FC Community
Discussion Boards => Off-Topic => Topic started by: aggie49 on August 20, 2012, 11:27:44 am
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i use cash to pay for everything i have a prepaid credit card so i never go over the limit my ex put me in deep when we got divorsed thats why i won't have any regular credit cards plus i remember growing up mom and dad always told us if you can pay ofr it you don't get it
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CASH!! credit cards are very dangerous. i'm 17, and that's what my teacher told me
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I use cash for stuff as well. I h have a prepaid debit card. Credit cards , I learned that the hard way when I was younger. Cash is usually the best way to go.
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I do not like to carry cash anymore. I feel safer carrying wround my credit cards than a pocket full of money.
people these days rob and steal. I know at least if my purse is stolen and Im carrying cards if anything happens I can file a claim with my bank and I dont end up losing money.
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cash and I like using my prepaid debit card a lot, to me it is so much easier to have. Credit cards are just too much to handle and a waste of time.
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I use cash or my debit card
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I prefer paying by credit card. I am diligent on paying on time and I like the rewards benefits that come with the cards I'm associated with.
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I use a credit card for almost every payment. I use a Discover card and it gives me a 1% cash back bonus, 5% when they're running a special, like they are right now on gasoline. I always get between a $20 and $60 bonus every month, depending on my purchases and the bonuses. All you have to do is pay off the outstanding balance on time every month and you can make a little money by using a credit card. Of course, if you leave an unpaid balance on the card, that totally defeats the idea of making any money, and, of course, that's exactly what they hope that you'll do.
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cash whenever possible.
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I use credit cards with reward programs and pay off the balance each month. So far I have never held a balance for more than a month on the card. Plus I get gift cards a few time a year for using them. For me it works but I can understand if it is hard to fight temptation to buy more than you can afford when using a credit card.
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cash whenever possible my debit otherwise I always make it a habit to have cash on hand you just never know
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have stopped using credit cards...use debit card which is cash from from my checking account
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cash or debit card
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I USE DEBIT CARD AND MY HUSBAND USES CASH.
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Sometimes cash, sometimes credit card. I prefer cash, but that is not practical for a lot of things i need to spend my money on.
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I use credit cards with reward programs and pay off the balance each month. So far I have never held a balance for more than a month on the card. Plus I get gift cards a few time a year for using them. For me it works but I can understand if it is hard to fight temptation to buy more than you can afford when using a credit card.
This is ideal if you are very disciplined. I used to even pay my bills with credit cards because you get back. Where else can you get rewarded for paying your bills! This is NOT for those who are not very good with keeping their finances straight, though!!
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I prefer to pay cash, but there are times when one has to use a credit card.....like paying for a flight back to South Africa.....then you get life insurance thrown in as well. Unfortunately the interest paid on the credit card is w-a-y high and almost crippling! >:(
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cash because with a credit/debit card I tend to over-indulge especially when shopping online
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i use cash to pay for everything i have a prepaid credit card so i never go over the limit my ex put me in deep when we got divorsed thats why i won't have any regular credit cards plus i remember growing up mom and dad always told us if you can pay ofr it you don't get it
aggie49, my parents were the same as yours! I grew up in the days before credit cards. My parents drilled into me that if you don't have the money, then you don't make the purchase. As a kid, I used to save and save if I wanted to buy something. Today, for me, it just makes sense to use credit cards because of the bonuses you can get as a result; however, I never use my credit card to make a purchase unless I have the money in the bank to cover it.
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I never use cash if I can avoid it. I always pay with my credit card because I get cash back on it. Why spend money and not get anything back for doing so?
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i use cash, but im still young so i will probably use a debit card AND a credit card when im older
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I do not like to carry cash anymore. I feel safer carrying wround my credit cards than a pocket full of money.
people these days rob and steal. I know at least if my purse is stolen and Im carrying cards if anything happens I can file a claim with my bank and I dont end up losing money.
I agree! Last week a girl from an energy company came door to door, and we let her into the house, and she was at the kitchen table explaining stuff, and she asked to use the bathroom, and my husband left the room to look for some information on the laptop, and I went into one of the bedrooms where my kids were, and she left the house after a few minutes. Half an hour later my husband was searching for his wallet which he left on top of the fridge, and after some search we found it near the door, by his shoes ::) Needless to say, she had stolen $60+ from his wallet and thrown it. Atleast the credit cards were there, and we learnt a lesson from our bad experience. Even though we have the girls first name and her phone number, my husband does not want to report this, and says that life will eventually give her the fruits of her bad deeds! What can I say?
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I use cash when I make physical purchases at stores, and debit cards for online purchases. People think they are doing good with credit cards because of the cash back, but sooner or later they will forget or be unable to pay a bill on time, and then they'll end up paying more than what they get back, as well as start getting into debt which will be very hard to get out of. I have two debit cards that give me cash back for purchases, so I can remain debt free and get bonuses!
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I mainly use my debt card, no place to leave wallet or purse at night while at work.
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I do not like to carry cash anymore. I feel safer carrying wround my credit cards than a pocket full of money.
people these days rob and steal. I know at least if my purse is stolen and Im carrying cards if anything happens I can file a claim with my bank and I dont end up losing money.
I agree! Last week a girl from an energy company came door to door, and we let her into the house, and she was at the kitchen table explaining stuff, and she asked to use the bathroom, and my husband left the room to look for some information on the laptop, and I went into one of the bedrooms where my kids were, and she left the house after a few minutes. Half an hour later my husband was searching for his wallet which he left on top of the fridge, and after some search we found it near the door, by his shoes ::) Needless to say, she had stolen $60+ from his wallet and thrown it. Atleast the credit cards were there, and we learnt a lesson from our bad experience. Even though we have the girls first name and her phone number, my husband does not want to report this, and says that life will eventually give her the fruits of her bad deeds! What can I say?
I think he should report her anyway, to prevent her from stealing from anyone else. Maybe she'll steal from someone who is very poor, and that person will have to go hungry.
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:wave: i use cash all the time for all my everyday purchase. credit cards are only used for travel,airline tickets and hotel reservations and of course car rentals. i learned a very hard lesson about credit cards when i was a young man. i will not allow myself to fall into that trap ever again
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I use cash when I make physical purchases at stores, and debit cards for online purchases. People think they are doing good with credit cards because of the cash back, but sooner or later they will forget or be unable to pay a bill on time, and then they'll end up paying more than what they get back, as well as start getting into debt which will be very hard to get out of. I have two debit cards that give me cash back for purchases, so I can remain debt free and get bonuses!
No, forgetting or unable to pay a bill doesn't happen to everybody, it hasn't happened to me in over 30 years. I check my credit card on line and pay on line directly from my bank account 2 or 3 times a month. I don't just pay the amount necessary to prevent interest charges, I pay the full amount, so I'm always ahead of the game.
I use the Discover card, and I use it for every possible purchase. Right now they have a special deal where you get 5% cash back for gasoline purchases, that gets me at least $10 a month cash back for fuel purchases for 3 months. In September I'll have to pay city taxes for my own rental property and one of my brother's rental properties that I manage. That city accepts the Discover card and the total taxes will be over $2000. Even at 1% cash back, that will add another $20 to my September reward. If I go on vacation, I charge everything, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, gasoline and all other purchases. I use that card for everything, appliances, electronics, furniture, groceries, I even tried to use it to help pay for cars, but they wouldn't accept a credit card for a car purchase. There have been months (not very many) when I made over $100 on cash back bonuses. Of course it makes it easier if you have a comfortable limit on your card, Discover allows me a limit of $12,700, my Visa allows me a limit of $12,000, but I only use my Visa when there are purchases that don't accept Discover.
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Most of the time I use cash. The only time I will use a credit card is for necessary purchases. And even then I pay off the card in one or two months.
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cash most of time, debit card sometimes,usually when I don't have the cash that means I won't buy it.
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I like cash because you can physically see how much you have to spend at all times. But, Debit (not credit) would be my number two choice.
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Ran into some hard times a couple of years back and basically lived off of our credit cards. Now we are working hard to pay off. But it is not easy. Now I use my debit/ATM card, if I don't have the money we just have to do without. We are not going to keep letting the credit cards get us down. I think that I read that a large percentage of people with money problems had medical issues (that's us) and you have to pay or not get all the treatments, medications etc., you should have. SO NOW CASH OR ATM FOR EVERYTHING. We are paying off the creditors who worked with us first, not the ones who were so rude and obnoxious when we had enough other problems on our plate. In fact, some of those collectors I have turned in to everyone who will listen. Some of them have got problems with government agencies now. They cannot threaten you or say horrible things they will do physically, they have rules to follow to. Not matter how bad off you are, you don't need to take be treated poorly.
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I use cash or a prepaid debit card. Cannot see spending fees on a credit card.
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I mostly use cash for purchases, but for online, credit cards. I can't risk having my credit card exposed to another person other than my self.
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I use cash when I make physical purchases at stores, and debit cards for online purchases. People think they are doing good with credit cards because of the cash back, but sooner or later they will forget or be unable to pay a bill on time, and then they'll end up paying more than what they get back, as well as start getting into debt which will be very hard to get out of. I have two debit cards that give me cash back for purchases, so I can remain debt free and get bonuses!
No, forgetting or unable to pay a bill doesn't happen to everybody, it hasn't happened to me in over 30 years. I check my credit card on line and pay on line directly from my bank account 2 or 3 times a month. I don't just pay the amount necessary to prevent interest charges, I pay the full amount, so I'm always ahead of the game.
I use the Discover card, and I use it for every possible purchase. Right now they have a special deal where you get 5% cash back for gasoline purchases, that gets me at least $10 a month cash back for fuel purchases for 3 months. In September I'll have to pay city taxes for my own rental property and one of my brother's rental properties that I manage. That city accepts the Discover card and the total taxes will be over $2000. Even at 1% cash back, that will add another $20 to my September reward. If I go on vacation, I charge everything, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, gasoline and all other purchases. I use that card for everything, appliances, electronics, furniture, groceries, I even tried to use it to help pay for cars, but they wouldn't accept a credit card for a car purchase. There have been months (not very many) when I made over $100 on cash back bonuses. Of course it makes it easier if you have a comfortable limit on your card, Discover allows me a limit of $12,700, my Visa allows me a limit of $12,000, but I only use my Visa when there are purchases that don't accept Discover.
