Using a credit card is not the same as going into debt to make your purchase. In the US, you can easily get 1% to 4% back from the credit card company by using your credit card, and so you actually save money by paying with your credit card. Whether or not you want to pay off the balance at the end of your credit card's billing cycle decides whether or not you are going into debt, but many, many people pay it off. It's also safer to use a credit card for purchases than a debit card, since your cash isn't touched and you can just call the credit card company to dispute a charge.
Its not like you're just pulling free money out of thin air by using a credit card. And it seems likely that the finance institutions behind the credit cards are offering them as a product that makes money and not as an act of goodwill. If everyone paid their credit cards off at the end of the month like they say they do, do you think credit cards would be advertised or pushed as hard as they are? The finance institutions are making money on people who use them.
i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people. I used to say I was one of those people, but in reality if you had asked to look at my statement history I would have been embarrassed by how many times I ended up paying interest charges for things I probably shouldn't have purchased in the first place.
Two years ago my wife and I cut up our credit cards, closed those accounts and never looked back. Initially that change hurt my brain and went against everything I thought I knew was normal. It was one one of the best financial decisions we ever made.
> i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people. I used to say I was one of those people, but in reality if you had asked to look at my statement history I would have been embarrassed by how many times I ended up paying interest charges for things I probably shouldn't have purchased in the first place.
This is a really bizarre assertion: my bubble is such that I've literally never met someone (that I'm aware of, just as with your claim) who _doesn't_ pay their credit cards off in full each month. Hell, I don't think I've ever done anything but set auto-pay for my credit cards, and would turn it off on the rare occasion that I decided to use it as it was intended, as a liquidity buffer. (The difference between us being that I'm not narrow-minded enough to assume that this tells me something about credit cards in general as a product).
> Two years ago my wife and I cut up our credit cards, closed those accounts and never looked back. Initially that change hurt my brain and went against everything I thought I knew was normal. It was one one of the best financial decisions we ever made.
If you were having so much trouble, why not just use auto-pay from your bank account? I don't really understand this urge to universalize your inability to use credit responsibly to somehow claim that credit cards in general are a net negative. I don't mean "irresponsible" as an insult here: I don't keep desserts in the house because having to go out and get dessert when I want it is the most effective way for me to maintain my healthy diet in the face of my one dietary willpower weak spot (a wicked sweet tooth). But I don't justify my weakness by claiming that we'd be better of if dessert never existed[1].
[1] To be clear, I'm aware that the modern role sugar plays in most people's diet is unhealthy: I eat (non-fruit) sweets about once a week and I'm pretty happy with that level of consumption. To me, desserts are a delightful part of life, if you're adult enough to use them responsibly (excluding those unfortunate enough to have severely bad dietary habits from childhood: the deck is stacked against them physiologically).
> This is a really bizarre assertion: my bubble is such that I've literally never met someone (that I'm aware of, just as with your claim) who _doesn't_ pay their credit cards off in full each month.
That's one hell of a bubble. Almost no one does this. Source: worked customer service for an issuer for 18 months, ~150 calls/day, saw a broad cross-section of the customer base, and it was a rare day in which I talked to a monthly PIF.
Not so incidentally, that experience is also the reason why I so assiduously avoid revolving credit. If you're comfortably upper-middle-class or higher and assured of enough liquidity to cover whatever balance you choose to carry, it's a game you can play and win. If you're not, you're subsidizing those who are, not least because you're ineligible for the low-rate, high-credit-line points card products that monthly PIFs tend to qualify for.
And even if you're in the former category, it's still a hell of a risk to take, because if anything happens that negatively affects your liquidity in a significant way, you're suddenly a lot more screwed than you would be if you hadn't been using credit the way you were. A few times, I dealt with people who had found themselves in just that hole. There were worse kinds of calls to take, but not all that many.
> That's one hell of a bubble. Almost no one does this. Source: worked customer service for an issuer for 18 months, ~150 calls/day, saw a broad cross-section of the customer base, and it was a rare day in which I talked to a monthly PIF.
Yea... That's why I went out of my way to call it a bubble. The point of mentioning my bubble was that "I've never met anyone who doesn't carry a cc balance" isn't a sound basis for to making a claim about all credit card usage the way the parent comment was.
> even if you're in the former category, it's still a hell of a risk to take, because if anything happens that negatively affects your liquidity in a significant way, you're suddenly a lot more screwed than you would be if you hadn't been using credit the way you were.
