The Real Problem With Credit Cards: The Card Holders

[SilverEagle]

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1897362,00.html#

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

--The first paragraph is very good and those laws should have been passed long ago. With the system we have now companies should be able to refuse their use when the balance exceeds the limit. The idiots here are both the idiots that run them up and the companies for accepting them when the balance is so high. Payments should always apply to the oldest charges... which may or may not be the part with the lowest interest rate.

---People need to learn that the easy money (credit) received is not that easily paid. I have little pity for them. Get smarter.

[KRAM1]

Finally, a bit of responsibility for one's actions where the responsibility actually lies. Folks, it isn't rocket science. If the card company you have is giving you a bad deal...stop using the darn thing. And, if you have credit problems with cards, check out Dave Ramsey or any number of countless other folks who can "help" you get off the credit drugs you are taking and paying for every day!

Follow me on this:

1) take out a pair of scissors;

2) take credit card out of pocket;

3) cut into very small pieces;

4) throw pieces in trash.

5) pay off any outstanding balance as quickly as possible.

End of problem!

Then learn to use a credit card responsibility. They are great financial tools and I would find it personally hard to live without one. Note I said ONE! Use it and then pay the balance in full at the end of each card cycle. How hard is that to figure out. Result...you pay ZERO interest to the credit card company. And, before you tell me how righteous I am and that it isn't easy, believe me, I have been on the other side of this issue and I know you can get off the narcotic of spending more than you have by using a credit card. Is it always easy, heck no, but like most things that are very worthwhile, it can be done. You just have to want to do it...and quit making excuses why you can't. If it takes "beans and rice and beans and rice" for an extended period of time, so be it. BUT, make sure you don't cut out the Mean Green season tickets. That WOULD be dumb.

[hickoryhouse]

---People need to learn that the easy money (credit) received is not that easily paid. I have little pity for them. Get smarter.

Great point. There are alot of people that need to learn this less, and a lot of companies that could use this type of fiscal thinking, and our government (congress especially) could use this type of thinking in its business as well.

[UNT90]

Or better yet, get a points card, put all your purchases on the card that you can, and pay it off every month. Then take a free trip courtesy of your credit card co.

It's all about discipline, folks.

Edited May 15, 2009 by UNT90

[oldguystudent]

Don't buy stuff you can't afford.

[eulessismore]

Credit card companies are the heroin dealers of the financial system. Yes I finally got unhooked.