Credit Card Challenge

I remember a time when I had 14 credit cards. Actually I still have them rubber-banded together in our filing cabinet to remind me of my past mistakes. The accounts are all closed now. I carry only one card with me and that’s a debit card, so I can only spend as much as we have in our checking account. It took me a long time to admit that I simply couldn’t have a credit card. I consider myself very smart, I graduated college with honors, paid my own way through school, started my own business, owned a house at 23. But the lure of easy credit is uncontrollable for me. And I know it’s just as easy for some of you, that is why we are starting the Credit Card Challenge.

We are going to start simply. I want each of you to try to not use a credit card, any credit card – including gas cards, store cards, major cards, etc, for one week. That means if you have wanted to order something by mail you have to actually fill out the order form and write a check, if you see something in the store and you don’t have enough in your checking account to pay for it, you have to wait until you do. And if you have to pay a bill with your credit card, or a necessity such as groceries, you really need to step back and take a look at your spending habits and income levels – you are either spending too much on unnecessary things or you need to increase your income to meet your basic living expenses, or both.

This may be hard to get started, but it’s only a week. We’ll go from there once we have it down!

Let us know when you've gone a week without using a credit card!

Part of the Womens-Finance Budget Challenge!