Skip to main content

You should stop using credit cards now if ...


You can also read this on BeingFinWise
__

Credit cards are often too attractive to resist. Many of them come loaded with some good welcome gifts, some good offers, a good credit period and the promise of enabling you fulfill your dreams via credit limit. Yet, for many people, especially first timers, this euphoria vanishes before few months. The underlying reason for most of them is - "I don't know how the money vanishes and I land up with so much of credit card bill". In other words, they are unable to control expenses.

Credit cards can be very helpful in organizing your expenses, getting rewarded via reward points and earning interest as you defer your payments by around a month on average. 

However, use of credit cards, if indiscriminate, can soon backfire.

You need to stop using credit cards if -
  • You are an impulse shopper and don't think twice before buying stuff worth thousands - with/ without any clearance sale.
  • When you are unable to pay your card and paying interest on your outstanding is more of a norm than exception.
  • If you tend to be swipe-happy when drunk or hungry. These are the times when one is likely too spend a lot only to regret later.
  • If credit cards are the only way you could make a big ticket purchase, and you couldn't afford it in cash
  • You don't care too much about interest free time period (not a big sum usually) or reward points (even debit cards have rewards) and find credit card a distraction. 

One may argue that you may need to use credit cards in case of emergency.  Fair point. In that case, probably you can keep your credit card (s) outside your wallet and not save it online, but still within your reach (e.g. locked inside an almirah). This is still the second best option - the best being being able to control your expenses and spending behavior.

You may also want to read - Credit Cards - Boon or Bane  and - Why should you avoid credit card debt.





Comments

Shop @ Amazon

Popular posts from this blog

Somewhere @ Nowhere - The Book

FINALLY .... After a tryst with so-called-creativity, I have come up with a book -  Somewhere @ Nowhere. You can have a sneak peek at the story & a few pages from the publisher's website and order the same & get it home delivered anywhere in India/ Abroad. Details as mentioned below- - Preview and get the book home delivered from HERE Also, you can join the following groups - - Orkut Community - Facebook Page Hope you like the work. Would appreciate a feedback. Till then ... Happy Reading!!! And yeah, please spread the word (relying on word of mouth & word of blog publicity) :-) ___ Update (18/02/2010) - Thanks for the initial response to the book :) Update2 (25/ 02/ 2010) - Thanks for the feedbacks on the book those who have read it. (hope to get a feedback by others soon). Encourages me to overcome inertia and write more! Meanwhile, those who ask for why is it currently not available in traditional retail outlets - well, I hope it wil...

The story behind credit card debts & personal loans

Any one with even an iota of interest in personal finance & its workings would probably know that credit card debts and personal loans are usually the worst kinds of debt traps that you can fall into. Yet many people fall into that trap again and again. Many people do come out of it eventually but some don't & this becomes a part of their "lifestyle". That you are eventually paying much more than you need to, if you default on credit card payments intentionally or unintentionally (probably @ 36 % per annum or something similar) or take a personal loan (say, @ 12% per annum or so) is not hard to fathom. However behind these numbers, there may be even a deeper story - that usually that of not having control over expenses or not having created a buffer amount. While there may be some pressing need like unplanned or recurring medical expenses which fuels sudden demand of money or an unexpected job loss, in many other cases this need may be fueled by lack of plani...

An area of darkness ?

The title of this post finds its origins in a novel with simlar name written by VS Naipaul. Set in India, some 40 years ago or so, this is a kind of travelogue of author's brief stay in India where he found it to be full of superstitions, ignorance and darkness! Many decades and many MNCs and malls later, few parts of India seemed to have chucked off that tag, but there are many places that haven't and continue to remain shrouded in ignorance. Move few hours away from a city, travel in a second class train compartment or a dilapidated state transport bus and you get to see the dark underbelly of India Shining. As one of the characters in the movie Rang De Basanti says "Yahan zinda rehne ki jung mein logo ki zindagiyan nikal jaati hai" . So true it seems! My day today was spent being kind of lost in similar thoughts. To start with, I when I boarded the ST bus, a woman was wailing. She may be in her 20s or something, but she was crying in some peculiar musical tone. At...

Snaps from The Himalayas

Some glimpses of one of the best landscapes in the country. Why long for Alps when our own old, enigmatic yet beautiful Himalayas provide such magnificent and picturesque sceneries!! Have a look. Enjoy. Location - Garhwal Region, Himalayas which lie in the state of Uttrakhand.

Classifying people

One of the important tools used by marketers for identifying potential market is market segmentation, in which subgroup of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics are grouped together. Using similar concept, people can be segmented based upon their basic philosophy or their basic approach towards life. It might be extremely difficult, as not all may express their beliefs openly. Maybe few sort of weird approaches mentioned below might help. One such method can be segmenting on basis of their movie or book preferences. For example a person whose favorite book is The Fountainhead or 1984 is likely to be different from a person whose favorite books include Sidney Sheldon and likes. Or a person who likes reading The Catcher in the Rye over and over again might be different from the one who prefers Eric Segal instead! Similarly a person whose favorite movies includes likes of Jaane bhi do Yaaron or Rang de Basanti would be different from a person relishing Suraj Bar...