What absolutely blew my mind about this article is how it considers being in debt a norm. An unspeakable rule of sorts to not even try to manage your finances and save up and all that. Like wtf? How the hell do you function in society if you can't afford groceries and have to buy them on credit? The even more perplexing thing, to me, is why it's so common among Americans to pay for things with credit cards when they have enough money in their account. I'm almost 30 and I've never had a single credit card in my life. Being constantly indebted to someone like that would be a nightmare for me.
I am an American in my 40s and I pay everything on my credit card. All of my reoccurring bills: childcare, mobile phone, internet, utilities, etc are on my credit as are all purchases at stores/restaurants. I pay the balance every month. I end up with several free flights or hotel stays each year by employing this strategy. Added bonus is that if there is fraud, no money has left my bank account (this happened to me in the past year).
I just pay my credit card balance every week. Using a credit card and paying it very often means that my credit score is excellent, which results better deals for my mortgage and also better credit cards with great rewards and no fees. Credit cards also allow you to dispute transactions in cases of fraud, which you can't do with debit cards. If you have a healthy relationship with credit, not having a credit card is actually a much worse deal.
