Late Credit Card Payments are the lowest they’ve been in seventeen years. This is despite an increase in the use of credit cards. People are cutting back on the number of cards they carry and accumulating less debt in general.
Credit cards are great…if you pay them off. It is often too easy to lose track of how many money you have because you can spend much more with a credit card. As long as you pay off the bill by the due date, a credit card is essentially a short-term loan. The downsides only come when you can’t pay.
There are also benefits that come with credit card purchase that users may or may not take advantage of. Fraud protection is the most often appreciated benefit of credit cards. The credit card company is assuming the fraud risk.
But people forget that credit cards also offer extended warranty services. Of course, the risk of these is that you need to retain your receipts and your manufacturers warranty, or your claim may be denied. They offer options like car rental loss, purchase protection, travel accident/trip cancellation insurance, emergency assistance, and more.
While limited yourself to one credit card is a potentially frugal move, having two allows you to have something to handle your business should an account unexpectedly be frozen, for whatever reason.
In this modern computerized world, paying off your credit card on time is easy. The credit card company will let you automate the payments. you can tell it to pay the full amount on or around the due date. You’ll never worry about missing a payment again. And instead of going through and reviewing the bill, then setting up a payment…you can assume the payment should be made, and your review is to only override what you would, in a normal month, ultimately do…pay your bill.
Related articles
- More consumers paying credit card bills on time (usatoday.com)
- Does your credit score go down when you apply for a loan or credit card (wiki.answers.com)
