My World: Credit cards, debt, and all that

The other day, I was in a fast food joint and saw someone paying for food with a credit card, and I had to shake my head. Whatever happened to paying with actual money? Or at least using a debit card? I hear about people who have several times their yearly income on their credit cards, and I have to ask why. Did they really have so little self control?I don't trust credit, I only have one credit card, and I use it so infrequently, you could count the times I use it in a year on a single hand. This might seem odd, but if you look at it differently, it makes sense. I don't want to get comfortable using credit cards because not only does using them make it harder to keep track of what I'm buying and how much money I'm spending, it will, in the end, cost me more money than the item actually costs. That's how the credit card companies make their money. They make money off your debt to them, making more and more money off you the longer you take to fully pay off something.

Sure, it's convenient, but I think I can give up a little convenience to avoid further hassle down the line. I'd rather spend my own money to purchase an item, rather than get in debt to purchase it. So next time you go to buy something, think about it: do you want to pay what the item really costs, or do you want to pay more money for the momentary convenience?