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Kuiper | 7 years ago

There's not a lot of "discipline" that goes into paying off your credit card each month (in the sense of practice); my credit card auto-debits from my checking account at the end of the month to pay off the full balance for that billing period, so I passively pay for my purchases shortly after making them. The only way I lose money to interest is if I actively decide to log into my account and tell the system to stop paying my balance, which is something which would be bad on a variety of levels and doesn't appeal to me tremendously, so I guess it requires discipline for me to stay out of credit card debt in the same sense that it requires discipline for me to refrain from shoving a chunk of lard into my mouth.

At a minimum, you could benefit from having a credit card that you just use to pay for a monthly subscription (e.g. Netflix, Github, Patreon) and just not use it for any other expenses; stuff it in a drawer and forget about it, or physically destroy the plastic if you don't want the temptation. (Heck, you could probably even request that your credit card have a $15 limit if you want to ensure it never gets used for anything other than your Netflix subscription.)

>(btw I'm in the EU, so I don't get the obsession with CC in the USA)

I wouldn't say that Americans are "obsessed" with credit cards any more than they're "obsessed" with shampoo. Which is to say, yes, there are some people who care a great deal about hair care products and have five different bottles in their shower, but for a lot of people it's just a basic fixture of living that you're kind of expected to deal with and isn't really in people's minds. Yes, I use it every day, but I'm not a credit card enthusiast any more than I'm a shower enthusiast.

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