Credit cards.The biggest problem?

enjoyyourshoes

The best way to manage/controll CC is to include all purchases in your current account daily reconciliation.

Pay off in full when due through a pre arranged DD

Don't use it if you do not have the funds to pay off the purchase either in your current account or allocation in your savings account

You don't need a CC to get good credit score etc, I have just received 1st CC in almost 20 years.

But to answer OP Q:-

Individuals (or family unit) exert personal financial control.

You and your partner would have exerted appropriate FC if you had obtained a CC.

However FC is poorly understood and implemented.

I think MSE could assist individuals to have a fantastic grasp on Financial control, even more than they are doing currently.

dealer_wins

Thanks to credit cards I have flown Virgin Upper class 20 times, with another 20 flights still to book

SuperHan

I'm so glad that I have the 4 Credit Cards that I do.

In the past 6 months alone, I've had around £60 of vouchers and about the same in cash back.

And I haven't paid a penny interest, nor am I a slave to them. They work very nicely for me.

And I still maintain that having a credit card at 18 helped me to get a good rate on a mortgage at 23, with a bank who seem to be known as reluctant to lend to first time buyers.

ricky_v

I love credit cards. I love how, with a small amount of discipline and thought, 2 cards are at -5% interest, and the rest give me cashback.

And I still maintain that having a credit card at 18 helped me to get a good rate on a mortgage at 23, with a bank who seem to be known as reluctant to lend to first time buyers.

Exactly. Over 3 years ago I was getting 90% LTV mortgage offers around 3.5 times my salary at 22, but there again I was never the type who "lives for the moment" or feels the need to buy crap all the time, and paid the credit card bill off in full and on time.

sinizterguy

Gastines3 wrote: »

Was the introduction of Credit Cards the end of personal financial control?The best thing my wife and I did 25 years ago was refuse the Banks offer of Credit Cards. I wonder how many of the present teenage generation will have their future controlled by their former use of these cards?

!!!!!!!!. Total !!!!!!!!.

Credit cards have been the best thing I have ever found ....

Rewards whether cashback or points make spending so much more rewarding.

I haven't lot control of my finances. And I haven't mailed my first born off to American Express either.

iAMaLONDONER

grumbler wrote: »

A CC is just one of numerous ways of lending/borrowing money.
What about overdrafts, various loans, payday loans, pown-shops etc.?

That said, I don't simpathise Islam, but pretty often I think that Shariah Law is right in trying to discourage borrowing and landing. Both are, IMO, the major factors spoiling western world, and not at the bottom only (people), but at the very top (governments).

Usury used to be illegal in England many years ago.

I hear Canada has a maximum 60% interest rate.