what financial instrument do you use for everyday purchases?

[paladin]

The concept that plays into credit cards is that people mentally separate a balance on their credit card from the money they have in their pocket or bank account, and thus are more apt to spend more on a credit card rather then their own cash.

I'm sure that is true for many folks, however, we treat our credit cards as debit cards - we write down everything and subtract it from our checking account (and don't buy it if we don't have the money in checking). I also pay my accounts on line every few days.

[Skooby]

Cc, Pif, Ftw.

What?

[disneysteve]

As for credit cards and the desire to get points for this or that, those points aren't really free.

people will consistently spend more when using plastic as compared to using cash.

The credit card companies know these studies inside and out, that is why they have these "Reward" programs.

I know what the studies show, and I'm sure it is true for many people, but it isn't true for my wife and I. We buy what we buy. How we pay has no bearing on what we buy or how much we spend. We also use our reward CC to pay a lot of regular bills that we'd be paying no matter what: land and cell phones, auto insurance, auto registration, auto maintenance, alarm fee, newspaper and magazine subscriptions, medical copays, gas, groceries and a lot more. Those bills would be exactly the same no matter if we paid by CC, cash, check, debit card or gold doubloons. So in our case, the rewards are free and they can be for anyone else if they use their CC responsibly.

[anonymous_saver]

FTW: "What is 'FTW'? What Does It Mean?"

??

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

"Cc, Pif, Ftw."

What?

Okay, with anonymous_saver's link, I now understand that to mean, "Credit card, paid in full, for the win." Got it.

[Skooby]

I'm swithing to CC for the rewards.

Me too...

[mrpaseo]

I use a credit card for as much as possible. I too use it for the rewards and convienance.

With one credit card I earned 650 dollars in EE Savings bonds, in that time frame I paid only $18.50 in interest to the cc.

With another cc, I received a new camera and 150 cash back.

The way I see a cc is it is a tool used to spend money you already have, NOT a way to borrow money. Thus, I do not charge unless it is a planned charge.

Normally I pay the balance in full... that is until they started giving me 0% cc

More on that in a new thread.
Ray

[kork13]

Credit cards for just about everything possible, because even those petty $2 and $3 charges still collect points, and now after 4 years of it i've got quite a store of them available for my use.

When I can't use my credit card (utilities, monetary gifts, charity donations, etc.), I use checks. If I have more than $10 in my wallet at any time, it's a rare event. When I get $40 from the ATM, it lasts me at least a month or two, because I use cash so rarely.