Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A to Z Challenge

A TO Z OF RESOURCE MANAGEMENTEco-Friendly"A challenge is a chance to prove yourself," they say.  I think it would be much more appropriate to put it this way, "A challenge is like fuel for your willingness and capacity to do things that you need to do or want to do in life." Today a lot of us are faced with all kinds of challenges, from being single parents to being seniors to being college students who have to plan for their future endeavors.  As much as people find resource management to be a boring subject they ask questions like "How do you do it? How come you are not in debt?" Well, I say that both my husband and myself were lucky enough not to have had educational loans. Also, we try to control what we spend. We are sometimes looked at as cheap, but we are old enough not to get hurt by name calling.

Colleges in India used to teach that someone's Credit line does not mean that they have that money. They taught us that the only money we actually have is what we had in cash or what we had in our bank accounts. When we came to America , we understood the use of Credit Cards and God only knows how many times we came on the verge of using the maximum amount and paying the minimum, especially after buying our home. The fear of being called cheap and the desire to keep our home looking nice is innocent. However credit lines have a price which sometimes is more than what we can afford and makes the joy of buying something seem unimportant. I think this fact is not learned by listening to someone, but by experience alone. So from now on it is either pay in full or don't buy for us. Some people are lucky enough to just swipe the cards and pay the bill in full. This way they get the sky miles, the cash back bonus etc, which is neat as long as they can pay back the bill when it comes. Otherwise, swiping the card is good when the money comes out of the checking account and no bills to pay.

11 comments:

Shelly said...

Your C's bring a wise post. We do the same now with our credit cards. Either pay them off every month, or don't use them at all.

Launna said...

I totally agree with you Munir... credit cards should only be for emergencies... the sad thing is we have come to think a sale is an emergency...

I don't have one now, I may get one down the line but I will only use it if I am desperate and I will pay it off immediately

Being in debt brings no joy

darlin said...

Sometimes the "C" word can't be avoided, but when it can I totally agree with you, no credit, pay cash and be done with it. I love getting the air miles so I've purchased on my credit card, but paid it off shortly after. It makes life much easier and way less stressful.

Great post regarding credit debt.

Cheers.

Rowena said...

Hi Munir, excellent post for the letter 'C'. I have to say I have used credit cards for several years (sensibly) taking advantage of 0% deals and always paying the amount of before the deal ends. They are good when travelling.

The problem is when people are too tempted to keep spending, and this has led to a credit hungry nation of buying what we can't afford.

Inger said...

What a great subject for the A to Z, Munir. Good information here.

klahanie said...

Greetings Munir,

I'm giving you a lot of credit with this posting :)

I do know that credit cards can be mighty handy if you pay off the full amount when the dreaded bill comes through the post. I'm sensible when I do, on the odd occasion, use my credit card. Always pay the bill off in full. Of course, they really want you to make minimum payments.

Thank you for this, Munir.

Gary :)

Sandee said...

You are so right about the credit cards. It's easy to get carried away and then it takes years to pay them off. We pay ours in full the first of every month. It just works for us.

Have a terrific day and thanks for stopping by Awww Mondays. ☺

Teresa Cypher said...

This is a good post, Munir. I wish that this was taught in schools--and taught by parents. All sage advice.

Spending can be a behavioral addiction. It does stimulate the pleasure center of the brain. And that's another challenge. Grateful I don't have it--I despise shopping, but for many people, it is a nightmare.

Good post. :-)

Optimistic Existentialist said...

I have paid off two of my four credit cards with the goal of having the other two paid off this year :)

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Munir .. a challenge is paying off that credit card for many ..

But a challenge worth achieving ... and your post is such a good pointer ..

Cheers Hilary

Granny Annie said...

Getting credit in college is a terrible thing for a young person to have.