Credit Card Minds

Many people think credit cards as the temporary solution for their long term financial problems. What I mean by financial problems is not financial hardship, but financial knowledge.

Credit cards main selling points are convenience, cashless and rewards. People sign for credit cards for those perks.

While credit card offers today is interesting – some offered 0% APR on Purchases, even 0% on everything – many people will eventually build up their credit card debts.

The question – why with all of the free and 0% offers some people still in deep credit card debts, that take years to clear and have to pay hefty amount of outstanding plus interest?

The answer – it is ‘humane’ that people always want more. Along with bad personal financial management, bad spending habit and wrong money mindset, here are why people stumble on credit card debts.

• You make more money, you spend more money
  People always want to get rich. However, people forget that being rich doesn’t mean you have a lot of money. For some, being rich is status – no matter how much debt they have. Some of status symbol is credit cards. Having a strong financial knowledge will help you to make more and spend not too much.
• You spend what you see and always want what you don’t see
  “If you have $100 in your wallet, how long will it last?” Most people will answer, “Right away!” Not many people have the strong will to spend carefully of their cash. Most of us need the cash to be ’secured’ from ourselves to investment instruments, such as deposits or mutual funds. Credit cards alleviate this problems.
• Convenience often makes you go loose
  Fast food is convenient – you can eat as you go. This, not considering the content of the fast food itself, will cause people to eat more, simply because of the convenience. This also applies to credit cards. Convenience in credit cards will likely cause you to spend more than you should.

I don’t recommend you not to have credit cards. Credit cards are actually very useful in our daily lives. However, I strongly recommend you not to have credit card outstanding debts.

Having a credit card today does offer you perks, such as:

• 0% is always a good deal
  0% APR on Purchases, 0% APR balance transfer, free annual fee, and even 0% everything – the competing credit card issuers mean benefit for us consumers.
• Convenient
  Convenience is credit cards main selling point – credit cards is easy to carry and secure – if anything goes wrong, call your issuers to block the cards.
• Reward is, well, rewarding
  Frequent fliers, hotel deals, dining deals, cash backs, and other rewards are lavishing frequent shoppers.
• Saving with credit cards
  You can save a lot of money if you know which credit card issuers offering what – Go to credit card comparison websites to learn more which issuers are the right ones for you.

I strongly recommend you to have the right mindset before applying for any credit cards, to get all the benefits of credit cards, such as savings, and avoid all the problems that most people with credit cards have, such as outstanding debts.