You're one of the rare ones for sure. You obviously have a comfortable income, if you're not actually wealthy, so it's probably easier for you to stay on top of things. But for a lot of people, who live in less affluent circumstances, having a credit card is the beginning of a downward spiral. Actually if you listen to Dave Ramsey's show, he can tell a ton of stories about people getting into crushing debt even with large incomes.
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If you cash, pay cash,if not pay with your credit card.
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I never seem to have the cash, but I do have a debit card which I use, but the money has to be in the bank.
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I use cash when I make physical purchases at stores, and debit cards for online purchases. People think they are doing good with credit cards because of the cash back, but sooner or later they will forget or be unable to pay a bill on time, and then they'll end up paying more than what they get back, as well as start getting into debt which will be very hard to get out of. I have two debit cards that give me cash back for purchases, so I can remain debt free and get bonuses!
No, forgetting or unable to pay a bill doesn't happen to everybody, it hasn't happened to me in over 30 years. I check my credit card on line and pay on line directly from my bank account 2 or 3 times a month. I don't just pay the amount necessary to prevent interest charges, I pay the full amount, so I'm always ahead of the game.
I use the Discover card, and I use it for every possible purchase. Right now they have a special deal where you get 5% cash back for gasoline purchases, that gets me at least $10 a month cash back for fuel purchases for 3 months. In September I'll have to pay city taxes for my own rental property and one of my brother's rental properties that I manage. That city accepts the Discover card and the total taxes will be over $2000. Even at 1% cash back, that will add another $20 to my September reward. If I go on vacation, I charge everything, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, gasoline and all other purchases. I use that card for everything, appliances, electronics, furniture, groceries, I even tried to use it to help pay for cars, but they wouldn't accept a credit card for a car purchase. There have been months (not very many) when I made over $100 on cash back bonuses. Of course it makes it easier if you have a comfortable limit on your card, Discover allows me a limit of $12,700, my Visa allows me a limit of $12,000, but I only use my Visa when there are purchases that don't accept Discover.
You're one of the rare ones for sure. You obviously have a comfortable income, if you're not actually wealthy, so it's probably easier for you to stay on top of things. But for a lot of people, who live in less affluent circumstances, having a credit card is the beginning of a downward spiral. Actually if you listen to Dave Ramsey's show, he can tell a ton of stories about people getting into crushing debt even with large incomes.
You're making a few presumptous assumptions, it's not a matter of wealth, it's a matter of life-style choices.
No, I'm not wealthy, absolutely not, if I were wealthy, I wouldn't be on this site for a few extra bucks. As I said in another posting, I retired at age 57, live off of my military retirement pay (US Army), rental income from my second property and my wife has a part time job, even though I made it clear to her that she didn't need to work. My income is maybe average, probably even modest, however, I don't have any rental payments, mortgage payments, own two cars without any car payments, and have no other debts. I don't know who Dave Ramsey is because I don't use any TV service provider, I get my news on the internet, TV here in the US drove me crazy anyway because there's 18 minutes of TV and 12 minutes of commercials. I don't have a phone, I use Magic Jack, I don't need a cell phone. We, myself and my wife, only use our clothes dryer in emergencies, we hang up our clothes to dry. We usually don't use our dishwasher, we wash by hand. We only use our air conditioner when it gets really uncomfortable, this year I could hear our neighbor's air conditioners on for over a month before we started using ours. My electical bill is 1/4 to 1/2 of what my neighbors pay and my water bill is about half, and, yes, we shower every day. Guess what kind of financial attitude allowed me to pay off 2 mortages and pay cash for 2 cars that put me in this financial position in the first place? I really never found it that hard to do, even with a modest income.
You might not have any idea of how little money you need on a monthly basis when you have no home, car or debt payments. I suppose my wife and I are unusual, I know we're unusual for the US. She's European and I've lived over there for many, many years. People over there are just more frugal than people in the US, although I find the life-style much more comfortable in Europe than it is here in the US. As far as I'm concerned you people just waste money over here, you make the wrong financial choices and then you cry about your debts. However, in spite of a modest income, we're able to save at least $1000 a month, some months we can set aside over $2000.
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I will generally pay with cash unless I don't have that much with me and then I will use my credit card. Generally though, I try to avoid using my card. For online, I'm kinda stuck using my card.
I would like to point out that credit cards aren't bad as long as you keep track of your spending and pay most/all of it off every month. Some of my friends avoid them cause they think they are bad, but to me it just seems like it gets out of hand for people who get into debt. The issues I've seen are people who get a $100 bill and only pay the minimum. Then they charge an addition $100 and get charged interest on the part they didn't pay off last time and that when it starts to snowball out of control. I have only paid $0.14 cents in fees and that's only cause I sent money to my Payza account. No interest and no other fees. So, credit cards aren't inherently bad, but they can cause a problem if not managed.
One thing to consider is if you have the cash to pay for it. For me, if I don't have the cash in my bank account, I won't buy the item. Granted that I don't have any monthly charges (like rent) that could go wrong quickly, but that's how I handle it. I pay my balance off every month and haven't had an issue and I'm going on (I think) 6 years of having a credit card.
I personally don't like debit cards cause of the chance that I could lose it and someone could drain all the money from my account. At least with a credit card, I could fight it before being forced to pay. Plus, my company will stop purchases on my card if they seem strange (like buying gas twice within the same day). They stopped my card when I purchased a bus ticket and then purchased another withing 3 minutes. I did do the purchase, but since it was strange, they were being safe. One call and my card was active again.
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Cash/debit.
If I do not have cash.. then I do not need it.
Take some more orders for my hats, scarves, etc and now quilts..
... Then maybe I can buy it next time.
Not worth it to charge anything in this economy.. Unless of course.. it is an emergency.
Happy Earning :thumbsup:
:wave:
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I prefer cash or debit card. Credit cards are the main reason we all get into financial trouble.
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Before I met my husband, I hardly ever had cash...it was strictly my debit card(I have never owned a credit card) but now, I mainly do cash...but I think that is more cause we are so broke :BangHead: If I had money in the bank I would probably still use my debit card lol So I guess I am a combo of both...having a credit card would be nice right about now though... :wave:
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Debit card so it comes right out of a checking account, I have been thinking about using a credit card for the reward benefits, Im just worried if I would be disciplined enough to make sure I paid it off each month...
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I prefer cash because you can see exactly how much you have to spend.
It's far too easy to just swipe your card and not really think about what you're spending.
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We use our debit card for the most part. It comes right out of our checking account and we get 1% back on every purchase.
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I pay cash or check for most things but, if it is a big item TV etc. I usually use CC. If i do use my CC, I pay it off within 3 months. If I can't pay it off in 3 months, I don't buy it. I am pretty disiplined about My CC. I never run it up into the thousands of dollars, like I know some do!. I don't even keep a balance of 1 thousand, maybe $700 at the most.
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I do not like to carry cash anymore. I feel safer carrying wround my credit cards than a pocket full of money.
people these days rob and steal. I know at least if my purse is stolen and Im carrying cards if anything happens I can file a claim with my bank and I dont end up losing money.
Same here....if it's a small amount, I'll pay with cash sometimes, but usually it's CC....I'm responsible and can pay bills
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Cash for purchases under 50.00, debit card for over 50-- I don't have credit cards. Thanks to my divorce, my credit is so bad bankruptcy would only improve it :D
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I prefer cash over credit.
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cash
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I use credit for the cash rewards but pay off each month so interest doesn't cancel or outweigh the benefits of the rewards program. Keep up with the total just as though I were using cash. Read an article today that those who use credit cards instead of cash usually spend twice as much - the exact reason I keep a running total in a checkbook register as though it were cash. I can see where it would be way to easy to overspend using a card.
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I use a credit card for almost all purchases. It's simple and nice to get something back for the purchases I was going to make anyways.
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So yea credit will get you in serious trouble. Trust me I use to charge everything. Kinda caught up with me. Of course I enjoyed all the goodies I was getting. Then boom all of a sudden yea the bills came rolling in lol..
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I use cash when I make physical purchases at stores, and debit cards for online purchases. People think they are doing good with credit cards because of the cash back, but sooner or later they will forget or be unable to pay a bill on time, and then they'll end up paying more than what they get back, as well as start getting into debt which will be very hard to get out of. I have two debit cards that give me cash back for purchases, so I can remain debt free and get bonuses!
No, forgetting or unable to pay a bill doesn't happen to everybody, it hasn't happened to me in over 30 years. I check my credit card on line and pay on line directly from my bank account 2 or 3 times a month. I don't just pay the amount necessary to prevent interest charges, I pay the full amount, so I'm always ahead of the game.
I use the Discover card, and I use it for every possible purchase. Right now they have a special deal where you get 5% cash back for gasoline purchases, that gets me at least $10 a month cash back for fuel purchases for 3 months. In September I'll have to pay city taxes for my own rental property and one of my brother's rental properties that I manage. That city accepts the Discover card and the total taxes will be over $2000. Even at 1% cash back, that will add another $20 to my September reward. If I go on vacation, I charge everything, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, gasoline and all other purchases. I use that card for everything, appliances, electronics, furniture, groceries, I even tried to use it to help pay for cars, but they wouldn't accept a credit card for a car purchase. There have been months (not very many) when I made over $100 on cash back bonuses. Of course it makes it easier if you have a comfortable limit on your card, Discover allows me a limit of $12,700, my Visa allows me a limit of $12,000, but I only use my Visa when there are purchases that don't accept Discover.
You're one of the rare ones for sure. You obviously have a comfortable income, if you're not actually wealthy, so it's probably easier for you to stay on top of things. But for a lot of people, who live in less affluent circumstances, having a credit card is the beginning of a downward spiral. Actually if you listen to Dave Ramsey's show, he can tell a ton of stories about people getting into crushing debt even with large incomes.
