I have to admit I fell for it and fell for it hard. The marketing on how debt should be used and should be used often.
I struggled to pay bills in college so I opened a few credit cards, I needed to. I was going to college full time and was set to graduate about one year later. My degree in Mechanical Engineering was waiting for me at the other end. I could already picture the future. I would graduate and a well paying job would be waiting for me at the other end I just didn't know where.
I was new to credit so the limits were low but I needed money for college. So I opened more. I had other traditional student loans but they had been used only school expenses. I then, pulled out cash advances on each and paid them back. That created activity. Once activity was established I asked for increases and was granted those. In the end I built about $14K in credit card debt that got me through my last year of college.
In the end, I graduated and was able to pay back the debt in less than a year since I was used to keeping my expenses low. That was the only time that I was debt as being necessary. I took my chances and it worked out well.
These events happened back in the 90's. The world has changed a lot since then. Now there are full marketing campaigns selling the idea that you should always seek to raise your credit rating. There are constant news articles trying to convince you to keep balances open on your various credit cards in order to stay in the good graces of credit companies. Are they serious?
I stopped using the credit cards I had for about 9 months after I graduated since I didn't need them anymore. Guess what happened. The cut the limits to a few hundred dollars each. Unbelievable !!! When I made no money and had no job they gave me a credit max of over 50K. When I made over 50K per year in my first job they reduced the my limits to under $1K on all cards combined.
Now I strictly use cash. It was painful in the beginning but I got used to it. I live well and I know exactly where I am financially since I have no debt to pay off. I see friends buying new cars and houses on credit over and over again. Who is everyone trying to impress. I would be impressed by the person who doesn't need to work not the one with the most stuff. I have a lot of interesting stories on the process too if it seems that there is interest in this article.
By the way, this is not a teaser article for a product or simple method to get out of the rat race. I hope it will be more of a record of my struggles.
Keep Steeming!!!
Cheers,
Alex
image source:
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