It is hard to imagine life without credit cards and in my shop over 90% of the transactions are done with credit cards. Cash has almost become obsolete and the necessity for daily banking of the cash has long disappeared and a visit once a week is all that is necessary. I finally took control of my life and my debts about eight years ago now and the first thing I had to get rid of was the multitude of credit cards that my wife and I had gathered.

I was insistant that all the cards must go and Sharon was pleading that we keep just one for when an emergency occurred but I won the day and all the cards were paid out and destroyed. I really hate to admit that Sharon could be right about anything but we should have kept just one card for emergency purposes. In fact that is now the advice I give to people reclaiming their lives from the debt monster. Keep one card for emergency purposes and if you should use it make sure it is paid off as soon as possible.

There were many things that I took for granted with the credit cards and I certainly missed them when we were credit card free for six years. The simplicity of booking and paying for an airline ticket online becomes a nightmare when you don’t have a credit card. And I must admit that I do have a little laugh every now and again at the thought of millions and millions of people throughout the world using their credit card to buy things, that in all probability they don’t need, with money that they don’t have without the slightest thought that at some stage in the future they will have to pay for them

Figure’s out recently show a marked increase in credit card debt right across the world and today it is one of the biggest worries of a family. The figure’s here in Australia are astounding with each person carrying more than $9,000 in credit card debt. This figure is even worse when we take out the 2 millon people under the age of legally owning a credit card and of course take out Sharon and myself who do have an American Express card with zero balance. Going back to my own debt problems I would use my credit card for anything at all and my spending was out of control. When I got married Sharon quickly learnt my dreadful money management skills and so it didn’t take a genious to work out we were headed for a disaster.

I always thought that I had the debts under control but eventually the day came when I couldn’t juggle the cards anymore and we fell behind in the payments. I won’t bore you with the painful details of getting out of trouble but we did decide the cards had to go and arranged finance to cover all our debts except the mortgage and got rid of the credit cards completely. We now believe in paying cash for things that we really want and if we dont have the cash to pay then we save it up. Quite often we find that before we have saved the required amount for the new Blue Ray DVD recorder we will decide that we really don’t need to have such a thing and that the old one works fine.

While we do now have a credit card it is not to be used except in the case of an emergency and Sharon and I have agreed on what things would constitute an emergency. We discussed things like someone in the family needing medical assistance not covered by our health insurance, or the death of a close family member and we had to travel to attend the funeral. Thngs we could not foresee happening and could not budget for but we both agree are necessary. Whenever something arises where we decide to use the credit card the money is paid back as soon as possible so that the charges are at a minimum and returned to zero balance at the earliest date.

Credit cards make getting into debt far too easy and, with many banks prepared to increase the credit limit when the threshold is near, are designed to keep you in debt. If the banks were serious about looking after you as a customer they would refuse to increase your limit and instead demand a higher repayment rate until you have the card down to below thirty percent of its limit.