You're making a few presumptous assumptions, it's not a matter of wealth, it's a matter of life-style choices.
No, I'm not wealthy, absolutely not, if I were wealthy, I wouldn't be on this site for a few extra bucks. As I said in another posting, I retired at age 57, live off of my military retirement pay (US Army), rental income from my second property and my wife has a part time job, even though I made it clear to her that she didn't need to work. My income is maybe average, probably even modest, however, I don't have any rental payments, mortgage payments, own two cars without any car payments, and have no other debts. I don't know who Dave Ramsey is because I don't use any TV service provider, I get my news on the internet, TV here in the US drove me crazy anyway because there's 18 minutes of TV and 12 minutes of commercials. I don't have a phone, I use Magic Jack, I don't need a cell phone. We, myself and my wife, only use our clothes dryer in emergencies, we hang up our clothes to dry. We usually don't use our dishwasher, we wash by hand. We only use our air conditioner when it gets really uncomfortable, this year I could hear our neighbor's air conditioners on for over a month before we started using ours. My electical bill is 1/4 to 1/2 of what my neighbors pay and my water bill is about half, and, yes, we shower every day. Guess what kind of financial attitude allowed me to pay off 2 mortages and pay cash for 2 cars that put me in this financial position in the first place? I really never found it that hard to do, even with a modest income.
You might not have any idea of how little money you need on a monthly basis when you have no home, car or debt payments. I suppose my wife and I are unusual, I know we're unusual for the US. She's European and I've lived over there for many, many years. People over there are just more frugal than people in the US, although I find the life-style much more comfortable in Europe than it is here in the US. As far as I'm concerned you people just waste money over here, you make the wrong financial choices and then you cry about your debts. However, in spite of a modest income, we're able to save at least $1000 a month, some months we can set aside over $2000.
For someone who never heard of Dave Ramsey, you follow his principles pretty well! (He has a radio show, by the way, not a TV show. Also, he doesn't like credit cards.)
Congratulations on being debt free, yes it is unusual for the US. It is also unusual to be able to buy a house and cars without getting into debt, at least on the income of many working families. I suppose in Europe people have to be more frugal, because the government takes most of their money for taxes. But in the US people have a much more spendthrift attitude as a whole.
By the way, I don't have any debts either, and I don't have TV, or air conditioning. But I could never save $1000, and certainly not $2000 a month, because I don't even earn $2000 a month, especially not after taxes, and that's working full time! So compared to my income, and that of many people in this area, you are doing really well financially. I do try to save what I can. I was brought up very frugally, in a large family, and still live that way. But it does take a certain income to be able to live debt free with enough spare cash to save a lot of money, as well as buy what you want when you want. So even if you aren't rich, you are doing very well (albeit by hard work and frugality), and don't look down on other people.
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I don't think that credit cards are bad. I think the abuse of credit cards are! Credit cards make some people forget that they are dealing with limits financially. They make you feel like you can have anything you want and you can't unless you are someone like Oprah or Bill Gates. I say just have one. One is enough of a headache and watch those sneaky spendthrift mates who open credit on your name without telling you. Be careful because credit is two-faced it can be your best friend or you worst enemy. :angel12:
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To southernhorizons:
I would never look down on a person like you, I don't know enough about you and I truly hope your financial circumstances become much better in the future. I was talking about some of my neighbors where I live. I mean the ones who leave all their outside lights on all night and, when we compare electrical bills, find that theirs is 3 times as high as mine. No idea about what they do inside their homes but, considering their bills, it must be just as wasteful. Some who have 2 cars and a pick-up truck, none of which are paid for, a cell phone for husband, wife and 2 of the kids. Credit card debt with enormous interest payments, and then they cry about the fact that they don't make enough money to live from month to month, even though the husband and wife both work.
As for me, yes, I had to work pretty hard in the Army, and we put in some pretty long hours, but, like I said, I don't work anymore. I'll give myself credit for that and for the fact that I've been very financially responsible my whole life. As far as my present circumstances, I'm just a fortunate beneficiary of fortuitous circumstances. My brother, in Germany, wanted to open a second business and he asked me to come over and manage his first business, a bowling center, and he paid me a generous salary. I rented out the townhouse where I lived and I didn't need the rent money or my military retirement pay over in Germany. Rent is cheaper over there and I was able to shop at a nearby US commissary and PX where prices were about 60% of what they are on the German economy, so I ended up with hundreds of dollars left over every month, in spite of the fact that I traveled all over Europe and was living pretty well over there. Additionally, the business paid for my car, car repairs and my cell phone. That all left me with a good amount of monthly cash that I didn't need for anything else so I was able to pay off the remainder of my first mortgage in just a little over 2 years. Now I had that rent, retirement pay and extra from my job, so I was able to accumulate over $50,000 in about 2 years. With that, I flew back to the US and used most of it as a down payment on a second townhouse, which I immediately rented out. Of course, now I had 2 rents, retirement pay and extra money from my job in Germany, it wasn't any great challenge to pay off that second mortgage in less that 5 years. Now, for my remaining (almost) 3 years in Germany, that income just accumulated. I don't need to tell you how much money can pile up if you have several thousand dollars every month that you don't need to use. Knowing that I was coming back to the US, I didn't buy a 3rd property, but it wasn't any problem to pay cash for 2 cars, put in about $30,000 for maintenance and improvements on my properties, buy some furniture, a desk top computer, 2 laptops and all electrical appliances and still have a comfortable amount of money left over. (I had to leave all my electrical appliances in Germany, they're useless here, they have 220V over there and it's 110V here.)
So you see, there's no wizardry here, these are all things that fall into the category of those things that "any dam fool can accomplish." I just got lucky with these circumstances, and I truly wish the same luck for you.
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I use cash when I make physical purchases at stores, and debit cards for online purchases. People think they are doing good with credit cards because of the cash back, but sooner or later they will forget or be unable to pay a bill on time, and then they'll end up paying more than what they get back, as well as start getting into debt which will be very hard to get out of. I have two debit cards that give me cash back for purchases, so I can remain debt free and get bonuses!
No, forgetting or unable to pay a bill doesn't happen to everybody, it hasn't happened to me in over 30 years. I check my credit card on line and pay on line directly from my bank account 2 or 3 times a month. I don't just pay the amount necessary to prevent interest charges, I pay the full amount, so I'm always ahead of the game.
I use the Discover card, and I use it for every possible purchase. Right now they have a special deal where you get 5% cash back for gasoline purchases, that gets me at least $10 a month cash back for fuel purchases for 3 months. In September I'll have to pay city taxes for my own rental property and one of my brother's rental properties that I manage. That city accepts the Discover card and the total taxes will be over $2000. Even at 1% cash back, that will add another $20 to my September reward. If I go on vacation, I charge everything, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, gasoline and all other purchases. I use that card for everything, appliances, electronics, furniture, groceries, I even tried to use it to help pay for cars, but they wouldn't accept a credit card for a car purchase. There have been months (not very many) when I made over $100 on cash back bonuses. Of course it makes it easier if you have a comfortable limit on your card, Discover allows me a limit of $12,700, my Visa allows me a limit of $12,000, but I only use my Visa when there are purchases that don't accept Discover.
You're one of the rare ones for sure. You obviously have a comfortable income, if you're not actually wealthy, so it's probably easier for you to stay on top of things. But for a lot of people, who live in less affluent circumstances, having a credit card is the beginning of a downward spiral. Actually if you listen to Dave Ramsey's show, he can tell a ton of stories about people getting into crushing debt even with large incomes.
You're making a few presumptous assumptions, it's not a matter of wealth, it's a matter of life-style choices.
No, I'm not wealthy, absolutely not, if I were wealthy, I wouldn't be on this site for a few extra bucks. As I said in another posting, I retired at age 57, live off of my military retirement pay (US Army), rental income from my second property and my wife has a part time job, even though I made it clear to her that she didn't need to work. My income is maybe average, probably even modest, however, I don't have any rental payments, mortgage payments, own two cars without any car payments, and have no other debts. I don't know who Dave Ramsey is because I don't use any TV service provider, I get my news on the internet, TV here in the US drove me crazy anyway because there's 18 minutes of TV and 12 minutes of commercials. I don't have a phone, I use Magic Jack, I don't need a cell phone. We, myself and my wife, only use our clothes dryer in emergencies, we hang up our clothes to dry. We usually don't use our dishwasher, we wash by hand. We only use our air conditioner when it gets really uncomfortable, this year I could hear our neighbor's air conditioners on for over a month before we started using ours. My electical bill is 1/4 to 1/2 of what my neighbors pay and my water bill is about half, and, yes, we shower every day. Guess what kind of financial attitude allowed me to pay off 2 mortages and pay cash for 2 cars that put me in this financial position in the first place? I really never found it that hard to do, even with a modest income.
You might not have any idea of how little money you need on a monthly basis when you have no home, car or debt payments. I suppose my wife and I are unusual, I know we're unusual for the US. She's European and I've lived over there for many, many years. People over there are just more frugal than people in the US, although I find the life-style much more comfortable in Europe than it is here in the US. As far as I'm concerned you people just waste money over here, you make the wrong financial choices and then you cry about your debts. However, in spite of a modest income, we're able to save at least $1000 a month, some months we can set aside over $2000.
For someone who never heard of Dave Ramsey, you follow his principles pretty well! (He has a radio show, by the way, not a TV show. Also, he doesn't like credit cards.)
Congratulations on being debt free, yes it is unusual for the US. It is also unusual to be able to buy a house and cars without getting into debt, at least on the income of many working families. I suppose in Europe people have to be more frugal, because the government takes most of their money for taxes. But in the US people have a much more spendthrift attitude as a whole.
By the way, I don't have any debts either, and I don't have TV, or air conditioning. But I could never save $1000, and certainly not $2000 a month, because I don't even earn $2000 a month, especially not after taxes, and that's working full time! So compared to my income, and that of many people in this area, you are doing really well financially. I do try to save what I can. I was brought up very frugally, in a large family, and still live that way. But it does take a certain income to be able to live debt free with enough spare cash to save a lot of money, as well as buy what you want when you want. So even if you aren't rich, you are doing very well (albeit by hard work and frugality), and don't look down on other people.
