Credit Cards are No Credit To Me
Apr 26 '00
For almost all of my adult years now until about two years ago, I had been fighting the credit card monster.
The credit card monster was too easy to feed and very hard to control when fed. I let him go when I saw things on sale at "too good to be true prices", and by the time he was fed those items costed about five times or more what the original price would be.
By this time, the items was long gone being broken or whatever and I was still paying on it.
Also, the interest that I was paying on the revolving charge accounts were canceling out the payments that I was making, causing me to become more in debt.
To me this was a vicious cycle that had to be curbed.
Having maxed out all of my cards and having had them go into past due status again, I was sinking into more and more debt. I could not pay even the minimum payments on the cards and the past due fees were literally consuming me.
The monster was about ready to kill me and I could not stop him.
However, I was redeemed (thank God) when I was given a new job at a substantially higher salary. I was able to pay out most of my debts (too many thousand for me to even calculate here), and by the summer I will now be totally debt free.
To me, credit cards are NOTHING but financial hurt.
However, since I have done away with all of my cards, I have encountered the following situations.
When I went on a business trip (my company did not have corporate cards), the hotel wanted a credit card for collateral. I had none and a business associate of mine had to provide one for my room. The ironic part of all of this was that the room was GUARANTEED to be paid by the sponsor so I had no outlay to occur on that in the first place.
Secondly, when I went to the city where I was going to be moving, my future employer arranged for me to have a rental car. I explained to them that I had no major credit cards and they said that it was no problem. However, when I went to pick up the car, I was informed that because I had no card, they would not give me the car even though the entire transaction was guaranteed by the county. My future boss had to go to the nearest car agency and let them imprint HIS card so they would let me have the rental car. I promptly paid for the rental after returning the car so what's the sense in that?
So, there are mixed priorities in this world concerning credit and credit cards in general.
To me, they are too great of a temptation for me to have. I currently have a VISA check card that I use for purchases and because this money comes directly from my checking account, I can not overspend it.
However, because there are major businesses who will not do any business with you if you do not provide them with a credit card, even though your net worth may be thousands upon thousands or even millions of dollars.
So, what is the solution here? I do not have one. I do know that for most Americans, the free issuance of credit can cause more problems than benefits, and for that reason, I say that credit cards cause more financial hurt than benefit.
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