Nope, just the payments! Just kidding, credit cards aren't evil and neither are people who use them. And neither are people who choose NOT to use them. To each their own, I personally know MY limitations and after having got myself into MAJOR trouble with credit (not just cards but also high interest loans and becoming house poor) I will never buy anything I don't have the cash for again. If I can show others that you can get by without debt (assuming they want the advice) I will.
Wait, what's the rule of 78s?
We know our limitations, too, and for now, credit cards would still be the devil for us.
And OP etc, until you've had excellent credit, paying cards off easily for 10 years, and then ONE YEAR goes bad (why couldn't I get that business loan, why? school's business classes made it sound so easy to get one for a chiro practice! still need to send that letter to those profs), and within that one year first Visa takes you off their "good" list, then AmEx, and then finally Discover jacks up your interest to 30% (when you had had that card since you were 17 years old, this is b/c of ONE year), calls you 5 times a day AND on Sundays (I didn't know they weren't allowed to call more than once a day back then), berates you, makes you cry, are royal heinous any word you care to use to you...until all THAT has happened to you, you have no place in telling anyone that ccs aren't evil. Or at least that some cc company employees aren't evil.
10 years vs 1 year, and they could see I wasn't buying purses with it, I was taking professional seminars, and then, finally, buying groceries with it (the shame, the shame) b/c I had so little money.
As I told the woman who became my tormentor, "I want to pay this, I'm working hard to pay this, I know it's my responsibility and I never intended to get behind...if I had bought stuff with it I would sell the stuff and give you the money, I didn't buy stuff, I'm trying hard"...and until you've had the person on the other end call you a nasty un-Dis-able name when you're already crying...well, I've already said my peace.
And for the record, thanks to my wonderful family who had NO idea I was that far in the hole, I was able to pay them all off, in full, without resorting to bankruptcy or those cc help companies. (and still those 3 cc companies continued to report those old, paid off, debts for TEN years after they were
finished, yes, 10, despite being paid in full and despite ten years being legally too long, so I've since found out)
DH had his own troubles, caused by a short-term wife (9 months married then she stole his stuff, left him 20K in cc debt while he was working 3 jobs to keep them in a tiny apt, and ran away, leaving him to spend money to annul it and pay off her debts made on his ccs).
Together, we try to know ourselves, and for us, ccs are still evil.
We
debit cards b/c we cannot get ourselves into trouble. We don't earn fun things like miles, but that's OK for now! Soon we'll re-evaluate (probably after last year's medical debt is paid off, and it's nice to not have ccs for that b/c they don't charge you interest unlike a cc company, for paying it off over time) and try to feel out how we would be, and how we could handle dealing with the companies that made us cry when we were working hard during difficult times.
Oh, and when you don't have a cc, you can work deals easier with people. We had
AAA Plus, and DH broke the key off in his (former) car once. We got x amount for a service call for that sort of thing. Guy shows up, insists it's going to be another $200 or something like that. We told him the absolute truth, that he'd have to leave then, please give us the partial-key back, we don't have it don't have a cc, this is why we have AAA. Guy made the key gave it to us and left. Knew he wouldn't get paid for the service call by AAA without the service, so he worked with us. Same thing happened recently with a non-AAA tow guy. I was on my way to GET gas, and ran out of gas, going up a hill on a rainy dusk, with my 3 year old in the car. Augh. AAA was 3 hours behind and the AAA lady wasn't OK with my waiting, especially since the kind good samaritans had pushed me into a fire lane instead of a parking space (otherwise I would have left the car and walked home until DH got home). She told me some non-AAA tow companies, and I told them that since I don't have a cc, that they had to tell me how much it would be up front, and not charge me the world even though I would be reimbursed and they knew it. They did, it was incredibly reasonable, and I was reimbursed for all but the gas from AAA. That wouldn't have happened if I were my SIL, waving my platinum card around to get help.
I'm so glad for people like my brother and SIL who have made all the right choices, live charmed lives, and never ever get into trouble with money. They are so lucky! They have no idea how lucky they are. It is a wonderful position to be able to say that ccs aren't evil. But there are others, who have seen the rotten side of those companies, who still bear the scars.
Pretty much same as OP. Just a MC & Visa that we use for points to the maximum ability. Both of ours give cash back ranging from 1% to 5% on different categories. We make about $600 a year this way. No fees. No interest. NO BALANCE CARRIED.
