Plastic's A Girl's Best Friend

How to make the credit card work for you instead of the other way around

- ANUSHKA RATHOD

Much like many 20-year-olds, I, too, swooned over Sex and the City. Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte felt like my own friends. In Miranda, I saw my nerdy self, in Charlotte, I saw my dream wardrobe, in Samantha I saw my desire to be independent but in Carrie, I saw my love for shoes and of course also my big nose (just kidding, or maybe not?). Oh, how I dreamt of going shoe shopping like her, carrying multiple bags, strutting on the streets of New York.

In a way, that dream of strutting down avenues with shopping bags saw the light of the day – albeit in Dubai. I wore my best pantsuit, went to the mall, and bought myself a couple of pairs of shoes with my credit card. However, unlike Carrie, I didn’t use my credit card because I was low on cash. I used my credit card because it was a smarter decision.

How?

Well, credit cards have a bad rep. We often hear people advise us, ‘Don’t use a credit card, you’ll fall into a debt trap’, followed by ‘live below your means, avoid credit cards and use debit cards’.

I will not lie – these warnings are not baseless. But they are true only because people don’t use their credit cards properly. They overstretch their budgets and pay only the minimum due amount, which is a big mistake. This is exactly what credit card companies want us to do so that they can charge us heavy interest on the unpaid amount, and make money off of us.