I'm pretty sure you're messing up your math here. How could the addition of liquidity (plus deferment of payment by 30+ days) at zero cost possibly be making me more screwed, in the event of a serious liquidity crunch?
Talking of individual finance here. As long as you're sufficiently liquid again to PIF before your bills go past due, you're fine. If you're not, then not only do you accrue late fees - usually easy to have waived by just calling and asking for it, if you've been a highly diligent customer prior - but you also start accruing interest on the balances you're suddenly carrying, and you almost certainly lose preferred rates on those balances and find yourself paying north of 15% APR.
> This is a really bizarre assertion: my bubble is such that I've literally never met someone (that I'm aware of, just as with your claim) who _doesn't_ pay their credit cards off in full each month.
I'm probably halfway in between the working class and the tech bubble. In fact I grew up near the poverty line. I have a lot of lower class "technical debt" that I am still working to replace. Most recently my wife and were replacing the non-existent financial skills that my parents and public education system imparted to me. All of that to be said, it's no wonder we have polarized experiences with credit cards.
I did a quick Google search to make sure I wasn't completely off base here. According to the American Bankers Association Credit Card Market Monitor May 2016 report [http://www.aba.com/Press/Documents/ABA2016Q2CreditCardMonito...] 42.1% of Americans are Revolvers (carry a balance and pay interest) and 29.7% of Americans are Transactors who pay their bill in full each month.
I'm not insulted because we we're absolutely being irresponsible with our finances. We didn't have a budget to flow, we we're not saving money for future purchases, and we were very much not in control of where our money was going.
> But I don't justify my weakness by claiming that we'd be better of if dessert never existed[1].
I don't think I was suggesting that credit cards should never exist or that they are evil. I was trying to contrast the fact that even when 29.7% of people are benefiting from 1% - 4% cash back, that 42.1% are not. And that the companies who offer these products are in fact making money on them. Because people like me we're going into debt using them. And in my case, I was buying crap I didn't need and really shouldn't have bought because I truly couldn't afford it. Otherwise I would have always paid my balance in full at the end of the month.
I'd love to find a time series of those proportions; my sense is that 29.7% is wildly overestimated, but it has been a very long time since I was in that business myself. Curious whether the proportions have changed, or whether my perspective at that time was skewed by the nature of my tier 1 customer service role.
I'm sure it also depends on who you worked for. My unscientific instinct is that you're substantially more likely to see someone carry a balance on a Capital One or Target card then on an Amex or Costco visa because of the demographics.
MBNA, a few years prior to the BofA acquisition. The company mostly issued affinity cards, of which it was the largest US issuer (I want to say largest globally, but not sure, whereas US I am certain about) at the time. You got to see a pretty good cross-section.
> If everyone paid their credit cards off at the end of the month like they say they do, do you think credit cards would be advertised or pushed as hard as they are?
Yes. CC companies make money on every transaction (google keyword: interchange fee).
I am also one of those people that pays off my balance every month. In fact, I use an Amex charge card that is designed to be paid off every month.
If not using/having credit cards is what works for your family, more power to you. But don't assume just because I use a CC for my purchases I'm in debt or foolish. In fact there's a whole subculture of making money off of credit card offers (see /r/churning).
> If not using/having credit cards is what works for your family, more power to you. But don't assume just because I use a CC for my purchases I'm in debt or foolish. In fact there's a whole subculture of making money off of credit card offers (see /r/churning).
I don't think people are foolish for having credit cards. And certainly hope that my comment didn't paint credit cards or cardholders as evil.
I think there people like me, who grew up thinking that having a credit card payment was just how things worked. And if you wanted to splurge on something you could just put it on the credit card and pay it all off come tax return time. (Trust me I know how ridiculous this sounds, but this is what I learned growing up. I still see my friends and family continuing this insanity).
I did a quick Google search to make sure I wasn't completely off base here. According to the American Bankers Association Credit Card Market Monitor May 2016 report [http://www.aba.com/Press/Documents/ABA2016Q2CreditCardMonito...] 42.1% of Americans are Revolvers (carry a balance and pay interest) and 29.7% of Americans are Transactors who pay their bill in full each month.
This thread is about getting outside of the tech bubble. I consider myself to be blessed having grown up in a low income bubble, it was very humbling. I also consider myself even more blessed to be trending towards the tech bubble. These two bubbles are very different and I was trying to provide some context to that difference. Hopefully this helped provide a different perspective.
