Credit card or Not!

[IGBT]

Yeah sorry, I am one of those who use a credit card for everything.  2% cash back.

Between the two of us we spend about $20,000 a year on the credit card for groceries, fuel, campgrounds, healthcare.

The cash back is around $400.

So for never having to wait at a ATM or balance a checkbook, I get paid $400.

Works for me.

Have not paid any credit card interest since 1993.  The CC company probably hates us.

 

[bullfrog]

Very few people are able to live their entire lives with more money than they truly need much less want. If you are you are special. Credit card companies make a little money off you directly. Their main target is all the others that can't because they not only make a lot of money off them but more off of you as well when credit card companies extend credit to people they know can not pay them in the form of insurance. You special people should be concerned about credit card companies and other money lending institutions because in my opinion they are really stealing from you by taking advantage of human nature by using their financial influence to do so. Let us face it "You caint get blood out of a turnip!" The money they make has to come from some where and they don't get much from poor desperate people cause all they got is credit!

 

[gcal]

Very few people are able to live their entire lives with more money than they truly need much less want.  If you are you are special.  Credit card companies make a little money off you directly.  Their main target is all the others that can't because they not only make a lot of money off them but more off of you as well when credit card companies extend credit to people they know can not pay them in the form of insurance.  You special people should be concerned about credit card companies and other money lending institutions because in my opinion they are really stealing from you by taking advantage of human nature by using their financial influence to do so.  Let us face it "You caint get blood out of a turnip!"  The money they make has to come from some where and they don't get much from poor desperate people cause all they got is credit!

Bullfrog, if you can't live on your income, how are going to pay back what you have spent over your income, plus interest and fees? We "special people" live in trailers until we can afford homes, eat tuna when we can't afford steak or lobster, and buy our duds at thrift stores when we can't afford Lord & Taylor. One way to get more of the money you want is to increase your value as an employee so that employers are willing to pay you more. I got my entire accounting degree at a highly regarded univerdity with my employers paying for most of it and my paychecks rising as I did so. I worked my tail off, both at work and school, and left minimum wages far behind. If they would have taken me, I would have joined the military to get the military to get the educational benefits. But I could not pass the physical (underweight and asthma), so I found another way. Please don't tell me that, with all the opportunities available in this country, you should get a free pass because you can't buckle down and grab one.

 

[poncho62]

In this thread and the other debt thread, this term human nature is coming up.....and how the banks etc are taking advantage of peoples human nature.

Is it human nature.....or just lack of common sense to think that you can spend more than you can pay back?

Just sayin'

 

[bullfrog]

There are a lot of opportunities out there for people who know how and are able to get out there and have been able physically and mentally to do so. This site has helped many who were not and most of those who were but a hard time convincing themselves they could to find their way. Self control doesn't come naturally to people, it has to be learned just like many other living skills. We learn by experiencing our environment. Simple living makes it easier to learn these living skills as there is less do deal with and you are less likely to become confused and loose focus. Credit card companies offer many and various convincing ways to convince people to go deeper and deeper in debt by confusing advertising. Many people are using all their resources to get by when their loved one has a medical emergency, their vehicle their kids are living out of gets towed or taxes increase or they loose their job and it takes a while to figure out a way to survive. You can do every thing right but then something beyond their control happens and all they have is a credit card company trying to give them money. These things can happen quick and credit card companies charge high rates of interest on the interest they have already charged. Just as illegal "loan sharks" used to do. Being a teacher in Eastern Kentucky and on the reservation in New Mexico I have seen this happen over and over. If you saw an old lady mugged in the street, laying in a pool of blood, would you get mad run up and shout at her telling her to take self defense class while the crook runs off. Since your on this forum I think most of the people here would help her to the hospital and offer when she was well to walk her to the bank next time. Most of the people here that are in credit card debt I believe are more victims of being mugged by credit card companies and feel stupid because they didn't learn how to defend themselves, while we scream at them and allow the mugger to get away with it we should be helping them survive and trying to keep the mugger at bay. Do you really believe no good people ever experience misfortune?

 

[gcal]

There are a lot of opportunities out there for people who know how and are able to get out there and have been able physically and mentally to do so.   This site has helped many who were not and most of those who were but a hard time convincing themselves they could to find their way.  Self control doesn't come naturally to people, it has to be learned just like many other living skills.  We learn by experiencing our environment.  Simple living makes it easier to learn these living skills as there is less do deal with and you are less likely to become confused and loose focus.  Credit card companies offer  many and various convincing ways to convince people to go deeper and deeper in debt by confusing advertising.   Many people are using all their resources to get by when their loved one has a medical emergency, their vehicle their kids are living out of gets towed or taxes increase or they loose their job and it takes a while to figure out a way to survive. You can do every thing right but then something beyond their control happens and all they have is a credit card company trying to give them money.  These things can happen quick and credit card companies charge high rates of interest on the interest they have already charged.  Just as illegal "loan sharks" used to do.  Being a teacher in Eastern Kentucky and on the reservation in New Mexico I have seen this happen over and over.  If you saw an old lady mugged in the street, laying in a pool of blood, would you get mad run up and shout at her telling her to take self defense class while the crook runs off.  Since your on this forum I think most of the people here would help her to the hospital and offer when she was well to walk her to the bank next time.   Most of the people here that are in credit card debt I believe are more victims of being mugged by credit card companies and feel stupid because they didn't learn how to defend themselves, while we scream at them and allow the mugger to get away with it we  should be helping them survive and trying to keep the mugger at bay.

