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Credit cards can save you hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars every year - if you use them instead of letting them use you.

Yes, they carry sky-high interest rates and, yes, they make it too easy to go into debt as you load them with impulse purchases you would never make when paying cash, but if you exercise some common sense and maturity they can save you a lot of money.

Examples? I didn't pay for a round trip cross-Atlantic flight on Delta because of points I got from my credit card. Likewise, I earned five free nights at Sheraton Hotels and (so far) one free night at a Hilton.

My sister recently bought a new car and had the price reduced by several thousand dollars because my mother gave her the points she had earned on her GM-affiliated credit card.

A good friend saves a lot of money with his Costco card while another uses her card to get money back at the end of the year.

The secret is finding a card which will give you what you want - and provides a hefty point bonus for its initial use. Moreover, as some cards charge a fee make certain to avoid them or, even better, get them when they are offering the first year for free and then cancel when the year is up.

At the same time, think of all of your credit card purchases as cash and keep a track of what you spend. Each day, I enter my purchases into my computer and keep a running balance of how much I will have left in my checking account after I pay my credit card bill - in full - at the end of the month. That way, I never run into debt and do not pay a cent in finance charges.

People will warn you not to have a number of credit cards - but I am going to tell you exactly the opposite. Different cards will help you under different circumstances, so why not be prepared for them all?

My own case is an unusual one and my "credit card prescription" will probably not fit your needs, but it will give you a good idea of how credit cards can help you. Then, as you would for eyeglasses, just have your own prescription made up to suit you.

I travel quite a bit. I live in Israel but generally spend 30-60 days each year in the US and about a month in Europe. If I were to put all my overseas charges on my Israeli credit card, I would wind up forking out a fortune in conversion charges. The least expensive way to send money to another country is by wire transfer and that's what I do: to bank accounts I have in America and Germany. This allows me to be armed with Euro, dollar, and shekel-based credit cards. I also have ATM

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