I'm 46. I've never had a credit card. I have a bank account and a debit card. If I can't afford something, I don't buy it.
You can just opt out of using credit cards.
You can just opt out of using credit cards.
You can still implement “if I can’t afford something, I don’t buy it” with a cc. I pay mine off every month so it’s financially the same s a debit card but use a premium card for its purchase benefits.
I always get my money back when this happens with a credit card purchase. I've also had to dispute things occasionally, and I almost always get refunded.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
> Industry body, UK Finance, estimates that criminals successfully stole £1.28 billion through banking fraud and scams in 2025. Of this, £703 million was unauthorised and £576 million was authorised.
> Unauthorised fraud is where the fraudulent transaction is carried out by a third party, not the victim. Authorised fraud involves the victim being tricked into paying money into another account that is controlled by a criminal. This is also known as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud.
https://www.psr.org.uk/news-and-updates/latest-news/news/pay...
> Frontier found that APP fraud losses have fallen by an estimated £73 million per year and the number of APP scams have fallen by nearly 35,000 due to the policy. Reimbursement rates for all claims have risen from 54% to 65%, and for claims in-scope of the policy, firms are now reimbursing 97%.
Anyway, the credit card companies (Diner’s Club and Bank Americard, now Visa but still retaining the original color scheme and logo) lobbied Congress in the late 60s to get these protections enshrined in law so that consumers would get a benefit over using cash as a positive incentive to switch.
These are available to Visa and Mastercard debit cards too.
But yeah, the UK has section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.
actually it's better than a debit card, your purchases "float" for half a month on average you get to pay later. if you, as you should, maintain a regimen of always adding to your investment portfolio, this is a non negligible amount.
Opting out doesn't save you from those costs.
I never understood why whole nation wants to live in debt just to have one extra month of cash flow (which they’ll probably squander soon).
Rational if you want a mortgage in the US at least.
Currently you're keeping money in the bank accruing the bank interest to occasionally pay for stuff.
With a credit card you would get various bonuses/cashback/gameified returns by owing them money, and it costs you nothing as long as you pay them back once a month interest free.
If you however slip up/miss a payment it will cost you a lot.
Both cases suck, but the latter saves you money if you play that game.
That's from a EU perspective. From a US perspective you also require it from a credit score perspective, which EU thankfully hasn't adopted... yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...
After 30 years, people generally speaking own their home and that's their biggest chunk of wealth. So basically, yes a high debt to income ratio, but it's building towards wealth and its not high interest debt either.
It is not, thus, free money, at all.
It can be done. The UK and the EU capped fees at 0.3% for credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards
I instead chose to live somewhere it's capped at 0.3% and then I don't have to fuck around to get my money back after the fact. As an added bonus, I don't even know what a medical bill looks like.
If I could get a debit card that gave me 2% cash back on all transactions, I'd use that instead!
The entire credit card industry is set up to squeeze out as much profit from people as possible. They offer discounts as an incentive, but it is a huge trap that many, many people fall into. I'm not interested in risk. I'm interested in simplicity.
It's participating in the credit card industry that is foolish.
there is none. some people are just ideologically opposed to credit cards, like the parent appears to be.
their loss, really. they end up paying a portion of the cost but reap none of the benefits (rewards, additional legal protections)
Second, never use a card with an annual fee.
Third, which I already said, but bears repeating: pay off the full balance every month.
Fourth, look out for one good rewards card and funnel expenses through it, so you can get the rewards.
My parents taught me all of this 40 years ago, and it was exceptional advice, and has served me (and my family) very well.
Credit cards are not about carrying debt. They are the worst tool for that.
This is overselling it. You can come out 2% ahead or so. 4-5% if you are an extremely high spender who enjoys mentally managing 5 or 6 credit cards to max out category bonuses and other benefits and all that.
You come out marginally ahead at the expense of mental overhead. Good tradeoff for some, not for others.
I use a credit card, I dropped from 3-4 different cards trying to max out those 4-5% spending categories and just have a straight 2% cashback on everything card now. Plus one backup on a different payment network in case one goes down. It got to be exhausting trying to remember to manage so many cards plus remember to use the points, make sure to use the right card for the right thing, and all the other BS.
For some of my friends it's a hobby which is great for you if you enjoy such things! For me, it's just adding another chore to my life. Not worth the 1-2% or so marginal gain against my spending.
The super easy stuff is long gone these days too. You get far larger discounts paying via ACH for utility bills/cell phone bills/etc. vs. what credit card rewards give you so all the "autopilot" stuff is largely gone.
I do remember the days where we paid our Equinix bill via the company Amex. That was pretty fun while the party lasted!
I see many commercials for local banking up here that pulls out 30-40+ year members of the banks boasting about the prosperity the bank provided them, but at the same time, when they'd walked into the bank back in the day A Guy just said "yeah he's good for it" and wrote out the loans they needed.
You can't opt out of the modern credit scoring system and if you fuck it up even once with a bad line item you're out of the running for quite a few things and become virtually poor.
If you present a debit card to one of those desks, they may encourage you to swap for a credit card. Because a debit preauth ties up actual funds in your account. A credit preauth costs nothing but part of your credit limit. It really is a difference if you expect to spend money on vacation.
For the consumer the reason is that this is revolving credit. If you pay next month you can have stuff today. That's a small relief, unless it turns into a carried balance and then it's an ongoing burden, but you don't think about that burden at first because you're naturally optimistic.
There is value in this even if you always pay your full statement balance every month.
If you have a stable source of income knowing your credit card payment is due on the 7th of every month means you don't have to monitor your checking account's balance for every purchase. You only have to think "make sure you can cover $X by the 7th".
That’s why businesses eat the credit card fees.
The reason is rather obvious, people spend more money with credit than they would’ve with cash. Accepting 95 cents on the dollar to get a sale with credit that you wouldn’t have got with cash still earns the seller money, money they wouldn’t have earned without accepting credit.