Living with Credit Card
It’s been more than 1/2 year since my first day living in Canada. I cannot believe that I have been using credit card very extensively in the last 7 months; more than I have ever used it in my previous life. Interesting, huh? Living in North America makes me addicted of using credit card, which is not good habit (from my opinion). Why? We pay or buy something, but we don’t actually pay them at that time. We pay them when we received the bill (usually next month). Even after we have received the bills, we are not required to pay 100% of the bills.
Unlike people from other countries, American and Canadian like to use credit card very much. I have received many junk mails offering credit cards with so many ‘benefits’. I have got an offer of credit card from some stores too. They said that I will get some points when I use their credit card to shop in their stores. Fortunately… I am not tempted to apply for new credit cards. Unlike some people who are proud of having so many different credit cards in their wallets; I feel comfortable having only one credit card.
When I lived in Indonesia, Germany and Singapore, I used credit card mostly for Internet transaction. I usually used debit card more often than credit card. Why don’t I use debit card in Canada too? Good question…. I don’t why Canadian banks have very “stupid” policy. They limit the number of our transactions per month, for example my bank gives me the limit of 10 transactions per month. Once I exceed the number of transactions, the bank will charge me some transaction fee. There are some banks that offer unlimited transactions but they charge very high monthly fees. I would say this is stupid policy because I have never paid monthly fee for my banks, except in Canada. Usually they give me interest, rather than charging so many fees. That’s why I have to use credit card here if I don’t want to pay “stupid” fees from my bank.
Since I don’t like using credit card, I have to find a way so that I don’t feel “guilty” when buying something. I have found a trick that works for me. Here is the trick: I always put some amount of money in my credit card account. Instead of I owe the bank, now the bank owes me. Basically I am actually using it as debit card. Unfortunately I don’t get interest for doing that…. 
I have one suggestion for all of you who have credit cards: DO NOT use credit card (if possible). It is really not a good habit….
April 8th, 2006 at 10:21 am
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September 17th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
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