Tuesday’s blog prompt: On May 13, 1950 Diner's Club issues its first credit cards. How do you feel about credit cards?After I graduated college I got my first credit card. As a first year teacher I had very little money so I used my credit card which had a $5000 limit to help pay my bills. I was so proud of myself for paying the minimum payment and felt I was creating a great credit history for myself. No one taught me about credit cards because my parents never had one so the 21% interest meant nothing to me. I was just a good little consumer paying that minimum $10 or something like that each month on my $5000 bill. About a year later, I was getting married so I sat down with my future husband to figure out finances. I thought he was going to fall out of the chair when he saw that bill. That was one of our first major arguments because he couldn’t figure out how a smart college graduate who was a teacher had no clue about credit cards and I was highly offended at his attitude! After we were married we took out a loan from the credit union at 7% interest to pay off that credit card and the credit union took the monthly payments out of my paycheck which was much higher than the monthly minimum payment. It took awhile but we finally got it paid off and didn’t have another credit card for about 10 years. We paid cash for everything. Finally we got a credit card with the agreement that we would pay it off in full each month so we don’t pay any interest. If we don’t have the cash to make the payment, then we don’t buy anything on credit. We have gotten frequent flyer miles this way and have taken many free airline trips to great places. Now I have a Carnival credit card and will hopefully take a free cruise somewhere soon.
photo credit: credit-card by b. franchina
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