> i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people.
Hi, I'm one of those people. Nice to meet you!
We use our (no fee) credit card for everything we can and pay it off at the end of the month. Initially we did this to allow as much of our own money, for the longest possible time to sit in our mortgage. We've never paid a cent in charges, fees or penalties.
You can save incredible amounts over the years just by shifting the time at which your money sits where.
I've been doing similar. I realize that some people prefer to spend their money, including grocery shopping, somewhat spontaneously and for those people credit cards are probably a bad idea. But if you plan a monthly budget ahead of time there's almost no reason not to be using a credit card with a good rewards program. Different people value different things so what rewards program is the best is a more complicated issue. But purchasing via credit is only detrimental if you're spending more than you can pay back.
>And it seems likely that the finance institutions behind the credit cards are offering them as a product that makes money and not as an act of goodwill.
Correct, credit card companies take a fee on the transaction, which is in turn baked into the prices of all consumer goods.
To pay the normal price with something other than a credit card is to miss out on what you're already paying for.
> i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people.
...until today!
Hi! I'm "magnetic" - nice to meet you!
It's not as uncommon as you think: many tools allow you to not miss payments nowadays, from email/SMS/push notification reminders to automatic payments.
If you have the money to afford what you buy on the CC, there is really no reason you should be paying any fees, unless you are sloppy with finances.
I believe you when you say you're hit with charges, but I also think you are the reason for it. Sorry! (nothing personal)
Hi magnetic, nice to meet you! Out of curiosity, where would you say you developed your money management skills? Was it from your parents, from school, or just organically as you started taking on more responsibility as an adult?
To acknowledge your point, I was definitely the reason for the interest charges. As I mentioned in other comments in this thread: growing up my parents didn't teach me much in the way of handling money responsibly. It took me almost 10 years of being an adult before I realized that I wasn't managing my money, but it was managing me.
Before two years ago I never created a monthly budget and stuck to it. The typical month looked like me spending way too much money in the first half of the month. Which led me to constantly checking my account balance in the second half of the month. When my checking account would start to get below about $200 I would shift spending over to my credit card. Next month I usually tried to pay it off. Sometimes I didn't and even worse sometimes it would take me a few months.
Its exhausting when I look back at all of the financial drama I dealt with until recently. Mostly because I never planned how my money was going to be spent with a monthly budget, but also because I bought stuff that I didn't need and couldn't afford.
The point I was trying to make with my original comment was: More people are likely to carry a balance on their credit cards than those who pay it off on time every month. I'm fairly certain the bubble I grew up in skewed my perception that everyone carried a balance on their credit cards. I knew people who said they paid it off every month, but when I asked them to be 100% accurate with that statement, they always backpedaled. At least I know of one person "magnetic" who actually pays their bill on time every month.
> Hi magnetic, nice to meet you! Out of curiosity, where would you say you developed your money management skills? Was it from your parents, from school, or just organically as you started taking on more responsibility as an adult?
I am not so sure I know the answer to that, but I've had to "live on my own" at 16 as my parents were living abroad and I was living by myself in an apartment while going to high school. They'd give me a monthly "budget" and I had to manage the money to deal with life expenses. Perhaps this helped.
One thing I always strived for was to not purchase something unless I could afford it cash. I couldn't do it for my house so it was the only thing I really got a loan for, and even that I worked really hard to pay it off faster than the required schedule (which isn't necessarily a smart thing to do financially speaking, but it has a "peace of mind" value to me that is worth it).
The other thing that helped is that I'm not extravagant with purchases and - except for the times when I had a mortgage to worry about - my income would usually be high enough that I wouldn't have to go through mental gymnastics to figure out whether I should worry about the end of month.
So I developed a mechanical "pay the credit card in full at the end of the month" process, and that was it. The rest would go to savings, and once the savings had enough (a few months worth of living expenses), the overflow would go into more risky investments (like stocks, etc).
I don't like automated payment systems so I avoid anything that gives automated access to my money to a third party, but I do like reminders for bills, and most online banking systems will provide reminders to you in due time and let you pay your stuff online easily.
I also try to keep the amount of accounts to a minimum: I have very few credit cards and bank accounts. It simplifies the management of money.
Lastly, I am from Europe, and the credit card madness isn't something I was exposed to when I grew up, so when I came to the US I didn't feel like I needed a CC. It was hard to get one in the beginning anyways, since I didn't have any credit history.
