional month on the already accrued interest. Also, because most people are making minimum payments during the promotional period, the accumulated interest is much higher, and could easily be $300 or $400.
Don't be most people. A credit card is a loan. Don't use it if you don't need to or don't know exactly what you're doing.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Not so much on the computer front.
So, I'll try to touch on that.
You said you wanted to play StarCraft II and other newish games.
Check out System Requirements Labs to see what the game needs to run. https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/starcraft-ii/10980
That will give you a baseline idea of the minimum you're looking for. SC2 was released 8 years ago, so the requirements should be met by pretty much anything on the shelves that's not a budget laptop, so you may want to find a more recent game to use for your baseline.
No need to worry about which OS to get, You're getting Windows 10 on an off the shelf system (make sure it's a 64bit Windows 10, not 32).
RAM can be upgraded in the future. Look for at least 8gig.
Graphics cards are probably going to be built into the system, but can likewise be upgraded in the future (you'll want to check and make sure the OTS system has some PCI-E slots available), the big problem with this is that you may also need to upgrade the power supply if you're planning on getting a big graphics card since most OTS systems don't tend towards extra power for your potential upgrades.
Avoid the systems with extra LEDs and glowy bits and fancy looking towers or anything labeled "Gamer". They're likely priced above their performance for their visual appeal. Compare the system specs.
If you're at all computer savvy (or even just Google/YouTube savvy) you'll get much more computer for your money out of building your own.
Check the Build Thread up in Moe's for more detailed information if you think you might want to go that route.
That said, if you're trying to build your credit score, getting yourself into substantial debt is not the way to do it.
Get credit, use credit a little and (the big one) pay it off as soon as possible.
Sign up for Credit Karma if you haven't already. It was quite interesting (for me at least) to see what impacted my credit scores and how. When I bought my fridge I could see how my credit went down a bit from having a check done, went up for having a new pile of available credit available when I got approved, go down from using a fair chunk of that credit, then crawl back up as I made payments towards that debt. Kind of like building Rep in the worst MMO ever, but, you gotta fill those bars.
Making big purchases has a negative impact based on the percentage of your available credit you're using (if you've got a $1000 dollar credit limit and you buy a $999 computer, you're using %99.9 percent of your available credit, that raises some flags). Making payments on time is good (but making minimal payments, while good for the credit score, will fuck you over with interest).
I was not planning to use most of my savings. I have more than an thousand in my savings. Thats just what I was willing to spend out of pocket at once.
My understanding was that the best buy “credit card” and the 0% financing at best buy was the same thing. I was told that if I used the card Id have 12 months with zero interest and had planned to budget to have it paid off wothin six months. Is that incorrect? Are they different things?
Thank you all for the information.
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Yes, the 0% 12 month financing is tied to the Best Buy card. If you have the savings and cash flow to pay it off comfortably within the 12 month time frame, that's great! Just be aware that the interest starts compounding right away, so if you're not done within the 12 months you're going to want to dip into savings to pay off the remainder before your promotion rate turns into a pumpkin at midnight.
Now, on the actual computer front: newish games at decent settings, you're talking a Nvidia GTX 1050 or 1060. I'm not super up to date on the AMD side of things, but somebody else here will know the equivalents on that side. The PC thread in the tech subforum would be a better place to get recommendations within your budget, but offhand I've been very happy with my Alienware 13 as a do-everything option in your price bracket.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
They are technically different things. If you're using a financing option outside of a credit card, then it could be anything from a payment plan to a specified loan to a lease-to-own type deal (some of which count as loans/credit and some of which do not). What you have is literally just a credit card like any other credit card. It's hard to know whether something is "better" or "worse" without having concrete options to weigh.
For buying the computer, from a functional perspective the things that matter most are the interest rate and the time you have to pay it off. If Best Buy offers a different financing option that isn't a credit card, you might want to look into it. If it offers the same zero interest with a longer payment period, it might be worth pursuing just because it saves you money in the long term, and because it helps ensure that you can actually use your credit card for necessary purchases without worrying about whether or not you will hit your limit. If they don't actually offer anything like that, then the credit card is fine (but definitely not ideal, because you should really not be using a credit card for anything besides stuff you plan on paying off immediately or for emergencies).
Regardless of which option you used, the key is to make sure that you pay off the balance before you are hit with interest payments. This is true for any zero-interest loan in particular. If you have 6 months of leeway instead of 1 month, then great. But if you don't pay it off in time you will be royally screwed. (Which is, by the way, exactly how Best Buy is making money from the offering in the first place.)
For the credit card, you will want to make sure that at the end of the zero-interest period they aren't screwing you by pretending that your oldest purchase is getting paid off last and then levying a full year's worth of interest on those charges. This may mean that you will have to start paying off the full balance before the period ends (which, frankly, you should be doing from that point forward anyway).
Better to have one card you can use over time. We use our cards to buy everything from groceries to gas, but never more than we have budgeted and never, ever carry a balance. The next result is getting about 1-3% of the money we spend back as cash that we apply against our credit card balance.
Get a card you can put cash and groceries on, not a computer. If you must get a computer, shop around and get one that you can afford from the best source location (which will not be Best Buy, like... ever.).
1) If you want to buy a computer, then awesome! Go shop around and find a really good deal. You don't have to buy the computer at Best Buy. Many places with good deals will have financing options available that don't require you to use your credit card at all. If you're absolutely certain that you have a zero interest period and want to spread the pain across a few months, feel free to use the card - just be sure to pay it off before you're hit with interest.
2) If you want to build your credit, just use the credit card responsibly and pay off the balance each month. That's literally all you have to do.
3) Notice how #1 and #2 are not at all related to each other.
Leaves you about $200 for an SSD drive (provided you want one). Not familiar enough with BestBuy but they might install it for free (along with windows) if you buy the SSD from them at the same time. Sounds like the kind of thing that kind of store would do.
And what others said. Make sure you payed the credit card off completely before your year is up. Or they will dump all the interest on you!
That computer is pretty good, definitely pushes the edge of the budget. If you don't mind dropping a peg or two down, there's this possibility. A 1060 instead of a 1070, 8GB RAM, and an i5, but still more than adequate for most gaming.
If OP is a Total Tech Support member, installing the SSD would be free. Otherwise it's a paid service. I'm not sure what the precincts charge, I know it's expensive if I do it (because I have to drive a van to your home), but in store should be inexpensive.
Source: am a Geek Squad field agent.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Blizz shines at optimizing for low end pcs