Credit cards can be very convenient when paid promptly.
Living on credit cards not only is living on false riches but it contributes to impoverishing to deeper and deeper levels because purchases through credit cards if not paid promptly will cost ten fold.
Lured by incentives such as low rates one can easily be swayed into following the wrong direction. And once balances reach a certain amount the rates will change, administering a vicious long term blood siphoning grip.
In simple words, credit cards offer the ecstasy of a convenience to get us hooked and create the agony that later keep us financially strapped to their higher insatiable demand.
“You did it to yourself” one might say. The answer is true yet very questionable.
A proverb from the old country says:
Opportunity makes the thief.
The most depressing day of my neighbor’s life was when he finally realized that in his life time he would not have been able to repay his debt. Transferring continually to lower balances, calling the banks, consistently paying much more than the minimum payment and even not spending made no significant changes.
What quelled the problem was selling his house and he was lucky to have one to sell.
He has been credit cards free for fifteen years. Does not carry cash, keeps some change in the car for the parking meter and lives instead off the Debit Card.
Having cash on hand makes it easy to spend and makes us momentarily forget how hard it is to make.
The debit card gives the flexibility of the credit card and it can be frugally used only for needed expenses.
Keep the amount in the debit card low and if it cannot cover the purchase today, oh well, maybe another day.
Once used to it, it is really no pain at all.
It might be fair to say that credit card rates should match the feeble rates that banks offer for savings or CD accounts but this would not be sufficient to cover their waste nor their greed.