I’m not fighting in the credit card wars

October 29th, 2009

Give me one good reason why I should carry two cards

There was great excitement at the breakfast table this morning when I turned a page of the Sunday paper and was confronted by a double page advert of ‘special offers’ from our very own supermarket. “I’ll be there first thing in the morning, waiting for them to open up,” said my wife. I was busy reading the small print at the bottom of the ad and then I read “available to holders of ‘U’ cards only”.

We have a Visa card

“We have Visa card,” I said gently. “What do you see in there that we really need?” After complaining about the fact that we should have a ‘U’ card because they always have great offers, it turned out that we don’t really need any of the goods displayed. But it made me start thinking about getting the ‘U’ card.

Another credit card

For years, ever since private companies got into the credit card market, I firmly resisted getting a second credit card. It would be third one actually. I have a Visa, Diane has a Mastercard and we live happily between these two sources of extra credit and convenience.

Sources of credit

Financial ability in these stressed times is a balancing act between the bank account, which is mostly in the red and the Visa account which is paid on the 10th of every month. I selected that date very carefully for some reason that I can no longer remember. At the time it made good sense, much to the amusement of the clerk who was signing me up. Finally there is Diane’s Mastercard which comes around the on the 15th of the month and gobbles up any money left behind by Visa.

Credit cards

An extra credit card means more decision making, more account checking at home – which we both hate – and an extra complication. I am quite sure that the answer to surviving the recession is the old tried and tested KISS system. ‘Keep it simple, stupid’. I remember how I laughed when I first heard this expression years ago as a joke in the office, but it works. Whatever great deal one credit card is offering, will be offered soon by the others. There is another expression that one hears all the time that applies equally here: ‘What goes around, comes around.’ If Visa has it today, Mastercard will have it tomorrow.

Playing the recession game

Because times are tough and income is down, a feeling of deprivation seems to invade one’s mind. You pass a shop window that you would normally never look at and you think, ‘I wish I could have that’, or, ‘it’s not fair that I can’t stop and buy that’. Advice: Keep looking straight ahead. There’s an end to this recession and it’s going to get better. You can see signs in the far distance. Stop looking in store windows! And keep the minimum number of credit cards!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Economy, Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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