Credit Card Lay Away for Big Purchases

You have a budget per month for your credit card. Perhaps you pay all your bills with your credit card, as well as your miscellaneous expenses like going out to clubs, etc.

There is one service I wish big retailers would provide here and that is credit card lay away. This is the way I picture it working. Let's say for instance you see a laptop that costs 2000 dollars. You don't want to apply for store credit because you know you won't get the lowest APR or you may not even qualify. But you do have a credit card that has a limit of 1000 dollars per month. Now you don't have the cash to pay the rest of the laptop and your credit card doesn't have enough funds to purchase the laptop. Why can't the retailer facilitate this process for you. Let the retailer bill you each month for part of the laptop. For example it would be billed on your credit card 4 times for the next 4 months or next 8 months. So:

May 25th - charge 1 for 500
June 25th - charge 2 for 500
July 25th - charge 3 for 500
August 25th - charge 5 for 500

This way you have a grace period each month and the interest won't add up. You're not putting up the cash up front. And you are still paying this per month as you would. Of course, if you only pay 250 for the first month of the 500, the apr on the card is going to add up. But that's up to you to decide what would be the best payment option for you. Once you do this, you can pay for it in parts, using your cc, and you won't have to pay the 2000 dollars in full.

I think many retailers would benefit from this, like best buy, radio shack, etc. Of course there are going to be problems with this, like for example the expiration dates, or someone cancels a card, or someone cancels an order. These are all workable problems. This is just a short article, and I'm just thinking out loud, if I were to have a retail store as big as best buy, I'd probably take the time to write a business plan and do this. But I think this concept could benefit a lot of people, and would increase sales.