Make Credit Cards work For You!

Credit cards are a scary thing to have in your wallet if you aren’t careful. That little piece of plastic can lead you to financial doom before you know it since you don’t really have to “worry” about what you buy until that evil thing called a “bill” comes through your mail slot. I want you to take control of this and use the credit card in your favor, it shouldn’t be an evil card and isn’t. It just turns out that way for those that are irresponsible with it. Learn how to become responsible and more!

Pay As You Go Strategy
If you are worried about overspending with your credit card, when you buy something with your credit card, pay for it right away! This way you’re pretty much paying for it in cash but still get to rack up points and are helping your credit rating! If paying for every purchase is a little excessive, pay on a certain day of the week, every week! Keep all of your receipts and tally up and make sure it matches with the balance that you see, which you can usually access online. I usually pay my balance every paycheck.

If your credit card doesn’t offer online balances, I suggest you switch cards, because in this day and age you should be able to access your credit card balances online. I wouldn’t worry about security unless you’re on a public computer or do a whole lot of downloading. Have proper anti-virus software as well.

Rack up Those Points!
When you’re out at a dinner and people are getting his or her cash out, pay with your credit card and collect the cash from everyone. Be sure everyone is paying the full amount that they should be so that you avoid overpaying. The risk of this is that when you pay and don’t pay off your credit card right away, you might end up spending that cash and not pay off the balance.

This is why you have to be extremely responsible and use the pay as you go strategy to ensure that you do your part of staying out of debt. If you need to, put the cash that you get in an envelope and seal it until you take it to the bank to pay for your credit card.

Be Responsible!
By putting yourself in these situations, you are testing your responsibility. It takes a lot of discipline to stick to paying your credit card. You have to make sure you pay off, that’s right pay off, your visa every time. You do not want to carry a balance and rack up interest. Credit card companies want people to hold their cards because they know there are many irresponsible people that they can make a ton of interest off of. Of course, at 18.9% interest that isn’t very hard to do.

Mo2 Thinks
Be sure to have an equivalent amount of cash when you are buying something with a credit card. You should be able to pay for everything that you buy, otherwise you really should not be buying it. In my opinion you should have at least double the amount in cash because you have to worry about other expenses as well. A lot of the things that we buy with our credit cards are luxury items or items that we really don’t need in our daily lives and yet we buy them because we want them. You have to hold back your cravings and be responsible for your own wellbeing. Use the credit card in a smart fashion and use it in your advantage. There are many things a credit card can do for you, such as improving your credit rating, helping your financial responsibility, and giving your points for some decent rewards. It’s up to you what you want to make of it, take control!