Cash vs. Debit Card?

Recently, I have been skirmishing an internal battle with myself about how I should approach using cold cash versus using my debit card (credit card is undeniably out of the question!). Beingfrugal.net had this debate as well and there were some motivating points of view. Sorry to say, I am still sitting here conflicted. :(

I lately came across a posting at the American Consumer News blog titled Five Reasons to Always Pay with Cash (And Throw Your Credit Cards Away) that took the view of using hard cash and its benefits. The focal points by using cash were:

1) You spend less
2) There are no finance charges
3) There are no overdraft charges
4) You do not really go over the budget (but only if you have self-control, in my honest opinion).
5) You could get a better deal if you pay cash

I liked this article enough that I will endeavor to use cold cash as much as possible (seeing as how I was leaning in that direction anyway).

You can read the Beingfrugal.net article here and the American Consumer News article here.

Investment Update

Due to falling market prices for bank stocks (among others), I was able to purchase an additional four shares of Bank of America on Tuesday. If anyone is wondering, “who buys just FOUR shares?!” Well, for one thing, I do. My investment philosophy/strategy is one that follows the buy and hold principle and I buy ONLY if by purchasing more shares, my weighted average cost per share reduces, otherwise I do not buy. So, while short-term investors are nervous (hence why they are sending the stock prices in a downward manner), it allows me to add additional shares, which accomplishes two things:

     1) Reduces my weighted average cost per share
     2) Increases my dividend income

Consequently, in my modest point of view, this is more of what I would describe as a ‘win-win’ situation. Accordingly, to all you jittery investors out there, sell away. Continue selling for you are doing me a grand favour! :P

Link up

Last week, Lifehack.org had an article about living without credit. It certainly does apply to my intended goal(s) in life. The article gave a few good reasons to live without credit:
- It forces you to live within your means.
- Things cost more than what they cost.
- It forces you to discipline your spending.
- You cannot default on cash.

I concur with all the points made in that article and I have to confess that I have come to a stronger understanding that debt (for all the goodies it can get you) is malevolence. Unless one knows precisely what they are doing when dealing with debt, one should tread lightly; or else, the next thing you know, you end up with a huge load of monies you owe to multiple creditors.

Transaction Override II

Well, looks like I got off to a great start (please note the sarcastic tone)! I just spent $15 on dinner, which leaves me with $6 to get me through until Friday. On the plus side, my Dad repaid $50 of $150 that he still has to pay me for a laptop I paid on his behalf. Patience is a virtue, they say, and once Friday is again upon us, things will look better.

Transaction Override

Well, I paid a long distance phone charge to my credit card, which leaves me with $21 until Friday (payday, yay!). With positive thinking, I believe/have faith that I will get through this week without requiring funds; and if I do require money, I hope it will be a smaller amount than $21!

Welcome!

Welcome to Limited Credit. This is the first time I have dived into the world of blogging. I have to admit that at some time in the past, I had been sceptical about writing anything but somewhere along the way, I thought, "hey, if I can find some time to write, particularly on a topic I know about, perhaps it's not as bad as I thought."

One may inquire as to the reasoning behind the existence of this blog and the answer is quite simple. After many years of mismanagement of my personal finances, particularly when it came to debt, I have decided to do something about it. I have decided to remove the addiction (if you will) of credit card/loans/debt in general as a source of material acquisition and use it as little as possible.

In other words, my intended goal is to use cash for anything and everything and try to bring myself out of debt. I have to admit that a couple of days ago, when I put gas in the car and paid via debit card, I had this immediate feeling of satisfaction that it was my own money I was using. Before, whenever I got paid, I would set aside whatever savings, minimum payments, and bills due that needed to paid, then the remaining I would dump onto my credit card(s) and any other expenses that came up I would charge to that card, in the hopes (yeah, right!) that I would be spending less than I was paying onto the card.

Ever since I have decided that anything and everything that I want to spend on has to be with cash, I have found out that I spend more than I thought and I really do not have that much left over by the time the next pay cheque rolls around. In other words, my income seems to equal my expenses!

So, let’s see where my journey of life takes me.