StrangerThan
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ORIGINAL: eyesopened
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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
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ORIGINAL: eyesopened
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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
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ORIGINAL: servantforuse
Lady Angelika, You can do any one of the things you mentioned with a debit card. Credit cards are not needed to do any of them.. You also do not have to pay 30 % on a debit card..
You dont have to pay 30% on a credit card either, if you pay it off. The problem with debit cards for travel is rental car companies and hotels will put a hold on the card for much more than what you are actually purchasing.
Here's my opinion.... If I can't afford to put a hold of $200 on my card for a rental car, maybe I don't need to go on that particular vacation. The hotel is gonna put $50 for incidentals on the card, credit or debit, at the time of check-in. If you don't have the money in the bank to pay that extra $50, maybe you should stay with friends or family. When I travelled for business, my company took care of everything. All we are saying is that one can live nicely without having credit cards. It is not a necessity.
and you can live without a car or motorcycle or a myriad of other things that are conveniences, not necessities.
If my car or motorcycle was sucking the life out of me financially I absolutely would give them up for something that did not suck the financial life out of me! The thread was about how credit card companies are such meanies... The point I and others are making is that people need to take personal responsibility and not just blame the big bad banks for their inability to pay their bills. We are also pointing out that one can lead a perfectly decent life without credit cards. Please try to keep up.
There's validity to both sides of the debate. Not every company pays expenses up front for company travel. I've traveled with work for 12 years and never has a company paid for those things up front. I go through anywhere from 3-6k a month in travel expenses. And I'm not the only one. Business travelers do this kind of thing regularly Yes, you can do it without a credit card. I'll grant you that. But it certainly isn't easy. You'd need about a 9-10k pad sitting in your checking account just to cover it.
And yes, you can change jobs to where you don't have that kind of outlay every month. But again, jobs aren't exactly hanging like around like fruit on a tree either right now. Scary side note on that, friend of mine was stuck with about 30k worth of travel expenses when a company she worked for went bottoms up.
But most of the folks I know now who are struggling with credit card problems are dealing with past behaviors, interest rates that were 3 or 4 percent, balance transfers that were set at a 2 or 3 percent rate with language indicating the interest rate was fixed for the life of the payments, and at a time when credit card companies aggressively sought to reel people in. Another side note worth noting, that those "life of" agreements aren't something they can back out of, but they can certainly recalculate the way your bill is paid and send you another shock if you happened to carry a decent sized balance. My brother's bill went from 300 a month to 900. When he called them, the only way they would go back to calculating his bill as before, was if he agreed to release them from the interest rate agreements. Since he couldn't make a 900 a month payment, he is now back at the same basic payment, only now he'll end up paying them another half dozen years.
And then there are the opt outs. If your rate changes dramatically, you can opt out of the new rate. That essentially shuts your credit down and you pay it off at the earlier rate. Here's the side note on that one, if you choose any option other than the one they give you, it is a mark against your credit rating. Closing accounts is a strike against you. Hell, taking the offer they give you sometimes is a strike against you.
I agree with your sentiment. People are better off without them. And we're heading into a time where a good portion of the population is going to do without them. Being responsible with them and keeping them paid off makes the issue a non-issue. That goes no where for the folks who were already in debt to them though, and are now facing much higher rates and additional fees.
Wide open credit markets are what drove a large part of the feel good years with Clinton and the earlier years with Bush in terms of the economy. From home loans to credit cards, money ran like a river. Those flood gates will never operate at their previous levels. And we're dealing with the aftermath. I fully believe banks and credit card issuers did some of the things they did intending to shift the burden back on the tax payer if it ever went sour. I don't see it as a coincidence that failure is met with a "we're too big to fail" attitude that is then underwritten by the tax payer. Personally, I think we have another couple of bubbles to go through before it's all said and done. And honestly, I don't see much happening to prevent another collapse down the road.
We're bailing them out and going about business as usual. Shrug. The only lesson learned there is that the American taxpayer will accept the burden.
The lesson that needs to be learned by everyone is that the worker is the only one who puts money into the cycle, regardless of whether you're talking about financial things or government things. They can talk money all day long, but it's your money they're talking about, and they'll get it from you one way or another.
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--'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform' - Mark Twain
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RE: How U.S. Credit Card Companies Are Sucking The Fina... - 
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