Given that I shop at grocery stores daily, and often unpredictably, I’d have to carry a shit ton of case around each week. No thanks. I mean, there’s risk in everything these days, so I’ll have to take my chances I guess.
If you don’t pay off your credit card bills every month then you definitely can’t take advantage of the benefits I listed, yeah.
You should still use credit cards to pay for groceries and well, everything. Because you’re protected and you build your credit. But you need to pay off that money right away or they screw you hard and deep.
No. If he knows his limits and this is one of them, the last thing he should do is use credit cards. I know someone who got a credit card just for self-employment gas, 2-3 years later, 10k in debt on that one card, not due to gas purchases. She just used it because it was there, always had an excuse when she used it. It was a mess.
True dat.
I’m totally with you though for other scenarios. Wal-mart had the fiasco a number of years ago where their system accidentally doubled charged every purchase on that one day. People who used their credits card could just wait it out for them to refund. Those who used their debit cards, some of them got hit with insufficient fees, bouncing checks and rotating fees all over the place. It took Wal-mart awhile to get involved because for those accounts, it wasn’t enough to refund the amount, they also had to pay the fees.
You don’t even need your card stolen to run into a problem.
Everything comes at a cost, though. Carrying large amounts of cash, having to go to the bank or ATM to get cash constantly, things like that are annoyances or worse, depending on who and where you are. While I can’t disagree with the general idea that there are significant risks to using debit cards, it’s all about which risks. Chances of debit card fraud or misuse are there, but are they worse than the risks of toting around $100 or more in cash all the time?
Yes. If you lose a hundred dollars, you lose a hundred dollars. If someone empties your bank account, you’re not paying bills, you’re not getting the things you need. Have you looked at the fine print of your debit card use.
If you let your bank know your card was stolen before anyone unauthorized had a chance to use it, you’re completely off the hook. Even if it takes you up to two business days to report the theft, you’re only liable for $50. If you wait until 60 days after your statement containing evidence of theft is mailed to you, your liability goes up to $500.
Your bank does not have to return your money as soon as you report a suspicious transaction. It can take up to 10 days to reimburse money while it investigates fraudulent ATM or online use, and up to 20 days if the fraudulent transaction took place at a location such as a store or restaurant.
You gotta do what’s best for you, but the credit card companies simply have better protection and almost every person I know who wound up with fraudulent charges on their account got a new card either within a day or two, no charge, no disruption to their life at all. In fact, sometimes the company called them to verify before the charge even posted.
And of course, they’re investigating… what do you do if they find against you… you could fight a credit card issue for years, sink your credit maybe, but you’re still in your house, eating.
Where I come from (not so much where I live now), carrying lots of cash could mean, not just losing the cash, but being left in the alley with a couple of holes in you.
The Valero gas stations around here charge a flat fee (I think it is $.45 now) to buy gas with a debit card.
How would a mugger know you have cash in your wallet or not? They’re following you too the register and watching you hand them a twenty? I mean really it’s your choice how you proceed. Credit Cards have not only better protections they have stricter rules on getting your money back which isn’t really your money anyway so much as credit. You’re free too use debit if you like.
I’m not arguing with you, really. I just have never been in the habit of carrying cash. I shop nearly every day (a habit I picked up living in Europe), and so would have to be refilling my cash all the freakin’ time. I choose to indulge myself in the convenience of a debit card. As far as risks go, for me, it’s just one of many to negotiate, and one where the mitigation of it adds enough annoyance to make it not worthwhile.
Around here, you save five cents a gallon using a debit card, or to put it differently, pay five cents more if you use a credit card.
I carry about 20-40 in case the machines are down; it’s happen. I don’t carry cash either. I credit everything, i mean everything. Not only do I get the points, it’s easy to track and I pay it off weekly.
I just know someone like my parents, if they got their checking account wiped, and they only have on, I have multiples actually… they’d be calling me to help with their bills because there is no way they could float a week. It would be disaster for most my family to have their primary checking account wiped for a handful of days.
Why would you have multiple checking accounts? I do keep some cash in the money market for transaction fees and such, but that’s about it.
It’s very sad how poorly so many handle their money. Not talking about people in the cycle of poverty due to events largely out of their control, either. I work with people who make a fine salary at career jobs yet save nothing; if they lost their job they’d be on the street in a couple months.
