Confessions of a Plastic Card User

What do you know? I am keeping my promise! I am staying out of credit card purchases... Woohoo! :)

But let me tell you a story behind this...

I was a heavy credit card user. Since I got my first credit card back when I was still working at Sykes as an agent (hmmm.. I think this was in 2004) I've been using it non-stop. I was disciplined before. Though I charge almost all of my expenses to my card, I religiously pay the entire balance due whenever I would get my statement every month. I never gave the bank an opportunity to profit on my use, they never collected finance charge on my account. I was just happily enjoying the freebies that come with the accumulation of my points. And just today, I claimed my best and biggest reward yet - the round trip ticket to HK. But we'll get into that later on. :)

Now, here's the sad part :(

Last year, I messed up big time with my budget. Huhuhu! And one thing I learned when you miss a full payment to your card, you never seem to catch up! Being the impulsive buyer that I am and the traveler geek I turned out to be, I never had the chance to recover. I am not proud of this but let me tell you the story anyway so you'll learn something. :)

So bills piled up... Even if I put in half of my salary each month to the payment of my dues, I always seem to have more to pay the following month. Yes, I know, my travel-attack spells did not help either. Until finally, I had to force myself to wake from this addicting habit of charging all my expenses to that little rectangular plastic card. As you probably know, I literally shredded my Citibank card last christmas (after charging a hefty amount to it for my dream dSLR camera).

It's been a little more than a month since I'm running around the metro without my plastic card on my hands when I go shopping. Yes, I still go shopping and I still buy things and I still go to the salon but the thing is I am surviving with the little cash left in my wallet for these expenses. I am like an alcoholic trying to be sober. I might as well join or start up my own "credit card anonymous" club.

No, I haven't paid up my cards yet! Truly, I wish I have but I am working on it. I've worked out a little plan to finally pay all those off and hopefully live debt-free by next year.

Last Sunday, I bought my first cash purchase for something that damaged me a freaking 5,000 pesos. Hehehe.. Yup, got myself the cheapest and trendiest cellphone I could find. (Don't ask me why) It's the pink Samsung M620. Yes, the only deciding factor why I got that particular model is because of the metallic pink color. Weeee! Pu-re-tteee!! Well anyway, guess what... when it was time for me to hand the five 1000 peso bills to the saleslady, I swear my hands were shaking a little. I was like a drug addict letting go of a free pack of heroin! It was funny because I realized I need to learn on how to pay things in cash. Imagine that... How pathetic can one get?!

But I am getting the hang of it, actually. So it's been a month... by God's grace, I know I could do it. I could go all cash this year and finally payoff my card dues.

So you, my friend, if you are thinking of getting a card - my advise to you: Forget about it! The thing is, you might think you are pretty disciplined and you probably are... But four years down the road, that could all change...

Or if you are a heavy card user as I was... hmmm... sit back and look at the bigger picture. Don't you think it's time to put a stop to the madness?

So there you go. My two cents on credit card addiction :P