Sometimes it is easy for us to get sidetracked by the ‘larger’ challenges that Obama is tackling, that we miss the little things before our very eyes. Americans won’t see the effects of health care reform for another few years, easily. The same would apply to financial reform and a carbon cap/trade/credit law.

However, there is a little bill that was passed in May 2009 that I, personally, have directly seen the effects of. 

Below is one of my credit card statements as of February 2010:

Nothing majorly significant. All it shows is previous balance, summary of payments or purchases, finance charges minimum payment, etc. I grayed out information that could possibly be used for nefarious purposes (not you wonderful people reading my blog…the other dishonest people on the interwebs).

Contrast that with my statement from March 2010:

March is COMPLETELY different. Breaking down how much I will pay total if I stick with the minimum payment or if I paid a higher amount. It doesn’t matter much to me, because I always pay more than my minimum, but it just jumps out at you how much you are paying in interest.

That, is change I can believe in!

P.S. Image 1 courtesy of Andres Rueda on Flickr.