Not to mention that it’s exceedingly rare for alcohol to bail a person out of a jam, which a credit card can definitely do.
The safest way to use a credit card is to never buy something with it that you wouldn’t otherwise buy. The only exception is something that you absolutely must have, where your inability to buy it without the credit card would be a serious problem.
If you follow those rules, the vast majority of the time you will be able to pay it off right away, and incur no interest charges. The rest of the time, the card helped you get something critical for your life, and allows you to get it right away and pay it off over time.
I use a credit card solely to buy online, because for a long time that was the only way how. Things have changed somewhat with options like Paypal, but credit cards still seem to be the most prevalent.
I have never been in debt on my card. I always have a surplus in there, which I deposit into regularly to keep it afloat. That way I know I am using it safely and for its international-orders-convenience only.
If you don’t have a credit card, you’re missing out on a lot in our civilized economy. Rick already mentioned renting cars, the same applies for renting ANYTHING - moving truck, carpet steamer, all that jazz. Not to mention, most credit cards will offer perks like travel insurance, rental car collision/loss insurance, and extended warranties. The rental car collision insurance for example costs something like $20/day at the car rental place.
Pick out a reward program that works for you. For a long time our family used a credit card that gave us 5% of all our purchases towards the down payment on a house - we must have gotten at least a few thousand bucks in a couple years from that program alone (bank eventually canceled that program because they were losing too much money). I’m not really interested in buying houses right now, so I’m on a 1% credit at the grocery store type program, and I always run through as many xactions as I can to get the points - adds up to a couple tubs of free ice cream every month. I use to get an even more juicy reward on gas purchases before I switched to a car that only takes 94 octane. There are so many of these deals and none of them cost me a dime above what I would have spent anyway.
Credit card companies will also sometimes offer a “balance transfer” at an introductory rate, often 0%. This is (almost) free money, you have to pay a transfer fee of 1% but that’s it. I’ve got around $10k on a no interest credit card balance since Aug last year and it’s good until the end of this year - I’m sure there will be more to take its place once that one expires, and if not, hey, it’s still an unsecured $10k loan for over a year at 1%. I’d get more if they would give it to me, I know people with $35k on balance.
Where you really need to watch your ass: “Minimum payment.” Some people just pay the minimum—clearly they don’t understand that this is about the highest interest rate they will ever pay. They buy buy buy (on several cards and other obligations) until the minimum payment is all they can afford. These ads that you see on TV for credit counseling etc. are for those people.
Do the math: at the minimum payment it can take decades to pay off the balance. Remember, the credit card people make money primarily by charging you interest. They’re only too happy to let you carry a large balance, so long as you can service the debt.
So never go too far beyond what you can afford to pay back in a month. But do make a few small charges now and then…maybe for gasoline. By paying it off every month, creditors will see that you take your debts seriously. And as posted previously, there are fringe benefits to buying things with a credit card, e.g. buyer protection, frequent flyer miles, etc. Hell, if you want to be triple-dogs-sure you pay it off, charge it…then go home and pay it from your checking acct (I can do this over the phone, so there’s no stamp or anything).
I did the math once, with an Excel spreadsheet - it wasn’t decades, it was forever - the balance never got to zero. I suspect the banks may know this when setting minimum payments.
My advice re. credit cards - when you do get one (and in our modern society, you pretty much have to have one), call the credit card company the first time they raise your limit on you, and ask them to leave it at something you feel comfortable with (my VISA card has a $1000 limit - I set it at that decades ago, and they haven’t raised it once since I asked them to leave it there). They will raise your limit for you endlessly if you don’t do this.
Second, once you get the card, do make a large purchase and pay it off over six months or so, to establish a payment history. Paying stuff off in full every month doesn’t give you the same history - you’ve never proven you can handle a balance. After you’ve done this to establish a payment history, go to paying your card off in full every month (or ideally, if you get no rewards with the card, just don’t use it).
You are very wise to be cautious about credit. We have a thread going on right now about a Doper who is way over his head in debt, and having a very difficult time with it. To continue the analogy of drinking, credit in North America is sort of like if an alcoholic has to have one drink every day, but not drink too much and ruin his life. You need some form of credit, but you can’t let it get out of hand.
Someday you are likely going to want to buy something on credit. Let us say a house. In order to get a decent interest rate, you will need to have a good FICO score, which requires a long credit history.
So even if you never, ever want to charge anything, you need the history anyway.
Anyway other than “You don’t need one” there is much good advice here. I suggest getting one, charging something modest you would have paid cash for anyway (that bag of groceries, maybe), paying it off in full the next month, then putting it away.