• Zozano@aussie.zone
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    1 year 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.

    • mommykink@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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 which is pretty good for a kid who grew up in a <$20,000/yr household with no real financial education or help.

      For what? So I can pay more interest for a mortgage on a house I’ll never buy?

      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.

      Open a savings account and have someone else pay YOU interest.

      Yeah lmao that 0.3% really pays out big, huh? Most credit cards offer anywhere between 1-10% cash back.

    • Candybar121@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      you only pay interest if you miss your payments deadline. I get 2% cash back on every single purchase i make with cc - Last month I got over $50 back.

      Meanwhile my savings account I opened with 4% interest and over a grand invested gave me a whopping $5 in the past month.

      • nickiam2@aussie.zone
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        1 year 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
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          1 year 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
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      1 year 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
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        1 year 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.