life with no credit cards, how do you do it?

[dd50]

Yep up until 2 years ago, this was my dad. I might also add that when he passed away, he owned his brand new 2500 square foot home with HUGE in ground pool, his brand new car, and when he died he left his 3 kids more than most people making twice his income will probably ever have. He hated credit card companies and would never have one, h paid cash for everything.

I worked for a big credit card company that everyone knows and seeing the way that they operate, I have developed my dads hatred of all things plastic. Yes they can give you cash back and yes you can get rewards, yes you don't pay interest if you pay it off, but that isn't why they are in business. These types of people aren't considered good customers. They are betting and hoping that you will slip up and not pay your bill on time. They will try and slide all sorts of things by you just hoping that you don't notice. Things like changing your billing date, suddenly cutting your limit and then charging you over the limit fees. Ok rant if over. If people want to use credit cards then fine. Me not so much.

They may not make interest on me but they do make money every time I swipe my card. Of course they are in it to make money and so many people don't PIF every month.

 

[minnie1928]

In reading this, I had just had to chime in, I have a very dear friend who doesn't have a DEBIT card. She's never used an ATM. Her theory is if the bank is not open, she doesn't need money. She still writes checks at the stores.

Anyone out there like her?

My 88 year old grandmother. However, she does use her Visa about 1x per year just to keep it active.

 

[minnie1928]

Actually that makes perfect sense to me. I don't use Quicken, but I have it all "in my head".


It would KILL me to pay interest on a credit card. It is just not an option.

You understand my rambling.

I don't pay interest either, I like my money too much to give it to others unnecessarily.

 

[dvcgirl]

I'm completely debt free, house and all. And we use credit cards for pretty much all of our spending and pay them off at the end of each month. We have a nice income, but we put enough on our AMEX cards to get us two round-trip tickets on Continental to Europe every other year. That's nothing to sneeze at.

In our case, I don't buy the theory that "we spend more because we're not using cash". We've been living on a budget for years and years. We have a set amount for spending each month, and we simply stick to that number....we're very disciplined.

 

[avahoneybee]

It's interesting in reading some of these threads here how rabid people are about either 1)using credit cards or 2) not using them and how judgmental people can be on either side. An argument can be made against credit cards just based on the current state of our economy (people overspent and sent the country into debt). The argument can also be made that if you don't have credit, you can't rent a car or hotel (which isn't accurate because both accept debit cards). I'm not anti-credit card because I have them and use them occassionally but I don't use them as a crutch (in the event of an emergency). That is what savings accounts are for.