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I hate credit cards, but they're almost impossible to avoid. I only use them if I can get a 0% rate, typically the best way to do this store cards like Sears or Firestone. Such as, I had to replace both my oven and my washing machine at the same time last year, total bill was much more cash than I had onhand at the time. However I was able to talk the salesman at Sears into giving me 0% APR for a year on the purchases. Same thing at Firestone with a set of new tires for my truck when 2 of them blew in a week, 0% for 90 days. Got the stuff I needed, was able to split it up into manageable payments, and in the end no interest so I win.
Of course it would be so easy to not pay for the grace peroid and buy more stuff, the trap is you usually don't have to make a payment during that time. You forget about it then BAM 30% interest on your total balance.
I plan on teaching my kid how evil credit cards are, just like my dad taught me, so hopefully that will be one less statistic added to the $10k per household credit card debt average.
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