The children playing in the backyard at sunset.
15 March 2008

I don’t gamble; I have never gambled.  Gambling is a losing proposition.  You know that the odds are in favor of the house.  Why give away your money?

Yet, with all my education and savvy — with all of my self-righteous attitude — I still got involved with credit cards… icky, horrible credit cards.  Talk about giving your money away.  I should just go to Discover Card and write them a check for several thousand dollars — why bother with the thinly-disguised middle man of 22% APR.

I hate credit cards, and yet I have never evolved the self-discipline to get out from under their thumb of financial slavery.  Was the Illustrator book worth it?  Was the plushie Belle doll worth it?  Are any of our transitory consumer trinkets worth indenturing our future and the future of our family?

I read this article on credit card rates increasing even though the Federal Reserve is cutting rates, and I got so upset with myself for ever getting involved with these legalized loan sharks in the first place.

Five years ago, when we got that first credit card to pay for Savannah’s vet bills, my only knowledge was: “Credit cards are bad.”  Now I understand so much more.  I understand how the whole debt trap works — the interplay of the minimum payment, exorbitant APRs, and outrageous fees.  You combine these with our consumer culture and the human desire for immediate gratification, and you have a money-making machine for the banks.

But I guess, like I’ve said before, out of adversity comes knowledge and experience.  I’ve read many personal finance books and understood them on a theoretical level.  But now that I have personally lived the chapter on “Consumer Debt,” I understand it intimately.  So let me pass my knowledge onto any young people that might be reading this entry:  “Credit cards are bad.  Stay away from them.  If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.”