Key Points
- Using a credit card can offer numerous advantages over cash, if used wisely.
- Credit cards allow your money to stay in your account longer, potentially earning interest and benefiting from inflation.
- Smart spending is facilitated by using a credit card, as you can hold transactions accountable.
- Rewards and special offers are available when using credit cards, which aren't possible with cash transactions.
Who here doesn't remember the tingly sensation they felt pass through their entire body when they held their very first credit card in their hands? Beyond exhilarating wasn't it?
Of course it was!
For teenagers credit cards are the best thing that they ever felt between their fingers, this little plastic card lets them buy whatever their heart fancies without having to immediately pay for it.
What could be better than this?
Adults, however, overcomplicate everything, when they see a credit card they don't see the simplicity that the adolescents do, all they see are climbing interest rates and fees that build up month after month.
Though, thinking like an adult helps you out in most of your decisions in life, for some things thinking simply i.e. thinking like a teenager can be more beneficial for you. Using your credit card comes in the latter category, instead of calculating all future interests when you take out your credit card to make a purchase, look at the bright side.
When you use your credit card for your purchases and do so smartly, you actually get to reap a lot of benefits, just remember to go plastic for all your purchases.
Some of the benefits you get when you use your credit card for your purchases are as following.
Benefit # 1: Your Money Gets to Spend More Time in Your Possession
No surprises here, when you use your credit card instead of paying in cash, though you get in your possession the item that you used your credit card for your money doesn't actually leave your account at the exact moment of exchange.
How does this benefit you?
Well, it does so in two ways. Firstly, we are all well aware of the fact that inflation happens every day, so keeping that in mind it will be true to say that the date that you buy something using your credit card to the day that you actually pay for the item, has a significant number of days in the middle, which basically means that by postponing payment you are actually making your purchase cheaper.
And secondly, the longer time your money spends in the bank the more interest you can collect on it.
Benefit # 2: Makes Your Spending Smarter
In order for you to understand how using a credit card ensures that you make a smart purchase consider the following situation.
Consider that your kitchen sink is leaking and you call a plumber to fix it, after the plumber arrives and pokes around your kitchen sink for a while he informs you that there is something seriously wrong with not only your kitchen sink but with the rest of your house's plumbing. So, with a heavy heart you employ him to do the job for you, after weeks of hammering away at your home the plumber is finally done and presents you with a hefty bill of let's say $ 5,000 and you then write him a check, only to discover after 2-3 days that your kitchen sink is in fact still leaking.
What did you get from this purchase?
Not only are you out 5 grand, your kitchen sink isn't even fixed. Now, imagine if you had paid the plumber with your credit card, by the time the payment would have come through you would have discovered your sink still leaking and would have stopped the transaction in its tracks, which would have forced the plumber to come back immediately and fix the problem. In the case of paying cash however you would have a lot more trouble getting the plumber to come through your door again soon.
This is why using a credit card is smarter.
Benefit # 3: Gets You in on Rewards
When you pay in cash you don't get any benefits or rewards, which is exactly the case when you buy things with your credit card.
The rewards that you get depend on the credit card that you are using, as every bank has its own set of rewards. Some credit card offers include lowering interest rates for introductory offers while others offer waiving your annual fee.
No matter what credit card offers you end up going for, they are of course something that you never get if you simply pay in cash.
If you want to look at the negative side, sure credit cards can be viewed as complicated things, but if you stop over analyzing the situation you'll realize that making purchases through your credit card actually has a lot to offer you.
Which is why going plastic with your purchases is a good idea!
