moneytalks

 No, the title is not talking about what the bagger at the grocery store is going to ask you, I’m talking about what the cashier at the grocery store is going to ask you. Next time you are at a checkout counter buying something you may hear the cashier ask you “Will that be cash or credit?” What goes through your mind at that point? “Do I rack up interest charges with a credit card or do I take my last 50 bucks and pay for this?” Like with most things in life, you have two extremes with this question. Some will pull out one of their 10 cards to pay 15% interest on a $10 purchase. While others wouldn’t be caught dead using a credit card even if it meant draining their bank account. Wake up people, there is a happy medium. To all the credit card haters, there is nothing wrong with using a card responsibly. By responsible I mean NOT using it until it’s maxed out, paying at least double the minimum payment and NOT using it for every little purchase you make. On the other hand all those who are credit happy need to know this, all of those $10 trips add up. You end up paying a lot of interest on something that you could have easily paid cash for. Most of you have so many cards that you’re stuck paying the minimum each month on all of them. This is a cycle that you will not get out of for years to come (up to 30+ years depending on the amount you have on credit). I like to think that I’m a happy medium kind of guy. I don’t put everything on my credit card but when I bought my new HDTV, I used the plastic. And not a single payment on that card has been a minimum payment. I guess what I’m getting at is that nothing is ALL bad and nothing is ALL good. There has to be a middle ground with most things like this. All in all, just be responsible.