by Victoria Tiegert

Created on: July 24, 2009

In today's society, it is hard for most people to imagine that you really can live without credit cards, but it's true, you can. I should know. Having lived both with them and without them, I can assure you that it's not only possible, but it's much easier and less stressful to live without them. One of the wisest pieces of advice I've ever heard came from the mouth of my father-in-law when he said, "You can't spend four dollars if you only have three." If we all followed that rule, imagine what the world would be like!

I wish that I could say that I heard that statement and learned from it, rather than from the school of hard knocks, but I can't. Like many others, I fell prey to the lie that you can buy now and pay later with no trouble at all. Consumerism became a way of life and if what I saw and wanted wasn't in the budget, no problem! Put it on the card! Surely I'd be able to pay those little monthly payments and pay it off in no time at all, right? Wrong!

All of those little monthly payments add up to a big bill at the end of the month. Not only that, but it isn't easy to pay off anything that is accumulating interest every month. Then, there are those months that I couldn't make the payment on time so they tacked on an enormous fee. Since I was always close to the credit limit on each card, this late fee would often put me over the limit, which added yet another fee. If I couldn't pay the prior month's normal bill, how would I possibly be able to pay the much larger bill with all the fees attached?

Then came an epiphany. I needed to pay them off, no matter how much work and dedication it took in order to regain control of my own finances. It took years, but here I am today, credit card free. I have my debit card which works just the same for things like booking hotels or rental cars, and in case of emergency (the reasoning that I used to use to justify each new card) I have discovered such a thing as a savings account. There are no late fees, no interest, and no financial stress when there are no credit cards. As they say, "Tickets to Hawaii, two thousand dollars. Financial freedom, priceless."

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