Taxes are higher all across Europe. I only have direct knowledge of taxes in Germany. Sales tax is 19% for every purchase. Gasoline and diesel includes a number of taxes. Many years ago the Green Party managed to get support of an ecological tax on gas and diesel in order to try to discourage people from driving so much. That tax is then applied to social security funds. That's kind of strange because taxes in one area are usually related, so fuel taxes would normally be applied to highway maintenance. Anyway, after several other taxes on fuel, they apply the 19% sales tax, so you're effectively paying sales tax on other taxes that you've already paid. As a result of all these taxes, gasoline costs about twice as much as it does here in the US.
There are economic and mathematical facts that govern the reality of taxation. Obviously, governments need to tax in order to maintain infrastructure, government services and to pay off all the crooked politicians. However, taxation is a very fine and complex science, if you tax too much, you'll drive too many people into cheating on taxes. If a government raises taxes by 5%, they might find that they collect 3% more revenue, raise tax by 5% more and there might be only 1% more revenue collected, now raise tax by 5% more and suddenly there's 3% less revenue collected. There's a mathematical curve that governs this phenomenon, and it's modified by the natural resource situation, social, cultural and political factors, etc. etc., but, basically, a government will suddenly end up collecting less tax revenue because so many people have been driven to cheat on taxes. This is the situation in Germany where cheating on taxes is extremely common.
In my job in Germany my pay, car, cell phone bill, meals and travel would have amounted to about $6500 per month in pay and benefits. We reported a monthly pay of about $1000 to the Finanzamt (tax authority). That's an absolutely ridiculous salary for a general manager of a business, and I'm sure the Finanzamt knew that very well. But my brother has been managing businesses in Germany for well over 30 years and he knew very well that the Finanzamt doesn't spend time and resources going after families and relatives, the success rate for prosecution is almost nonexistent. My brother paid the majority of my salary "under the table." Still, on that $1000 of reported salary, I paid 34% in taxes, so out of my gross pay of $1000 I was making $660. If we had reported my actual salary, the tax on that would have been well over 50%.
I had to learn this the first week I was there. We had people come around the business for maintenance and repair work, they would ask if the work would be paid with or without a receipt. With a receipt meant that you paid the 19% tax, without receipt meant no tax and the workers and business both profited from the 19%. It's a completely normal way of doing business in Germany, at least 75% of the work done in my brother's business was done without a receipt, you just pay directly with cash. We did that with car repairs, work in our homes and apartments, actually everything possible. I had a Russian guy install a dish and receiver in my apartment and got a few hundred channels of British, German and Russian (for my wife) TV and never had to pay any bills. It might sound kind of criminal, and, of course, it was, but that's just the normal way of living in Germany, it's even more extreme in many other countries in Europe.
What was that saying? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
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Cash
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I use to carry cash on me all the time till i got my debit card. Ive notice that i spend less with my card then with cash because I'm constantly limiting myself on the amount i spend then when i actually had cash on hand. Having dollar bills made me think it was ok to spend it just cause it was a small amount. But i remember when i had my hundred bills I wouldnt even touch it cause i wouldnt want to break it. Using a Credit card is good but you allways have to limit yourself. Just dont spend money that you dont have or you think cant afford later on.
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i use cash to pay for everything i have a prepaid credit card so i never go over the limit my ex put me in deep when we got divorsed thats why i won't have any regular credit cards plus i remember growing up mom and dad always told us if you can pay ofr it you don't get it
i also believe in cash instead of credit. Because credit can totally RUIN a persons life for a long time if they get trapped in the spider web that is credit cards
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Debit Card. Trying to pay off all my credit cards so i can CUT them up. I am tired of the banks making more money off of me then they need too.
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To southernhorizons:
I would never look down on a person like you, I don't know enough about you and I truly hope your financial circumstances become much better in the future. I was talking about some of my neighbors where I live. I mean the ones who leave all their outside lights on all night and, when we compare electrical bills, find that theirs is 3 times as high as mine. No idea about what they do inside their homes but, considering their bills, it must be just as wasteful. Some who have 2 cars and a pick-up truck, none of which are paid for, a cell phone for husband, wife and 2 of the kids. Credit card debt with enormous interest payments, and then they cry about the fact that they don't make enough money to live from month to month, even though the husband and wife both work.
As for me, yes, I had to work pretty hard in the Army, and we put in some pretty long hours, but, like I said, I don't work anymore. I'll give myself credit for that and for the fact that I've been very financially responsible my whole life. As far as my present circumstances, I'm just a fortunate beneficiary of fortuitous circumstances. My brother, in Germany, wanted to open a second business and he asked me to come over and manage his first business, a bowling center, and he paid me a generous salary. I rented out the townhouse where I lived and I didn't need the rent money or my military retirement pay over in Germany. Rent is cheaper over there and I was able to shop at a nearby US commissary and PX where prices were about 60% of what they are on the German economy, so I ended up with hundreds of dollars left over every month, in spite of the fact that I traveled all over Europe and was living pretty well over there. Additionally, the business paid for my car, car repairs and my cell phone. That all left me with a good amount of monthly cash that I didn't need for anything else so I was able to pay off the remainder of my first mortgage in just a little over 2 years. Now I had that rent, retirement pay and extra from my job, so I was able to accumulate over $50,000 in about 2 years. With that, I flew back to the US and used most of it as a down payment on a second townhouse, which I immediately rented out. Of course, now I had 2 rents, retirement pay and extra money from my job in Germany, it wasn't any great challenge to pay off that second mortgage in less that 5 years. Now, for my remaining (almost) 3 years in Germany, that income just accumulated. I don't need to tell you how much money can pile up if you have several thousand dollars every month that you don't need to use. Knowing that I was coming back to the US, I didn't buy a 3rd property, but it wasn't any problem to pay cash for 2 cars, put in about $30,000 for maintenance and improvements on my properties, buy some furniture, a desk top computer, 2 laptops and all electrical appliances and still have a comfortable amount of money left over. (I had to leave all my electrical appliances in Germany, they're useless here, they have 220V over there and it's 110V here.)
So you see, there's no wizardry here, these are all things that fall into the category of those things that "any dam fool can accomplish." I just got lucky with these circumstances, and I truly wish the same luck for you.
Thank you very much for the very nice wishes. I'm sorry if my posts seemed harsh. I'm glad you had good circumstances and sense enough to use your resourses wisely. My attack on using credit cards wasn't meant to be absolute, I know there are exceptions to every rule. But many people, especially if they are living paycheck to paycheck, would be better off not using them. Even if they budget well, and keep up with the payments, one unexpected medical bill or other financial emergency can very easily start the downward spiral to unmanageable debt.
By the way, I don't think my assumptions were too presumptuous. Judging from the way I was brought up, and even my current situation, you are well-to-do, even though you aren't "rich." Everybody I guess has different ideas of wealth. You admitted yourself that your situation was unusual in the US. I certainly don't begrudge your situation, in fact I'm happy that you were able to do that well. But for the majority of people probably on this forum, trying to copy your credit card spending would only get them into trouble, so I was just trying to point out that you were the exception, not the rule. A lot of times it is people's own fault, but a lot of times it isn't. I know I'll never be able to retire early, or maybe not at all with the social security mess, but I do hope to be able to buy a house and pay it off early. I try to save as much as I can; right now I'm living in my parent's house; I pay rent, and some groceries, as well as insurance, and utilities, but at least I don't have a full grocery bill, and some other expenses. So I can't complain, I'm really not that bad off. I just don't have the income to save as much as I like. One thing that put me behind was being laid off for almost three years; I used up all my savings and started borrowing money, so when i finally got a job, I had to pay off all that, plus get another vehicle since mine was on its last leg. So finally I'm able to start saving again. At least I avoided credit card debt, though. My vehicle is decent, but it's got 130,000 miles on it, so I know I'll have to start putting money into it. I always say you don't have any money when you have a vehicle, even though of course a vehicle is necessary to get to work! I just wish they weren't so expensive to maintain!
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Taxes are higher all across Europe. I only have direct knowledge of taxes in Germany. Sales tax is 19% for every purchase. Gasoline and diesel includes a number of taxes. Many years ago the Green Party managed to get support of an ecological tax on gas and diesel in order to try to discourage people from driving so much. That tax is then applied to social security funds. That's kind of strange because taxes in one area are usually related, so fuel taxes would normally be applied to highway maintenance. Anyway, after several other taxes on fuel, they apply the 19% sales tax, so you're effectively paying sales tax on other taxes that you've already paid. As a result of all these taxes, gasoline costs about twice as much as it does here in the US.
There are economic and mathematical facts that govern the reality of taxation. Obviously, governments need to tax in order to maintain infrastructure, government services and to pay off all the crooked politicians. However, taxation is a very fine and complex science, if you tax too much, you'll drive too many people into cheating on taxes. If a government raises taxes by 5%, they might find that they collect 3% more revenue, raise tax by 5% more and there might be only 1% more revenue collected, now raise tax by 5% more and suddenly there's 3% less revenue collected. There's a mathematical curve that governs this phenomenon, and it's modified by the natural resource situation, social, cultural and political factors, etc. etc., but, basically, a government will suddenly end up collecting less tax revenue because so many people have been driven to cheat on taxes. This is the situation in Germany where cheating on taxes is extremely common.
In my job in Germany my pay, car, cell phone bill, meals and travel would have amounted to about $6500 per month in pay and benefits. We reported a monthly pay of about $1000 to the Finanzamt (tax authority). That's an absolutely ridiculous salary for a general manager of a business, and I'm sure the Finanzamt knew that very well. But my brother has been managing businesses in Germany for well over 30 years and he knew very well that the Finanzamt doesn't spend time and resources going after families and relatives, the success rate for prosecution is almost nonexistent. My brother paid the majority of my salary "under the table." Still, on that $1000 of reported salary, I paid 34% in taxes, so out of my gross pay of $1000 I was making $660. If we had reported my actual salary, the tax on that would have been well over 50%.
