Inspired by this thread, I’m curious (okay, nosy)… how many Dopers don’t have any debt on their credit cards (assuming you have credit cards, natch)?
I admit, I don’t – I’ve got six or seven credit cards, almost all of them Visas, all gold or platinum or whatever, and I only use one on a regular basis. I also pay off my balance every month, though I haven’t had too many charges because I’ve been doing most payments in cash (I found that I lose track of what I’ve bought if I use the credit too much; sticking with cash keeps me frugal).
So who else has a story of credit self-control they’d like to share?
Me! I learned my lesson when I was in my twenties. I had some fairly high credit card limits, and got into debt. I paid all of it off a few years ago, and have been debt-free since. Now I make sure the money is in my bank account before I spend it. Wait - I do have a hotel room bill from a few weeks ago, but the bill hasn’t come in yet. It will be paid in full after I get it. I don’t have a car payment, either. Just a house payment at this point.
Nothing special, we just pay the entire balance off every month. No car or school loans pending either, and we paid for 45% of our condo up front. I should also note that we charge absolutely everything we can, because of frequent flyer miles (which is why we only use one credit card, though we have a few others that have no annual fee). Gallon of milk? Cup of coffee? Charge it! Charge it all!
I hit a personal high of $56K in unsecured credit debt in October of '96. I used it mostly (but not all) to fund a business.
The last balance was paid off in February 2001. Now I’m all cash (well, Amex, too, but that’s paid off every month), the car’s paid for, no mortgage - finally.
None here. I have a personal and a business credit card which both get paid off in full every month, and a Visa check card. Not only do I not carry a balance, I usually round up my payments so that I’m already paying off any charges I make the next month. (Drives my husband crazy for some reason.) Hubby and I both saved up and paid cash for our cars, so no outstanding loan there, we do have a mortgage, but our house has doubled in value since we bought it so we’re not sweating that too much. I do believe he might still have a balance on a 0% interest card that he used to pay off the remainder of our timeshare, can’t say for sure though.
While I technically have debt right now, it’s a planned CC transfer that I have the cash to pay off but am not simply because it’s 0% interest until next year, so I’m investing the cash instead.
Other than that one card, I have a Visa and a Discover, I pay them off every month and have since I got them. I have no car loans and my school loan is maybe a few grand @ 6.25%.
No credit card debt here; always been that way, from my twenties to (now) my late forties. There have been a few times when I’ve carried a balance for 2-3 months, but that’s about it. If I could live within my means as a minimum-wage security guard after college, and as a grad student, everything else after that was comparatively easy.
Im not gonna let them have all that interest! So I pay on time. One time I asked the bank clerk
if I paid too much if I would get 19% interest on the extra & she just laughed.
Another such animal here. We put nearly everything (including the groceries!) on our Discover card and always pay it off completely when the bill arrives. 30 days free credit, no interest charges, and once a year the nice Discover folks send us a small cashback check based on our total charges for the year.
I’m another one who charges everything and pays it off in full each month. I currently am using an Alaska Airlines card for the miles. In October, it will have been 13 months since I had a Delta Sky Miles card, so I can re-apply and get the 10,000 miles for being a new customer. I haven’t paid for a flight in years, including a couple of trips to the Caribean.
Right now I can usually pay off everything each month. If I go on vacation or have a big car repair bill, I may need to wait a month to get down to zero, but usually not.
