1. Never pay interest for credit card, always pay in full.

I went a step beyond that and paying off my balance on a weekly basis. Online banking is such wonderful invention.

In case you’re curious, there’s only 2 rules in my financial religion. Here’s the 2nd one:

2. Never pay for parking if you can help it.

Yes, you get strange looks when you do that.

Yep. Forget votes and calling your unresponsive congressmen. If every American who was pissed off just decided NOT to spend except bare necessities, if we went on a “consumer strike”, we could put the fear of God into them.

I thought saving was supposed to be good. Ditto living within your income. But not so. Americans have to spend, spend, spend or the machine falls apart.

People used to respect the Japanese and the Chinese for saving such a large (compared to the USA) percentage of their income.

If I ran my household the way the government runs our economy, I’d be living in a cardboard box under a bridge within a month.

When my husband paid for the sewing machine in cash, the women at the sewing store were astonished. They said “Don’t you want to put it on your credit card?”

I thought they were going to call the cops!

Pay in cash and feel the pain!

So, I wanted to spruce the place up. We had a new Penny’s open locally and I found what I needed in bedding and housegoods. I’d once had a Penny’s charge but hadn’t used it in years. But I was offered a 10% discount if I renewed my charge. Sounded like a pretty good deal, so I opened it up that day.

Then, when I got home and read the contractual agreement, printed in microscopic print, I realized the on-going monthly credit charges were calculated at:

29%!

I almost passed out. Trust me, that balance was paid off toute suite. And my husband and I are not slackers; we’ve always had very good credit. But 29%???

As consumers, regardless of our financial level, we need to be very, very careful. The sharks are in the water and they love the smell of blood.

As an aside, I read today that mortgage brokers are looking forward to “reinstitute” the non-documented mortgage packages, maybe in the next 6 months.

Can we say, some people never learn??? Or maybe they have–there are suckers on every street corner.

I won’t use the cards and use only my debit card for purchases. As soon as they are paid off, I’ll keep a card with a low limit for small emergencies that will be paid off monthly.

They have to be punished and for some, put out of business. BofA, AMEX, Citi, Chase all took bailout money from the tax payer and then screwed their customers so let’s put them on our hit list. In the process too of changing my banking practices to small local bank or credit union. F Them.

And yes, we all have to get back to simplicity and cash only. Otherwise, do without until affordable.