I had to learn this the first week I was there. We had people come around the business for maintenance and repair work, they would ask if the work would be paid with or without a receipt. With a receipt meant that you paid the 19% tax, without receipt meant no tax and the workers and business both profited from the 19%. It's a completely normal way of doing business in Germany, at least 75% of the work done in my brother's business was done without a receipt, you just pay directly with cash. We did that with car repairs, work in our homes and apartments, actually everything possible. I had a Russian guy install a dish and receiver in my apartment and got a few hundred channels of British, German and Russian (for my wife) TV and never had to pay any bills. It might sound kind of criminal, and, of course, it was, but that's just the normal way of living in Germany, it's even more extreme in many other countries in Europe.
What was that saying? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
I don't think it is criminal. The high taxes are what's criminal! 50% of your income if you reported everything would be plain theft! And I heard that in Denmark, it's 95%!!!! Why would anyone bother working?
At least the Finanzamt isn't as aggressive as the IRS! I doubt many people'd get away with that very long over here. (Although I'm sure some do. But it seems like it's harder to eveade taxes in this country, unless you're a rich politician!)
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I use credit card for everything and pay it off every month, that way I get points to cash in to use for christmas money.
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I pay with cash whenever possible. I find that if I pay cash for things, I usually spend a little bit less. For larger purchases, I have occasionally been able to get a discount for paying with cash as well. I do have a credit card that I use so that I can keep my fico score high in case I need to borrow money for a home.
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Well I always use cash whenever I buy something coz if u have a credit card than ur going to get da urge to spend more than wat u have.
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To southernhorizons:
I would never look down on a person like you, I don't know enough about you and I truly hope your financial circumstances become much better in the future. I was talking about some of my neighbors where I live. I mean the ones who leave all their outside lights on all night and, when we compare electrical bills, find that theirs is 3 times as high as mine. No idea about what they do inside their homes but, considering their bills, it must be just as wasteful. Some who have 2 cars and a pick-up truck, none of which are paid for, a cell phone for husband, wife and 2 of the kids. Credit card debt with enormous interest payments, and then they cry about the fact that they don't make enough money to live from month to month, even though the husband and wife both work.
As for me, yes, I had to work pretty hard in the Army, and we put in some pretty long hours, but, like I said, I don't work anymore. I'll give myself credit for that and for the fact that I've been very financially responsible my whole life. As far as my present circumstances, I'm just a fortunate beneficiary of fortuitous circumstances. My brother, in Germany, wanted to open a second business and he asked me to come over and manage his first business, a bowling center, and he paid me a generous salary. I rented out the townhouse where I lived and I didn't need the rent money or my military retirement pay over in Germany. Rent is cheaper over there and I was able to shop at a nearby US commissary and PX where prices were about 60% of what they are on the German economy, so I ended up with hundreds of dollars left over every month, in spite of the fact that I traveled all over Europe and was living pretty well over there. Additionally, the business paid for my car, car repairs and my cell phone. That all left me with a good amount of monthly cash that I didn't need for anything else so I was able to pay off the remainder of my first mortgage in just a little over 2 years. Now I had that rent, retirement pay and extra from my job, so I was able to accumulate over $50,000 in about 2 years. With that, I flew back to the US and used most of it as a down payment on a second townhouse, which I immediately rented out. Of course, now I had 2 rents, retirement pay and extra money from my job in Germany, it wasn't any great challenge to pay off that second mortgage in less that 5 years. Now, for my remaining (almost) 3 years in Germany, that income just accumulated. I don't need to tell you how much money can pile up if you have several thousand dollars every month that you don't need to use. Knowing that I was coming back to the US, I didn't buy a 3rd property, but it wasn't any problem to pay cash for 2 cars, put in about $30,000 for maintenance and improvements on my properties, buy some furniture, a desk top computer, 2 laptops and all electrical appliances and still have a comfortable amount of money left over. (I had to leave all my electrical appliances in Germany, they're useless here, they have 220V over there and it's 110V here.)
So you see, there's no wizardry here, these are all things that fall into the category of those things that "any dam fool can accomplish." I just got lucky with these circumstances, and I truly wish the same luck for you.
Thank you very much for the very nice wishes. I'm sorry if my posts seemed harsh. I'm glad you had good circumstances and sense enough to use your resourses wisely. My attack on using credit cards wasn't meant to be absolute, I know there are exceptions to every rule. But many people, especially if they are living paycheck to paycheck, would be better off not using them. Even if they budget well, and keep up with the payments, one unexpected medical bill or other financial emergency can very easily start the downward spiral to unmanageable debt.
By the way, I don't think my assumptions were too presumptuous. Judging from the way I was brought up, and even my current situation, you are well-to-do, even though you aren't "rich." Everybody I guess has different ideas of wealth. You admitted yourself that your situation was unusual in the US. I certainly don't begrudge your situation, in fact I'm happy that you were able to do that well. But for the majority of people probably on this forum, trying to copy your credit card spending would only get them into trouble, so I was just trying to point out that you were the exception, not the rule. A lot of times it is people's own fault, but a lot of times it isn't. I know I'll never be able to retire early, or maybe not at all with the social security mess, but I do hope to be able to buy a house and pay it off early. I try to save as much as I can; right now I'm living in my parent's house; I pay rent, and some groceries, as well as insurance, and utilities, but at least I don't have a full grocery bill, and some other expenses. So I can't complain, I'm really not that bad off. I just don't have the income to save as much as I like. One thing that put me behind was being laid off for almost three years; I used up all my savings and started borrowing money, so when i finally got a job, I had to pay off all that, plus get another vehicle since mine was on its last leg. So finally I'm able to start saving again. At least I avoided credit card debt, though. My vehicle is decent, but it's got 130,000 miles on it, so I know I'll have to start putting money into it. I always say you don't have any money when you have a vehicle, even though of course a vehicle is necessary to get to work! I just wish they weren't so expensive to maintain!
I didn't detect any harshness from you, I wasn't offended by your comments. "Well-to-do" is a relative term. I would describe my situation, with all due modesty, as "comfortable."
I'll tell you how I play the credit card game, I'm convinced you're smart enough to understand. In February of this year my brother came over from Germany, He owns 3 properties in this area and one of them was unoccupied and needed maintenance. I charged all supplies, a carpeting company and a clothes dryer on my Discover card and he paid me cash for those charges. That month I had total charges of $3951. They were also running some kind of 5% cashback bonus then, I don't remember what, so I got just under $50 cashback credit. In March my brother, my wife and I all flew to Seattle from Baltimore, my brother and I used to live in Seattle. I charged airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, restaurant meals and everything else possible on my card. When we got back, my brother had additional purchases, clothing, toys for his kid, a little more maintenance costs on his property, all on my card which he paid me for in cash. I had $6027 in charges that month, but with the 5% bonus, I got over $70 cashback from Discover. Additionally, the credit union I've been banking with for many years allows me 2 balance transfers per year and pays me 1% for those balances. Of course, they hope that I'll convert debts to their institution and start paying them interest, I've never paid any interest on any credit card. So I transferred that "debt" of $6027 to my credit union and then paid off my bill a few days later by transferring that sum from my money market account. That particular month I made over $130 cashback bonus from 2 credit/banking institutions.
This month I had to pay city taxes and water usage fees for one of my properties and one of my brother's properties, a total of $2199.80, that transaction alone will give me just under $22.00 cash back. (That city accepts the Discover card with no fees or charges, very unusual.) I'll get some of that money back from one of my brother's rent checks, made out in my name because I manage his properties. Additionally, Discover is running a 5% bonus for gasoline until the end of September, I'll fill the tank on both cars before the month ends, that will bring my total up to about $32.00 and I'm sure I'll have at least another $1000 in routine charges, so that will bring the total cashback to about $42.00. With the large tax charge and a total credit card bill of over $3500.00 for the month of September, it's a good time to use that second per annum balance transfer benefit from my credit union and get another $35.00 from the 1% cashback that they give me, that will get me almost $80.00 cashback from both institutions. Next month (Oct, Nov, Dec) Discover is offering a 5% bonus for any department store and internet purchases, guess who you know who isn't making any of those kind of purchases until 1 October. They have a limit of $1500 for a total cashback of $75 for those 3 months, but I can pretty well guarantee you that I'll find a way to get the full $75 benefit.
I estimate that I get at least $600, probably over $700 a year cashback from my credit cards. All you have to do is make sure you never have any interest charges. I understand this doesn't work for everyone, but it works very well for me.
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i use cash to pay for everything i have a prepaid credit card so i never go over the limit my ex put me in deep when we got divorsed thats why i won't have any regular credit cards plus i remember growing up mom and dad always told us if you can pay ofr it you don't get it
I don't do credit cards, the interest is too high and they don't always tell you the real deal about everything in their policy. I got a credit card one time in my young life and i am still dealing right now at 48 years old from the back lash. If i knew what i know now about how dangerous credit or credit cards was i would have spent my whole life paying cash for everything. I can't even get a house financed for me and my family because of past credit and being late on payments, and i have been down in out a lot financially in my life from the lifestyle i lived, so it caused me to default on a lot of things and now i wish in my older days, i would have made wiser choices about my finances and now it is all hunting me now. :'( :-[
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Taxes are higher all across Europe. I only have direct knowledge of taxes in Germany. Sales tax is 19% for every purchase. Gasoline and diesel includes a number of taxes. Many years ago the Green Party managed to get support of an ecological tax on gas and diesel in order to try to discourage people from driving so much. That tax is then applied to social security funds. That's kind of strange because taxes in one area are usually related, so fuel taxes would normally be applied to highway maintenance. Anyway, after several other taxes on fuel, they apply the 19% sales tax, so you're effectively paying sales tax on other taxes that you've already paid. As a result of all these taxes, gasoline costs about twice as much as it does here in the US.