The difference is that somebody else mugged the old lady. She had no part in it and certainly didn't agree to it. People who go into cc debt, sign the application, buy the stuff, then mug themselves.

 

[bullfrog]

Most don't realize what their doing will hurt them and the majority of the ones, so deep in debt facing bankruptcy, feel or may have no choice from their view point. It's too bad that Society, advertising and the Credit card companies are doing a better job of telling them it won't hurt them and they can always transfer to 0% interest, and if fact now our system encourages these beliefs. We should change the system and teach them better, but since we haven't been able to do that let's work with what we have and show people they do have options when they need help telling them the truth, good and bad, about credit card debt whether we agree with it or not, because for many bankruptcy may be the only way they could ever recover.

 

[gcal]

Most don't realize what their doing will hurt them and the majority of the ones, so deep in debt facing bankruptcy, feel or may have no choice from their view point.  It's too bad that Society, advertising and the Credit card companies are doing a better job of telling them it won't hurt them and they can always transfer to 0% interest, and if fact now our system encourages these beliefs.  We should change the system and teach them better,  but since we haven't been able to do that let's work with what we have and show people they do have options when they need help telling them the truth, good and bad, about credit card debt whether we agree with it or not, because for many bankruptcy may be the only way they could ever recover.

Bullfrog, part of being an adult is to take responsibility for ones own bad choices. You can't seriously think that anyone, watching those cc balances growing month after month, does not know exactly what they are doing.They just chooe to keep doing it until they hit a credit wall and are forced to stop. Then, some people wake up, take responsibility for their choices and work on changing their behavior. Others just get mad at not being able to continue their behavior, never take responsibility for their own choices, and look for someone else to blame.

I fully accept that people can goof. But adults do not get to make the same lousy choices, week after month after year, declare themselves to be victims, and play the blame game. I don't even let children get away with that.

 

[bullfrog]

Go to your local high school and volunteer or sit in a student lounge of a college and try and find one of students that don't have student loans, credit card problems or their family on assistance. Then out of the ones you do find with no financial problems yet ask if they know how to balance a check book or budget. In 10 years of teaching 10 years ago I had less than 15% and only a few high school students that started saving for college and only one that bought a bank stock every time he went out of town on a band trip, he's retired at 50, living in Lake Havasu. Bottom line is that like I said in the earlier post, the majority of people are not like those special people who managed to get through life without help. Yes the little old lady may have beat herself until shes bloody on the ground, if you want to yell at her it is her own fault and walk on fine, many people do but I'm gonna stop and help her as much as I can. There is a large group of people that qualify for credit that shouldn't and it is made much worse by credit car companies wanting to help people go in debt. There is a large group of people that should be required to use fully funded credit cards limited by the amount they have in savings, that have been given to believe they can handle $100,000 of debt because the banks and credit card companies gave it to them and encourages them to spend because our system has made sure they get their money. Most of these people wake up to find out to late to recover. I bet the large part of the small group you found will be in their number. Stay away from credit cards your playing poker against the house and they don't care if you loose because they still win because of our broken system.

 

[TrainChaser]

Americans have been trained to feel that they 'need' things, when it's really just 'want'. They can't tell the difference.

We have a lot of people who are without much sense. We have a lot of people who are functionally illiterate, yet still have credit cards. We have a lot of people who can't think.

Our public school system doesn't teach thinking, or cause/effect, or how to address an envelope, or how to balance a checkbook, but they DO teach 'high self esteem' with a strong sense of entitlement. Half the people in the U.S. are on some form of welfare, and the other half are paying the bills. I don't think we're aimed at a good outcome.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

Americans have been trained to feel that they 'need' things, when it's really just 'want'.  They can't tell the difference.

We have a lot of people who are without much sense.  We have a lot of people who are functionally illiterate, yet still have credit cards.  We have a lot of people who can't think.

Our public school system doesn't teach thinking, or cause/effect, or how to address an envelope, or how to balance a checkbook, but they DO teach 'high self esteem' with a strong sense of entitlement.  Half the people in the U.S. are on some form of welfare, and the other half are paying the bills.  I don't think we're aimed at a good outcome.

