you only pay interest if you miss your payments deadline. I get cash 2% back on every single purchase. Meanwhile my savings account I opened gave me a whopping $5 in the past month.
Comment on The ultimate life hack the government doesn't want you to know
Zozano@aussie.zone 8 months ago
I’m in my thirties and I’ve never owned a credit card. Fuck paying interest.
People always told me I need to get one so I can have a good credit rating. For what? So I can pay more interest for a mortgage on a house I’ll never buy?
Stupid.
Open a savings account and have someone else pay YOU interest.
Candybar121@lemmy.world 8 months ago
nickiam2@aussie.zone 8 months ago
You do know where that cash back is coming from, right? Everything you buy has credit card fees baked into the price. The business pays anywhere from 1-5% on every transaction to accept your payment, and a small percent of that is returned to you as “cash back” rewards. Its why I’ve switched back to using cash and any coins I get as change go into a jar. That earns much more than %10 “cash back”, and some shops even make the customers pay the CC fee here in aus so I get a small “discount” too.
Zozano@aussie.zone 8 months ago
A lot of what I said applies directly to Australia’s economy (which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you is absolutely fucked).
I salute you. Physical currency is better for businesses and the individual. Paying “convenience fees” (for what should be a public service), should be a crime.
In a parallel reality I’m paying interest on water which evaporated.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 8 months ago
People always told me I need to get one so I can have a good credit rating. For what? So I can pay more interest for a mortgage on a house I’ll never buy?
Credit gives you options. Furnace goes out way sooner than anticipated and you only have $5k in the bank? Take out a loan for the remaining $3-5k to get it done now. Unexpected car repair and you only have $500 after rent in the bank? Whip out the credit card and put the other $500-1000 on there and throw extra money at it until it’s paid off. Yes you’ll pay some interest, but you’ll have a working car, or a working furnace, or whatever other calamity you find yourself facing.
But the biggest thing credit does it lets you buy property much much sooner in life. Property has a wierd habit of gaining value much faster than it should, the payment stays the same for the entire term of the loan, plus with a mortgage every payment buys you slightly more ownership of the property unlike a rent payment which is just money leaving your bank account every month for nothing other than the privilege of the roof over your head for the following month.
For a real world example, I bought my house a couple of years ago for ~120k. I live in a small town so I figured it wouldn’t gain anything other than holding it’s value through inflation. My monthly payment is ~800ish and similar places were renting for ~1k/month. Well thanks to the hyperinflation the last couple of years, my house is now worth closer to 180k and rents are up to $1200-1500/mo for a similar place to the one I own, but I still pay $800/mo for my house. That’s what credit gets you in the long term. It gets you stability and options for when the going gets tough
Zozano@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Most of what I said comes with the implication that instead of paying interest, you’re putting that money into a savings account, instead of racing to 0.
You don’t need a get-out-of-jail-free-card(with-interest) when you can just pay to leave like the gigachad saver you are.
I will never own a house, it’s not an option for me - it never will be.
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You only need to pay interest if you don’t make your monthly payments. I put gas and some groceries on my card and zero it out every month. By the time I graduated from university I had a credit score of about 775.
This is a terrible way to look at credit. You’ll definitely be paying more interest with no credit score if you can even get a loan (you won’t). You’re pretty much guaranteeing your failure like this.
Yeah lmao that 0.3% really pays out big, huh? Most credit cards offer anywhere between 1-10% cash back.
Zozano@aussie.zone 8 months ago
FYI my savings account earns 5.25% p.a.
Also, I know that the money I’m investing is being used ethically, which helps me sleep a bit better