Credit Cards: A Love and Hate Relationship
March 17th, 2010 by cee.mo
So here I am writing about my new discovery…
I’ve known that credit cards can be good and evil at the same time depending on how you use them. Now, the point of this post is to point out the Love and Hate relationship I have with them.
The things I LOVE about credit cards:
- REWARDS
- Who doesn’t love a good reward? Credit card companies love to induce your spending by rewarding you with frequent flyer miles, points to buy things, and cashback! Who doesn’t love getting rewards?
- CHARGE NOW, PAY LATER
- I’ll pay off this nice <INSERT LAVISH OBJECT HERE>with my credit card and pay the rest later.
- CONVENIENT
- I don’t have any cash on me and I have to drive far to get cash from the ATM, nor do I want to pay the ATM fees. Here’s my credit card instead. **SWIPE**
- AMOUNT OF CREDIT
- WOW. I just got approved for $16,000 for my credit limit! **Evil Grin On Face** Time to splurge!
- EASY TO TRACK
- I can check what I’ve been spending online!
Things I HATE about credit cards:
- INTEREST
- I despise monthly interest, but credit card companies need to make sure you’re going to pay them back.
- CAN HAVE MORE THAN ONE
- If you have great credit, be prepared for credit card companies to harass you any way they can to have them sign up for more cards.
- OVERSPEND
- If you don’t keep track of your spending… you’ll end up drowning in debt.
- SNAIL MAIL SPAM
- “Transfer your balance now 0% until 2011!”, “Sign up for a new card, get 10,000 points!” I’m not a fan paper mail, waste of paper in my opinion and it makes you more viable to ID theft if you don’t dispose of them properly.
I’m hating my credit cards right now! **shakes fist in anger**
As they say.. it takes time to heal these “financial” wounds. Everyone has different ways of trying to pay down their debt, however I find Snowballing credit cards the most effective way of “healing” your debt than consolidating it. I came across this awesome free Snowballing Tool to give you an idea of how it works.