Welfare benefits cost taxpayers $235 Billion a year but only makes up 6% of the entire yearly federal budget.  If they stopped all welfare benefits, I actually think we'd spend more dealing with the fall out.  Increased homeless, crime, drug use, etc.

 

[TrainChaser]

Probably so. So let's force the states to teach pure phonics for reading (26 letters, 44 sounds -- if they can't teach those in 12 years, cancel public schools altogether). If they don't, they aren't eligible for federal funds. There is no reason to have people graduate from high school that can't even understand their own diploma. You can hand a French 6-year-old anything, and they can read it. They may not know what all the words mean, but they can read them. Education is a tool, not a destination.

 

[bullfrog]

Thanks to everybody this is a great discussion with no politics or name calling a rare thing on the internet. I guess everyone agrees credit cards can be hazardous to your financial health. Using them as a loan, without the money to pay them off, can and will in most people's cases will result in increased long term debt or bankruptcy. There are many forms of bankruptcy which are used in conducting business. Bankruptcy should be used as a last resort to allow one to learn how to do better without destroying ones ability to provide basic needs for themselves and those they are responsible to and for. Credit cards cost everyone and should be used only when you don't need them!

 

[Ballenxj]

Americans have been trained to feel that they 'need' things, when it's really just 'want'.  They can't tell the difference.
<----snip---->
Our public school system doesn't teach thinking, or cause/effect, or how to address an envelope, or how to balance a checkbook, but they DO teach 'high self esteem' with a strong sense of entitlement.

I have been working on this need vs want for a long time, it's called budgeting to live within your means.
As far as schools go, they even dropped teaching kids to write in cursive, so there went the art of penmanship. Talk about dumbing people down.
A friend calls the Public School System The Public Fool System. He says a lot of other things about it that I cannot repeat here, as it would then enter into many tics.

 

[Dgorila1]

Might be a good idea to have a credit card from a major repair chain (Firestone, Merchants, etc). Could be used for emergency repairs when cash is low to get you back on the road.

 

[TrainChaser]

Some of the major repair chains will also charge the highest prices. A regular credit card FOR EMERGENCIES will allow you to make choices.

For instance, Les Schwab (450 stores in western states) has a company slogan: "If we can't guarantee it, we won't sell it". Sounds good on the surface, right? Well, the way they can make that guarantee is to replace every single, solitary part involved in the work. If you're having to pay cash and funds are low, most people just want to have the stuff replaced that NEED to be replaced. I was sitting in one of their businesses waiting for my work van, and they gave a young woman a quote for $600 for front brakes. But that was about 5 years ago.

 

[user 37446]

I'd venture to say that c cards fall into the "necessary evil" categuory.  I cannot shop online without using one, cannot get an airplane ticket, cannot rent a car etc...  While I pay my balance monthly, there is always that temptation to overspend.  I wrap mine in several layers of taped paper, not because I'm afraid of crooks with readers, but to force myself to spend time unwrapping, thus giving myself time to think "do I really need this".  

Amazon doesn't do us any favors with their "1 click ordering" and stored payment information. That's very dangerous to the wallet...

Yes we have a consumer credit society where weak-willed or financially ignorant people get into constant trouble. While I don't agree that it is limited to Americans (my Canadian friends and family have the same issues), it is mostly 1st world economies that have this problem.  

I have a sister-in-law, here in BC, who regularly carries about $10-$20K in cc debt, and refuses to pay her cards off and use cash. When her parents died and she got an estate settlement, she did pay some down but later got right back into the same debt again. She would benefit from some kind of forced nanny state debt counseling however I don't want to live in such a society.

So yes I have a card but I control it, the card doesn't control me. Can't say the same for many people, that's why the banks offer the cards, they make money on them, and no matter how much fraud occurs, they keep right on offering them...   :-/

 

[Ballenxj]

<-------->
Amazon doesn't do us any favors with their "1 click ordering" and stored payment information. That's very dangerous to the wallet...
<-------->

Same with PayPal. CC Companies rely on people getting in debt to them. That's how they make money.
Sounds like your sister in law would benefit from counseling.

 

[user 37446]

Same with PayPal. CC Companies rely on people getting in debt to them. That's how they make money.
Sounds like your sister in law would benefit from counseling.

Yep that she would. Attempts by myself have been to no avail...

 

[John61CT]

After decades overseas and off the taxes/banking/credit grid, when I returned I had literally zero credit, as blank a slate as a newborn babe. Continues to this day, other than one checking account, a paid cash vehicle and a prepaid cellphone.

Buying and selling on eBay led PayPal to offer me $400 line of credit when my credit score was 73.

A year later it's up to $9,500

Last month got my first credit card offer in 35 years, they offered a $300 line.

So it begins. . .