There are economic and mathematical facts that govern the reality of taxation. Obviously, governments need to tax in order to maintain infrastructure, government services and to pay off all the crooked politicians. However, taxation is a very fine and complex science, if you tax too much, you'll drive too many people into cheating on taxes. If a government raises taxes by 5%, they might find that they collect 3% more revenue, raise tax by 5% more and there might be only 1% more revenue collected, now raise tax by 5% more and suddenly there's 3% less revenue collected. There's a mathematical curve that governs this phenomenon, and it's modified by the natural resource situation, social, cultural and political factors, etc. etc., but, basically, a government will suddenly end up collecting less tax revenue because so many people have been driven to cheat on taxes. This is the situation in Germany where cheating on taxes is extremely common.
In my job in Germany my pay, car, cell phone bill, meals and travel would have amounted to about $6500 per month in pay and benefits. We reported a monthly pay of about $1000 to the Finanzamt (tax authority). That's an absolutely ridiculous salary for a general manager of a business, and I'm sure the Finanzamt knew that very well. But my brother has been managing businesses in Germany for well over 30 years and he knew very well that the Finanzamt doesn't spend time and resources going after families and relatives, the success rate for prosecution is almost nonexistent. My brother paid the majority of my salary "under the table." Still, on that $1000 of reported salary, I paid 34% in taxes, so out of my gross pay of $1000 I was making $660. If we had reported my actual salary, the tax on that would have been well over 50%.
I had to learn this the first week I was there. We had people come around the business for maintenance and repair work, they would ask if the work would be paid with or without a receipt. With a receipt meant that you paid the 19% tax, without receipt meant no tax and the workers and business both profited from the 19%. It's a completely normal way of doing business in Germany, at least 75% of the work done in my brother's business was done without a receipt, you just pay directly with cash. We did that with car repairs, work in our homes and apartments, actually everything possible. I had a Russian guy install a dish and receiver in my apartment and got a few hundred channels of British, German and Russian (for my wife) TV and never had to pay any bills. It might sound kind of criminal, and, of course, it was, but that's just the normal way of living in Germany, it's even more extreme in many other countries in Europe.
What was that saying? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
I don't think it is criminal. The high taxes are what's criminal! 50% of your income if you reported everything would be plain theft! And I heard that in Denmark, it's 95%!!!! Why would anyone bother working?
At least the Finanzamt isn't as aggressive as the IRS! I doubt many people'd get away with that very long over here. (Although I'm sure some do. But it seems like it's harder to eveade taxes in this country, unless you're a rich politician!)
The Finanzamt is actually very agressive, just as agressive as the IRS. They have so many other targets that they don't waste time and resources going after families, the chance of proving anything is just too low.
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I have no credit cards and use a debit card for everything. If I don't have the cash, then I don't need it.
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I always pay with my credit card. I pay my credit card off on time and have never had to pay interest. I just like using the credit card because I get direct deposit from my job so I don't have to run to the bank or ATM for cash. Plus you get a few weeks to pay for the items. And also earn bonuses with your credit card company. What is not to love? As long as you are responsible with your money and spending I would suggest credit card.
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I never carry cash. I use one credit card to pay for everything and then at the end of every month, I pay the complete balance on the card. That way I can start over each month with a clean slate.. it works for me ;)
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I'd say I'm probably 40% cash, 40% debit card, 20% credit card. Sometimes it's nice to have cash instead of a card when your total is small. I usually carry less than $100 cash and when it's gone I hit up the ATM or just use my debit card. My credit cards are my "oh crap I'm out of gas and don't get paid until the day after tomorrow" back up.
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I always just use cash.
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Taxes are higher all across Europe. I only have direct knowledge of taxes in Germany. Sales tax is 19% for every purchase. Gasoline and diesel includes a number of taxes. Many years ago the Green Party managed to get support of an ecological tax on gas and diesel in order to try to discourage people from driving so much. That tax is then applied to social security funds. That's kind of strange because taxes in one area are usually related, so fuel taxes would normally be applied to highway maintenance. Anyway, after several other taxes on fuel, they apply the 19% sales tax, so you're effectively paying sales tax on other taxes that you've already paid. As a result of all these taxes, gasoline costs about twice as much as it does here in the US.
There are economic and mathematical facts that govern the reality of taxation. Obviously, governments need to tax in order to maintain infrastructure, government services and to pay off all the crooked politicians. However, taxation is a very fine and complex science, if you tax too much, you'll drive too many people into cheating on taxes. If a government raises taxes by 5%, they might find that they collect 3% more revenue, raise tax by 5% more and there might be only 1% more revenue collected, now raise tax by 5% more and suddenly there's 3% less revenue collected. There's a mathematical curve that governs this phenomenon, and it's modified by the natural resource situation, social, cultural and political factors, etc. etc., but, basically, a government will suddenly end up collecting less tax revenue because so many people have been driven to cheat on taxes. This is the situation in Germany where cheating on taxes is extremely common.
In my job in Germany my pay, car, cell phone bill, meals and travel would have amounted to about $6500 per month in pay and benefits. We reported a monthly pay of about $1000 to the Finanzamt (tax authority). That's an absolutely ridiculous salary for a general manager of a business, and I'm sure the Finanzamt knew that very well. But my brother has been managing businesses in Germany for well over 30 years and he knew very well that the Finanzamt doesn't spend time and resources going after families and relatives, the success rate for prosecution is almost nonexistent. My brother paid the majority of my salary "under the table." Still, on that $1000 of reported salary, I paid 34% in taxes, so out of my gross pay of $1000 I was making $660. If we had reported my actual salary, the tax on that would have been well over 50%.
I had to learn this the first week I was there. We had people come around the business for maintenance and repair work, they would ask if the work would be paid with or without a receipt. With a receipt meant that you paid the 19% tax, without receipt meant no tax and the workers and business both profited from the 19%. It's a completely normal way of doing business in Germany, at least 75% of the work done in my brother's business was done without a receipt, you just pay directly with cash. We did that with car repairs, work in our homes and apartments, actually everything possible. I had a Russian guy install a dish and receiver in my apartment and got a few hundred channels of British, German and Russian (for my wife) TV and never had to pay any bills. It might sound kind of criminal, and, of course, it was, but that's just the normal way of living in Germany, it's even more extreme in many other countries in Europe.
What was that saying? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
I don't think it is criminal. The high taxes are what's criminal! 50% of your income if you reported everything would be plain theft! And I heard that in Denmark, it's 95%!!!! Why would anyone bother working?
At least the Finanzamt isn't as aggressive as the IRS! I doubt many people'd get away with that very long over here. (Although I'm sure some do. But it seems like it's harder to eveade taxes in this country, unless you're a rich politician!)
The Finanzamt is actually very agressive, just as aggressive as the IRS. They have so many other targets that they don't waste time and resources going after families, the chance of proving anything is just too low.
Well, I guess it's good they can't prove anything then! I wonder if it would be the same with the IRS. But I don't want to test the system and find out!
By the way, thank you for the explanation about how you use credit cards. It must take a lot of figuring! But worth it in the long run. As long as you don't use credit cards as a blank check for stuff you don't actually have the money for, they can be profitable. But for a lot of people they become a temptation to overspend. And that would lead to disaster.
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Cash, my fault but those credit cards messed me up. When everyone was getting them from anyone really easy I guess I started overspending, then start relying on another card to cover this card and everything got out of hand. I think the cards now are more under control. I dont think i'll ever get out of debt now. ???
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I pay by cash. I only pay with my debit card when i make a big purchase.
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I usually use my debit card, never use cash and very seldom, my credit card. :BangHead: :BangHead: :BangHead:
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Taxes are higher all across Europe. I only have direct knowledge of taxes in Germany. Sales tax is 19% for every purchase. Gasoline and diesel includes a number of taxes. Many years ago the Green Party managed to get support of an ecological tax on gas and diesel in order to try to discourage people from driving so much. That tax is then applied to social security funds. That's kind of strange because taxes in one area are usually related, so fuel taxes would normally be applied to highway maintenance. Anyway, after several other taxes on fuel, they apply the 19% sales tax, so you're effectively paying sales tax on other taxes that you've already paid. As a result of all these taxes, gasoline costs about twice as much as it does here in the US.
There are economic and mathematical facts that govern the reality of taxation. Obviously, governments need to tax in order to maintain infrastructure, government services and to pay off all the crooked politicians. However, taxation is a very fine and complex science, if you tax too much, you'll drive too many people into cheating on taxes. If a government raises taxes by 5%, they might find that they collect 3% more revenue, raise tax by 5% more and there might be only 1% more revenue collected, now raise tax by 5% more and suddenly there's 3% less revenue collected. There's a mathematical curve that governs this phenomenon, and it's modified by the natural resource situation, social, cultural and political factors, etc. etc., but, basically, a government will suddenly end up collecting less tax revenue because so many people have been driven to cheat on taxes. This is the situation in Germany where cheating on taxes is extremely common.
In my job in Germany my pay, car, cell phone bill, meals and travel would have amounted to about $6500 per month in pay and benefits. We reported a monthly pay of about $1000 to the Finanzamt (tax authority). That's an absolutely ridiculous salary for a general manager of a business, and I'm sure the Finanzamt knew that very well. But my brother has been managing businesses in Germany for well over 30 years and he knew very well that the Finanzamt doesn't spend time and resources going after families and relatives, the success rate for prosecution is almost nonexistent. My brother paid the majority of my salary "under the table." Still, on that $1000 of reported salary, I paid 34% in taxes, so out of my gross pay of $1000 I was making $660. If we had reported my actual salary, the tax on that would have been well over 50%.
I had to learn this the first week I was there. We had people come around the business for maintenance and repair work, they would ask if the work would be paid with or without a receipt. With a receipt meant that you paid the 19% tax, without receipt meant no tax and the workers and business both profited from the 19%. It's a completely normal way of doing business in Germany, at least 75% of the work done in my brother's business was done without a receipt, you just pay directly with cash. We did that with car repairs, work in our homes and apartments, actually everything possible. I had a Russian guy install a dish and receiver in my apartment and got a few hundred channels of British, German and Russian (for my wife) TV and never had to pay any bills. It might sound kind of criminal, and, of course, it was, but that's just the normal way of living in Germany, it's even more extreme in many other countries in Europe.
