September 25, 2009
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Credit Card Ground Rules, Pt.1
Common sense not so common.What it seems should be common sense, it seems isn't common sense at all. Begs explain, I know. Anyone remember this past Christmas Season? Pretty dismal, huh? Suddenly, our nation's credit card holders found themselves well over a trillion dollars in credit card debt (other countries weren't much better off either). Suddenly, the credit card infrastructure began to collapse under it's own weight. Millions of us just living on the fringe found ourselves standing on very shaky ground. Lay-offs and job cutbacks swept in like a tsunami. Just as the shopping season was scheduled to start. It's been about a year now and the season is beginning to ramp up again. Similar to 9/11, we all sobered up pretty quickly and the retail industry took most of the brunt of the aftermath.
Here we are again but a year later and the credit card shock waves at last have greatly subsided. Have we learned yet? Did we only stay sober for a while and are we going to fall into those old ways again this year? This might be a good time to review credit card lessons learned that should have common sense last but, apparently, were not.
In truth, credit cards are neither evil nor dangerous, in and of themselves. Unlike the depression of '29, millions of us were spared from living on the streets and going from door-to-door just begging for food. This was almost the rule during that last great depression. One major difference why we were spared that was the ubiquitous credit card. Our generation was largely spared even comprehending how it would have been if credit cards didn't exist.
Together, we also learned some valuable lessons about the proper care and feeding of credit cards. Lest we forget lessoned, here is a little refresher course.