You have been repeatedly told that credit cards are dangerous and that the best thing to do with them is cut them up into small pieces for your own sanity and safety.
Almost everyone who gives you this advice has two or three credit cards of their own and they remain in one piece. Credit card virtue signaling is easy and cheap.
What isn’t so easy or cheap is living without some type of credit in the modern world. The next time someone lectures you about the evils of credit cards, you might want to ask them about what’s in their wallet.
This is a credit-based society where our credit score is one of the main factors in our overall social score. The concept of a social score might seem to be scary and confusing. But your social score is a real thing that already exists. If you want to buy furniture, a car, a house, a vacation, or any other big-ticket item, you are going to need credit and the seller will have to look at your score to determine your worthiness.
You can build that score with the judicious use of a credit union credit card. By raising your score, you can qualify for more credit and a lower interest rate.
The better your credit, the less you ultimately have to spend for the things you buy. Always handle credit responsibly.
Even so, there are times when you need to fire everything and deploy that credit card to its limits. Here are three such times:
A Self-Care Vacation
Your good credit has done you no good if you go through your entire life and never use it. When the world is caving in on you and you simply have to get away from it all, that is the time for a self-care vacation. There are many people who are on the brink.
They are one more bad day away from walking out on the job, or family, or life. They have come up in an environment where it is wrong to ever show any sign of weakness. They are supposed to take their emotions, compress them into a tight ball, and hide them away.
This is the recipe for an explosion. A healing vacation can provide a safety valve that relieves the built-up tension.
Surgery for Improved Quality of Life
Surgery is not a game to be done for trivial pursuits. That said, there is more than one way to save a life. There are the life-ending injuries or diseases that require immediate, surgical attention. And there are also things about your body that are making your life a living torment that could be eliminated with a surgical procedure.
Musculoskeletal issues have surpassed the common cold as the number 1 reason people go to a doctor. There are over 23 million orthopedic surgeries performed worldwide in 2017. People are tired of living with chronic pain caused by bad joints, herniated disks, and pinched nerves.
These issues are addressable. And people are getting them addressed. By improving their quality of life, they are making the life they have worth living again. People often put these surgeries off because of the expense. Materially improving your quality of life is one of the best reasons to have a credit card in the first place. It is okay to go ahead and get that bad knee repaired.
Technology for Work and School
College students have been doing remote education for a long time. Grade-school students are getting their first taste of it. The same is true for office workers.
If you are going to be working and learning remotely, you need better equipment. Your child should not fall behind because they don’t have the right equipment to keep up.
You should not place yourself at a disadvantage because your computer is too old to handle proper video conferencing. Your child’s education and your ability to support your family is worth pushing the limits of your credit card.
Good credit is a valuable commodity and credit cards should be treated with the greatest of care. But they are at their best when used for self-care, improved quality of life, and remote work and learning.
