Use your credit cards wisely

One thing that not many people think about is why credit card companies exist. They don't exist to provide you with a free service of convenient shopping as their main goal. No, their main goal is to grab as much money from you as they can! This is the same with any bank cards, although they take a slightly less direct approach in making money off of you. Instead of charging you excessive rates, they use your money for their investments.

Although there are many perks to using a credit card, I always advice my family and friends to not use it to buy things they cannot afford. The rewards from using these cards are often peanuts in size; most free cash-back rewards cards will barely give you 2%, and those are the paid ones. So if you charge 10 grand a year on the best cash back cards, you'll only get $200 back. Perhaps you think $200 is a lot, but if you don't have the urge to buy stuff due to the convenience of the credit cards, I guarantee you'll save a lot more than $200. And that's only when you pay every single statement on time in full.

If you are careful with your spending, then carefully think about which card to get, because you'll not want to have multiple credit cards. 1 or 2 is fine ... but I've met people who carry more than 5 credit cards! How on earth do they keep track of their bills? Having multiple cards just exponentially increases your chance of missing a payment.

My advice: find a card appropriate to your lifestyle and stick with it.