But that doesn’t mean that you should avoid your credit card completely, if you have one. It means being able to manage your use so that you don’t drive yourself deep in debt.
The best advice that Josh Frank, senior researcher at the Center for Responsible Lending, can give is: "Take advantage of the perks, and avoid the penalties."
Now that credit scores may become a thing in the country, here’s one other reason to stay well below your limit: standard credit scores use credit utilization as a major metric. This is the ratio of credit outstanding to maximum credit available on your card. The lower this is, the better.
There are plenty of reasons to use a credit card, too: automatic billing, cashless transactions, rewards programs, and others.
But remember that a credit card is a way of borrowing against future income, and not an income source in itself. It’s not free money.
So how exactly can you use your credit card without going into debt?
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