Empowering Freeper Financial Freedom, one Freeper at a time, Dave Ramsey ping!
Debt is financial cancer.
FWIW, I have several credit and gas cards, and I continue to use them because I find them convenient. Easier than having a pocket full of bills and coins, and easier to pay at the pump. But I pay them off every month, when the bills arrive. No debt, no interest.
If you can resolve to do that, and never get into debt, then I think credit cards are fine.
Otherwise, yes, cut them up and throw them out.
I tried emailing Dave’s column with my question but couldn’t make it go through. Maybe someone else here has some suggestions. I’d covet the opinions of fellow freepers—you guys are the best (if the toughest).
I’m a lady on the high end of middle age. Just sent the younger of my two kids off into the world as a US Marine, so I’m on my own now. But it’s been very, very difficult raising these kids on my own with my health problems and theirs, so I have no savings.
As Dave recommends, I don’t have credit cards or credit card debt anymore—if I don’t have the money for something, I don’t buy it. Recently my old beater of a car broke down rather expensively, and it turns out that without a credit card, I can’t rent a car to get me back and forth to work. No, there is no public transportation between my job and my home, nor a rideshare program in the area.
Car rental companies are not interested in debit cards, checks, or cash. The car rental places want to be able to put a hold on your card in case you run off with it or wreck it or turn it in late. I’m starting to think there might be reasons to have a credit card in a drawer somewhere, to be used for emergencies.
What is the sense of the forum on this?
I liked the second response where he told the mother to make her daughter pay for at least part of the class trip so that she did not develop a sense of entitlement. That is golden advice in a society like ours where way too many people expect to live the good life off someone else’s dime.
These days you need a credit card as almost a financial ID. Try to rent a hotel room or a car without providing one - or a major power tool (say, a ditch witch). Even if you intend to pay cash, you have to leave the credit card so that if you trash the room or wreck the tool the renter has something to charge damages against.