It was in 2004 when I was finally approved by a credit card company to own my very first credit card. It took me years to finally convince HSBC that I am financially capable enough to maintain a credit card and since then, several credit card companies has been calling and bugging me to have one of their own. I ended up having 2 HSBC credit cards, 1 Red and 1 Mabuhay (because of my greed to accumulate miles). The rest of the credit cards that were mailed to me (without my consent) remains to be inactive.

At first I was in control of my purchases, being able to pay the dues on time thus avoiding interests. But as the years passed by, I was not able to pay my dues in full for the simple reason that my salary cannot afford to do so. So what has been my purchases then? Mostly went to groceries where each time I fall short of my budget on food, I depend on my ever reliable plastic card. It has also been our saving grace each time an emergency happens, like for instance sickness and hospitalization. Also, instead of applying for a loan, it has been very convenient for us to just withdraw from an ATM through their cash advance facility. Worse, my credit card was used to pay for our wants that we could not afford at that time. In short, I was slowly drowning in debt and all I was able to pay for is just a little above the minimum payment required. And thanks to the interest and annual payment, they were an added weight that pulled me down. Well, I have to admit that life hasn’t been that easy at that time that even if we wanted to have as much savings as we would want to, expenses are soaring high. I reached a point where all my bonuses went to HSBC and all I could pay for monthly is the interest. I felt helpless at that time… and hopeless.

Not until last year when I and my husband decided to settle all our credit card dues. That means spending a material amount of cash just to finally close my accounts. At first we felt hesitant because we could have saved the money or spent it on other important things. But we realized that if we want to improve our financial status, we really have to invest on our liabilities thus zeroing in our debts. It took us months to finally settle everything but it was all worth it because I am not paying any interest anymore plus I don’t have to allot any amount on credit card payment from our budget.

And now that I have learned my painful lesson well on credit card use, I only use my credit card for online transactions and paid everything else in cash. I may still maintain two credit cards for emergency purposes (the one has no annual fee and the other one has a large credit limit) but I make sure that each time I use any of them I already have the cash to pay for it in full.