Do you notice that credit card companies keep blingin’ up their cards. They all seem to be gold, or platinum or shiny black metallic now. They market them to be better than having a sleek Porsche. Using them is equal to being aristocracy. It’s like the Queen knights you every time you swipe, or so it seems.
Not only have they made the physical appearance of the card look like a shiny new car, they get us drunk on points or trips, or free things to entice us to use the card for every single purchase. New tricks like having money-tracking reports in our statements are there so we know exactly what category we spent too much money on to feed our egos.
Now I have fallen for this trick when I was just out of university. I had the shiniest, goldest, sleekest card they had. It would have been worshiped as an Inca goddess if it had existed in ancient Inca society!
I swiped it on everything from bars to trips to gas and groceries – all in the name of those most precious points. I would throw it down whenever I was at a dinner and then I would grab everyone’s cash to get the points. Then I would spend that money I had collected and still would have t0 pay back the cost of the dinner. In the long run, you spend more with the Ferrari of cards than you ever would save on trips or gain in prestige for having a sexy card.
That was a long time ago and I paid interest on my gold card at 18.9% interest only ONCE. I quickly dumped every pay cheque I had on the card until the debt was gone and I have never paid credit card interest again. I also ditched the gold card for something that would actually benefit me.
My new credit card was the crappiest look wise I could find. It’s a no fee card that gives me an “ok” cash back on fuel and my fixed expenses like gym, cell, insurance and anything I HAVE to charge like flights or parking meters. I went from a gold card with a spiffy design, to rocks on the face of the card. No more blinglicious card that encourages me to spend way more than I need to.
There are better cash back cards out there but I don’t want them. Anything that encourages me to spend more than I would with cash doesn’t make “cents” to me. I’ll save way more not using it than I would get back from using it on things that I don’t need or even want.
Ditch your fancy platinum, gold and fierce black cards and get one with a hampster, waterfall or rocks on it. It’ll give you what we all TRULY want, financial savvy.
Have an awesome week,
Dave