What was that saying? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
I don't think it is criminal. The high taxes are what's criminal! 50% of your income if you reported everything would be plain theft! And I heard that in Denmark, it's 95%!!!! Why would anyone bother working?
At least the Finanzamt isn't as aggressive as the IRS! I doubt many people'd get away with that very long over here. (Although I'm sure some do. But it seems like it's harder to eveade taxes in this country, unless you're a rich politician!)
The Finanzamt is actually very agressive, just as aggressive as the IRS. They have so many other targets that they don't waste time and resources going after families, the chance of proving anything is just too low.
Well, I guess it's good they can't prove anything then! I wonder if it would be the same with the IRS. But I don't want to test the system and find out!
By the way, thank you for the explanation about how you use credit cards. It must take a lot of figuring! But worth it in the long run. As long as you don't use credit cards as a blank check for stuff you don't actually have the money for, they can be profitable. But for a lot of people they become a temptation to overspend. And that would lead to disaster.
No, I actually don't have to calculate anything at all. I monitor my charges on the net. There's always a comfortable cash balance on my checking and money market accounts, I simply transfer payments to the credit card in a timely enough manner so they can never charge me any interest payments. No calculations necessary if you have enough reserve cash to be able to do that.
Incidentally, my cashback bonus from Discover for the month of August was $48.59.
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Taxes are higher all across Europe. I only have direct knowledge of taxes in Germany. Sales tax is 19% for every purchase. Gasoline and diesel includes a number of taxes. Many years ago the Green Party managed to get support of an ecological tax on gas and diesel in order to try to discourage people from driving so much. That tax is then applied to social security funds. That's kind of strange because taxes in one area are usually related, so fuel taxes would normally be applied to highway maintenance. Anyway, after several other taxes on fuel, they apply the 19% sales tax, so you're effectively paying sales tax on other taxes that you've already paid. As a result of all these taxes, gasoline costs about twice as much as it does here in the US.
There are economic and mathematical facts that govern the reality of taxation. Obviously, governments need to tax in order to maintain infrastructure, government services and to pay off all the crooked politicians. However, taxation is a very fine and complex science, if you tax too much, you'll drive too many people into cheating on taxes. If a government raises taxes by 5%, they might find that they collect 3% more revenue, raise tax by 5% more and there might be only 1% more revenue collected, now raise tax by 5% more and suddenly there's 3% less revenue collected. There's a mathematical curve that governs this phenomenon, and it's modified by the natural resource situation, social, cultural and political factors, etc. etc., but, basically, a government will suddenly end up collecting less tax revenue because so many people have been driven to cheat on taxes. This is the situation in Germany where cheating on taxes is extremely common.
In my job in Germany my pay, car, cell phone bill, meals and travel would have amounted to about $6500 per month in pay and benefits. We reported a monthly pay of about $1000 to the Finanzamt (tax authority). That's an absolutely ridiculous salary for a general manager of a business, and I'm sure the Finanzamt knew that very well. But my brother has been managing businesses in Germany for well over 30 years and he knew very well that the Finanzamt doesn't spend time and resources going after families and relatives, the success rate for prosecution is almost nonexistent. My brother paid the majority of my salary "under the table." Still, on that $1000 of reported salary, I paid 34% in taxes, so out of my gross pay of $1000 I was making $660. If we had reported my actual salary, the tax on that would have been well over 50%.
I had to learn this the first week I was there. We had people come around the business for maintenance and repair work, they would ask if the work would be paid with or without a receipt. With a receipt meant that you paid the 19% tax, without receipt meant no tax and the workers and business both profited from the 19%. It's a completely normal way of doing business in Germany, at least 75% of the work done in my brother's business was done without a receipt, you just pay directly with cash. We did that with car repairs, work in our homes and apartments, actually everything possible. I had a Russian guy install a dish and receiver in my apartment and got a few hundred channels of British, German and Russian (for my wife) TV and never had to pay any bills. It might sound kind of criminal, and, of course, it was, but that's just the normal way of living in Germany, it's even more extreme in many other countries in Europe.
What was that saying? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
I don't think it is criminal. The high taxes are what's criminal! 50% of your income if you reported everything would be plain theft! And I heard that in Denmark, it's 95%!!!! Why would anyone bother working?
At least the Finanzamt isn't as aggressive as the IRS! I doubt many people'd get away with that very long over here. (Although I'm sure some do. But it seems like it's harder to eveade taxes in this country, unless you're a rich politician!)
The Finanzamt is actually very agressive, just as aggressive as the IRS. They have so many other targets that they don't waste time and resources going after families, the chance of proving anything is just too low.
Well, I guess it's good they can't prove anything then! I wonder if it would be the same with the IRS. But I don't want to test the system and find out!
By the way, thank you for the explanation about how you use credit cards. It must take a lot of figuring! But worth it in the long run. As long as you don't use credit cards as a blank check for stuff you don't actually have the money for, they can be profitable. But for a lot of people they become a temptation to overspend. And that would lead to disaster.
Another story, not the IRS, but having to do with Maryland state taxes. When I returned to Maryland over two years ago I didn't have all my documentation in order, lots of things still unsorted in boxes. I had to pay federal estimated taxes, the deadline was approaching. Of course, without itemized deductions, that amounted to a tax of over $4500, so I sent a check for that amount to the IRS. Once I had all my documentation collected, I had an accountant prepare my tax return, and it appeared that I would have no taxes for that most recent year and get that full $4500 returned to me from the federal government. No such luck, the state of Maryland intercepted the full amount and claimed that I owed them much more, a total of over $16,000. The reason for all this was that my tax consultant, (an incompetent idiot) while I was living in Germany, used the Maryland address of one of my rental properties for 3 years of my tax returns. I went to the Maryland tax authorities, showed them the rental contracts of the one property that was given as my address for those three years, showed them proof of my residency in Germany during that time period, stamps in my passport from trips to various places in Europe during those years. No luck with any of that, like a movie star, which I'm not, I could have had one residence in Maryland, another in Germany, and then travelled back and forth several times a month between the US and Europe. Furthermore, they made it clear to me, that if I had a dispute about those 3 years of unpaid back taxes, which I never legally owed, that they could look into the other 9 years when I "claimed" not to be living in Maryland and my back taxes could be well over $100,000. I asked them how this could be resolved and they offered to calculate my tax returns for me, I really had no choice but to let them do this. Their calculations came up with taxes that I owed that state of a little more than $1500. Of course, adding late fees, penalties and interest payments, that added another $1500. After fighting this losing battle for almost a year, out of the $4500 that I sent to the IRS, I got a check back from the state of Maryland for less than $1500.
God bless America, anybody want to ask me why I'm moving back to Europe? You're not really "free" in this country anymore, you just keep telling yourselves that you are.
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I usually always use my debit card because I feel more comfortable using the card than carrying around cash. I've known someone that had been mugged and robbed loosing an entire paycheck once - real scary stuff.
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I have a credit card, but I never max it out and pay it off on time every month. I haven't found it difficult to stay within my budget as I know how much money I can spend and am deeply afraid of going into debt.
My mother uses a debit card most of the time and occasionally uses cash. I think it 's for convenience more than anything. I also use cash as well.
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I use my debit card all the time. I got rid of the credit cards and I don't want them back. I learned my lesson with them.
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Credit...dealing with cash is so annoying! Plus you can earn cash by using credit if you're wise about it. :)
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I finally got a credit card paid off a few months ago. I am Debt FREE. It fills so good. I do not use it anymore. I work and draw SS so I have enough money to get by with both of them . I hope everyone has a good weekend and may God bless each of you and keep you safe.
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i dont like carrying to much cash around so i usually use credit/debit,,unless its a small purchase :bunny:
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I never use cash if I can avoid it. I use credit cards at all times (pay them off in full every month) to get the cash back rewards. I figure that if I don't get in trouble with them and control my spending, and I pay them off in full so there's no interest charges, it's like free money when I get cash back on stuff.
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I too have given off credit cards and just use my debit card- i rarely have more than $10 in my purse
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I think those are good words to live by. If you can't pay for it now then don't buy it. I have been struggling too over the past 10 years trying to get my life back together and I finally went back to school and will get a better job and start over. I need to budget myself better and save for things I really want or need
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cash all the way never had a credit card
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Cash or debit card that way i am not left owing.
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To southernhorizons:
I would never look down on a person like you, I don't know enough about you and I truly hope your financial circumstances become much better in the future. I was talking about some of my neighbors where I live. I mean the ones who leave all their outside lights on all night and, when we compare electrical bills, find that theirs is 3 times as high as mine. No idea about what they do inside their homes but, considering their bills, it must be just as wasteful. Some who have 2 cars and a pick-up truck, none of which are paid for, a cell phone for husband, wife and 2 of the kids. Credit card debt with enormous interest payments, and then they cry about the fact that they don't make enough money to live from month to month, even though the husband and wife both work.
As for me, yes, I had to work pretty hard in the Army, and we put in some pretty long hours, but, like I said, I don't work anymore. I'll give myself credit for that and for the fact that I've been very financially responsible my whole life. As far as my present circumstances, I'm just a fortunate beneficiary of fortuitous circumstances. My brother, in Germany, wanted to open a second business and he asked me to come over and manage his first business, a bowling center, and he paid me a generous salary. I rented out the townhouse where I lived and I didn't need the rent money or my military retirement pay over in Germany. Rent is cheaper over there and I was able to shop at a nearby US commissary and PX where prices were about 60% of what they are on the German economy, so I ended up with hundreds of dollars left over every month, in spite of the fact that I traveled all over Europe and was living pretty well over there. Additionally, the business paid for my car, car repairs and my cell phone. That all left me with a good amount of monthly cash that I didn't need for anything else so I was able to pay off the remainder of my first mortgage in just a little over 2 years. Now I had that rent, retirement pay and extra from my job, so I was able to accumulate over $50,000 in about 2 years. With that, I flew back to the US and used most of it as a down payment on a second townhouse, which I immediately rented out. Of course, now I had 2 rents, retirement pay and extra money from my job in Germany, it wasn't any great challenge to pay off that second mortgage in less that 5 years. Now, for my remaining (almost) 3 years in Germany, that income just accumulated. I don't need to tell you how much money can pile up if you have several thousand dollars every month that you don't need to use. Knowing that I was coming back to the US, I didn't buy a 3rd property, but it wasn't any problem to pay cash for 2 cars, put in about $30,000 for maintenance and improvements on my properties, buy some furniture, a desk top computer, 2 laptops and all electrical appliances and still have a comfortable amount of money left over. (I had to leave all my electrical appliances in Germany, they're useless here, they have 220V over there and it's 110V here.)