The system is rigged in such a way that people with more money and who manage it carefully, actually get better deals. That’s why I get 5% off basically everything I buy, because I have good credit and I did my homework. Same deal with house ownership, mortgages are outrageously good deals due to tax implications but if you don’t have great credit and a high downpayment they’ll take advantage of you with a variable rate and PMI and various other scammery, and if you don’t make the money in the first place the tax savings are minimal It sucks. I mean, not for me, works great for me, but it really is unfair.
My primary checking account is brick and mortar, has local branches, the traditional sort of thing. The secondary is internet only, better rates for both checking and savings. I also belong to a credit union with very little money there to get loans from them at pretty good rates.My primary is also pretty good when it comes to taking money out internationally.
I don’t do this because I don’t need every financial institute out there with my information, but there are several people that churn the open account bonuses too. 300 for opening this account with 10k, 75 for opening this one with 500 and etc.
My real estate agent, who I run into now and then, told me it’s a lot easier to double 200k than 2k. It’s not set-up for the poor or just struggling lower class either. The other issues is as middle class you’re frequently one health issue, one major mistake, or job loss from dropping down. For the poor, almost any mistake, even s frivolous one like using your gas only credit card to keep buying you crap you don’t need… takes years to recover from… if you do at all.
What do you mean by better rates, like interest payments or something?
That’s another thing that less advantaged people don’t have an opportunity to do, take advantage of the stock market. The market is up 18% this year. I don’t have a savings account because the payout is so low, and while it does pay something I treat checking and money market like cash and transfer money out of them to the market every month.
Yeah, interest rates.
They’re terrible at most the traditional banks and even credit unions, but the online ones are considerably better.I don’t use them as an investment so much as a place to park my money, so parking it here where they give me more and using this other one because it’s been super useful. I move money between them all the time all from the comforts of home…
Yeah I see some online banks will pay up to 1.35% APY; my money market pays only 0.99% APY. But since neither of us use them as investments (which is absolutely correct!) the difference is pretty minimal. For me it would be around $145/year.
One advantage of the money market is you can write checks against it. I think with a $500 minimum. But I can’t remember the last time I actually did that.
What’s this check thing you speak of ;-).
Really though I guess we’ve high jacked this thread enough.
I know lots of people who had to have their cards replaced. If that’s the only problem, no account hacked, no identify theft, no emptied account, I consider it just something we live with now… sometimes you just get a new card because there are scummy people out there.
This is true, but it’s complicated, though of course each individual has to take responsibility for their own actions. Our entire culture is built around consumption. From birth, we are inundated with messaging telling us to consume, consume, consume. Status, power, personal appeal, eligibility as a mate–all these things are filtered through the lens of consumption and material possessions. This is true regardless of your income, so no matter what you make, you are pressured to spend at a level set by cultural norms, not one set by your, well, income. Now, one can argue that that’s a personal issue, and you have to be strong, etc., etc., but there’s a reason the whole system functions like it does–that persuasion and media bombardment works. It’s powerful stuff, and a lot of it is ingrained from a very young age, long before we learn to start filtering.
It’s one reason why Hollywood films–generic, run of the mill comedies and stuff–are often seen so differently overseas (and the same is true of a lot of TV in the old days at least). These cultural products depict a norm that is, for the bulk of humanity, unobtainable, and lavishly luxurious. A house for one family, and a small family at that. At least one, usually more, cars, plus appliances, etc. Electricity, water, heat, communications all taken for granted. Start showing this stuff in a place like, say, 1950s-60s Indonesia (this actually happened), and the authorities see it as incitement to revolution.
That powerful norming of consumption, here at home, sets people up to expect certain things as givens, and de-couples those things from the money needed to buy them. Businesses then compound the pressure by offering easily obtained financing, credit, etc. Then you add in health care being tied totally to your job for most Americans, and you get a double whammy–addiction to consumption, and sheer terror at losing your job, so you end up being a good little obedient wage slave.
It’s very easy for the wealthy to say, save! save! save! If everyone saved, the economy would probably collapse, as it’s based on spend! spend! spend! and borrow! borrow! borrow! But Social Darwinism is alive and well–those who have like to feel it’s all their positive qualities that makes them successful, ergo it must be negative personal qualities that makes everyone else unsuccessful. Stops anyone from pondering whether the game is rigged.