Normally a frugal person would avoid a credit card at all cost. However, this is not always the case, especially at Christmas time. I will admit, we used a credit card for several of our purchases.
There is hope for you in your frugal world though. If you are saving money each month by cutting costs for food, clothing, bills and other sources, then you should have a little bit left over to make a larger monthly payment on the credit card bill.
Your goal? To get that card paid off as quick as you can and avoid any unnecessary finance charges. If you got a check for Christmas, you might consider cashing it and paying off a portion of your bill. The longer you have that payment, the more you are paying out for the items you purchased. This basically goes against everything we are taught about being frugal.
It is fantastic when you find sale items and so you purchase a bunch of things on the credit card for these amazing sale prices. However, it really isn’t a good thing because in the long run you will wind up paying more than full retail for the great sale bargain you found. Finance charges are what get people everytime.
A couple of small things you can do ahead of time if you are going to use a credit card, is use a credit card that you don’t have to make a payment on for several months. This gives you a few months to pay it off and avoid any finance charges. Another thing you can do is to transfer your payments with a lower interest rate. Be careful when you do this and make sure there are absolutely no hidden costs, no extra charges or fees and that the company is truly a lower interest company.
The best advice I can give is to avoid credit cards at all cost. I am not even going to pretend we don’t use them, because we do. Just use them wisely when you do.
Nicole Humphrey writes articles for the Scrapbooking Blog and for the Frugal Blog. She also guest blogs on a variety of topics. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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