So you see, there's no wizardry here, these are all things that fall into the category of those things that "any dam fool can accomplish." I just got lucky with these circumstances, and I truly wish the same luck for you.
Thank you very much for the very nice wishes. I'm sorry if my posts seemed harsh. I'm glad you had good circumstances and sense enough to use your resourses wisely. My attack on using credit cards wasn't meant to be absolute, I know there are exceptions to every rule. But many people, especially if they are living paycheck to paycheck, would be better off not using them. Even if they budget well, and keep up with the payments, one unexpected medical bill or other financial emergency can very easily start the downward spiral to unmanageable debt.
By the way, I don't think my assumptions were too presumptuous. Judging from the way I was brought up, and even my current situation, you are well-to-do, even though you aren't "rich." Everybody I guess has different ideas of wealth. You admitted yourself that your situation was unusual in the US. I certainly don't begrudge your situation, in fact I'm happy that you were able to do that well. But for the majority of people probably on this forum, trying to copy your credit card spending would only get them into trouble, so I was just trying to point out that you were the exception, not the rule. A lot of times it is people's own fault, but a lot of times it isn't. I know I'll never be able to retire early, or maybe not at all with the social security mess, but I do hope to be able to buy a house and pay it off early. I try to save as much as I can; right now I'm living in my parent's house; I pay rent, and some groceries, as well as insurance, and utilities, but at least I don't have a full grocery bill, and some other expenses. So I can't complain, I'm really not that bad off. I just don't have the income to save as much as I like. One thing that put me behind was being laid off for almost three years; I used up all my savings and started borrowing money, so when i finally got a job, I had to pay off all that, plus get another vehicle since mine was on its last leg. So finally I'm able to start saving again. At least I avoided credit card debt, though. My vehicle is decent, but it's got 130,000 miles on it, so I know I'll have to start putting money into it. I always say you don't have any money when you have a vehicle, even though of course a vehicle is necessary to get to work! I just wish they weren't so expensive to maintain!
I didn't detect any harshness from you, I wasn't offended by your comments. "Well-to-do" is a relative term. I would describe my situation, with all due modesty, as "comfortable."
I'll tell you how I play the credit card game, I'm convinced you're smart enough to understand. In February of this year my brother came over from Germany, He owns 3 properties in this area and one of them was unoccupied and needed maintenance. I charged all supplies, a carpeting company and a clothes dryer on my Discover card and he paid me cash for those charges. That month I had total charges of $3951. They were also running some kind of 5% cashback bonus then, I don't remember what, so I got just under $50 cashback credit. In March my brother, my wife and I all flew to Seattle from Baltimore, my brother and I used to live in Seattle. I charged airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, restaurant meals and everything else possible on my card. When we got back, my brother had additional purchases, clothing, toys for his kid, a little more maintenance costs on his property, all on my card which he paid me for in cash. I had $6027 in charges that month, but with the 5% bonus, I got over $70 cashback from Discover. Additionally, the credit union I've been banking with for many years allows me 2 balance transfers per year and pays me 1% for those balances. Of course, they hope that I'll convert debts to their institution and start paying them interest, I've never paid any interest on any credit card. So I transferred that "debt" of $6027 to my credit union and then paid off my bill a few days later by transferring that sum from my money market account. That particular month I made over $130 cashback bonus from 2 credit/banking institutions.
This month I had to pay city taxes and water usage fees for one of my properties and one of my brother's properties, a total of $2199.80, that transaction alone will give me just under $22.00 cash back. (That city accepts the Discover card with no fees or charges, very unusual.) I'll get some of that money back from one of my brother's rent checks, made out in my name because I manage his properties. Additionally, Discover is running a 5% bonus for gasoline until the end of September, I'll fill the tank on both cars before the month ends, that will bring my total up to about $32.00 and I'm sure I'll have at least another $1000 in routine charges, so that will bring the total cashback to about $42.00. With the large tax charge and a total credit card bill of over $3500.00 for the month of September, it's a good time to use that second per annum balance transfer benefit from my credit union and get another $35.00 from the 1% cashback that they give me, that will get me almost $80.00 cashback from both institutions. Next month (Oct, Nov, Dec) Discover is offering a 5% bonus for any department store and internet purchases, guess who you know who isn't making any of those kind of purchases until 1 October. They have a limit of $1500 for a total cashback of $75 for those 3 months, but I can pretty well guarantee you that I'll find a way to get the full $75 benefit.
I estimate that I get at least $600, probably over $700 a year cashback from my credit cards. All you have to do is make sure you never have any interest charges. I understand this doesn't work for everyone, but it works very well for me.
Some of you may be able to use this information.
I haven't done this nearly effectively enough, there's much more money to be made, I should have done this much more effectively years ago.
I was always doing balance transfers during the months that I had the highest credit card bills, now, checking on this with my credit union, I found out they send a paper check as a balance transfer. I always "assumed" they did an internet transfer and I know I can't transfer funds for any amount higher than the balance owed, Discover Card doesn't allow you to transfer a higher amount than you owe, I don't know why that is. Since they send a check, there's no restriction on any amount they send. Because I have a $10,000 limit on my Visa card with that credit union, I told them to forward a check for $10,000 to my Discover card. My credit union gave me an immediate credit of 1%, $100 for that balance transfer, a very easy $100 made for a visit to my credit union and a phone call. Two days later I transferred the remaining $9,900 that I owed from my money market account to my Visa account in my credit union to eliminate that debt. I don't know, but I'll find out, what Discover will do with the extra thousands of dollars my credit union sent. Some years ago they sent me back a check. It doesn't really matter to me, if they don't send me a check, I'll just keep charging and not have any monthly bill until the extra amount is used up.
The next thing I did was to contact my credit union and request an increase in the credit allowed on my Visa account. The maximum amount they allow is $30,000, so I requested the full amount. I'm hoping for the full $30,000, whatever the amount, I'll do two more balance transfers next year and collect the 1%. It's very easy money if you have enough cash to pay off any balances before you have any interest payments.
If my credit union grants me the $30,000 in credit, with two balance transfers per year, that will give me an extra $600 income per year. Not a lot of money, but very easy money for doing almost nothing. If they give me a lower limit, I'll transfer the maximum amount to Discover twice a year, whatever that amount may be. If I keep paying off the transferred amount two days later, which I can easily do, they'll eventually give me the maximum limit of $30,000.
The next thing I'm doing is researching other credit cards and balance transfers to see if this is possible for moving money around and making the 1% with a number of other credit cards.
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I usually use my credit card that pays cash back as much as I can.
However, I never buy anything on my credit card that I can't back up with the money.
When I get home from shopping I put the money into an envelope for my purchases &
it goes right in the bank.
I have used my cash back in the past to buy myself things that I wanted like my laptop
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this sound like a good stgategy for you. A lot of people with credit problems should do like you so they dont remain in debt forever
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thats the way to do it. i also cash out with paypal
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I prefer using credit cards but I use cash as well but only when the stores only take cash!!
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CASH!! credit cards are very dangerous. i'm 17, and that's what my teacher told me
Yes having credit cards can be dangerous but you do need to have some type of credit history. Credit cards can be great for emergencies and even better when they have rewards but when you carry a big balance on them it can be very stressful. If you are just starting out with credit it is a good ideal to use it for gas or a meal or two and pay the WHOLE balance off every month.
(http://www.fusioncash.net/sig.php/8d401a9fff64.png) (http://www.fusioncash.net/?ref=lena3018)
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Both. Whatever seems necessary.
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We have a credit card but only use it for emergencies. For things that cant wait when you dont have the money.
I have a debit card I use through paypal because thats how i get paid for the things I sell.
But 95% of the time we use cash that way we dont overspend.
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I usually use cash.. Credit cards are too easy to use and I tend to buy things I dont need if I use them.
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Cash the more cas you use the better your credit
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best advice cash only and if you cant aford it you dont need it people are way to greedy these days and think dept is ok
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I use my credit card for pretty much everything, but I do pay if off every month so I don't pay any interest or fees. I figure if they are willing to let me use their money each month then why not, but NEVER EVER will I carry a balance and have to pay interest!
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I use my credit card for pretty much everything, but I do pay if off every month so I don't pay any interest or fees. I figure if they are willing to let me use their money each month then why not, but NEVER EVER will I carry a balance and have to pay interest!
That is exactly my point, just pay off the balance every month, no problem, it doesn't take a great deal of financial restraint. Now, do you get some kind of cash-back bonus? If not, get a card that gives you that.
My relatively young son has a credit limit of only $300. He makes charges and gets a 1% cash-back bonus. He goes home and transfers money from his savings acount and then charges some more and and pays off the charges again. You can do all that on line. It's not a great deal of money, but I make well over $50 a month with cash-back bonuses every month.
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I carry some cash and credit cards with me. I mostly use credit cards cuz I get points or cash back on them...then pay them off every month. I only use cash when absolutely necessary.
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everything is paid for with cash or debit card. we cancelled our credit cards years ago and are much happier without having to come up with payments
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Over the past 5 years I have paid cash for everything...learned the hard way about credit cards and outside my means earlier in life when I made less money than I do now...if you can avoid using a credit card, I recommend you do not use them and pay cash or use debit cards