When I was 17 I got my first credit card. There are fewer plastic things I have been that excited about in my entire life. E-bay and I became good friends. I ordered a super nintendo, camera, all kinds of shit. Then I turned to online shopping in general… Think Geek, NHL store, American Eagle online… etc. Then it turned into an “everyday” card, and to make matters worse somewhere in that time I got two more of them.
I would buy a pop with it, pay for my taxi rides with it, just throw 20 dollars here and there onto it, buy rounds at the bar… and for some reason I thought my random $200 payments here and there were keeping the balance on it relatively low.
Well…Last night, I checked my balance for the first time in a long time…
I cut up my cards. Every single one of them.
Today was the first day in three years that I’ve gone without a credit card. It was actually kind of scary. What if the bus didn’t come? What if I got hungry? What if some really cute guy asked me out for dinner, but then didn’t offer to pay? What if a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to Greece for a month for only $100 popped up? So many what if’s, and not a single ounce of credit to ease my worried soul.
Thus it was today that I realized that I need to grow up. Stop spending all that money. Stop going out on Friday nights with no money but spending $90 on booze anyway. Stop buying mounds upon mounds of clothing. (Seriously… the amount of clothing and shoes I have is disgusting. I could cloth an entire relatively small country.) Stop offering to just throw the pizza order on my credit card and take the cash which just goes toward buying the beer later. No more new xbox 360s, or games, or computer accessories, or speakers, or CD, or DVDs, or iPods, or phones, or whatevers.
Instead. I’ve decided that I can buy only one xbox game every other month. I don’t need to spend any more on my computer. I am not allowed to buy any more shoes, for a good. long. time. No more CDs or DVDs, especially since I know how to use torrents. No more nights out with drunken cab rides home. I am taking all the extra features off my blackberry and using it as a regular phone (possibly selling it, and using the money to get a regular phone… it’s a possibility. But I love my curve..) No more crazy ideas about where I’ll be living next year… I’ll be living here. In Guelph. Working at the same place. The only difference will be I’ll be one year further in my schooling than I am now.
These are the plans. All of the saved money will be going on to my student line of credit. (I applied for just enough to pay off my credit cards… interest rate on visa - 18%… on a line of credit - 7%.)
I. Hate. Credit Cards.
Hmmmmm… I bet this lasts…. mmmm till February tops.
Do you have a debit card, or something? Or have you become a cash-only girl?
andy - we’ll see. but i’ll have to apply for a new credit card to get it back. i called and canceled all of them, so it will take effort to get them back.
alon - i get a pay cheque every two weeks that is large enough that i’d be stupid to carry it around in cash. i see no problem using my debit card because it’s money that i actually have - not money that is being borrowed and will have to be paid back. if i were paying the money on my debit card back with interest then it would get cut up too - but it is the money that i’ve actually earned. …most of it, however, will be going directly back into the loan.