Cash verses Credit Contrast Essay #1

   Cash or Credit. It used to be a staple in the customer service conversation at registers. I remember well groaning internally when a customer wanted to pay with Master Charge or Visa. They were the two most common credit cards for Ames Department Store where I worked. The credit card device was heavy and awkward and the tissue paper would turn my fingers black. It was also one of the deciding factors in my life of choosing to never use a credit card. It's so much easier to just pay with cash. I was not going to inconvenience my cashier with a credit card. Obviously technology won out and today within my own business the machines to process a credit card are as easy as my I-phone and a credit card reader device. I most likely have the money in my back account before they leave the store. However I still don't use credit cards for my own personal transactions

As far as privacy is concerned, cash has to be far superior. 

   Let’s just say I’m a twenty dollar bill you have in your pocket. You can pull me out and look at me see that I was hot off the printing press in 2010 in Philadelphia. But you can’t tell my history as a twenty dollar bill. You don’t know what transaction’s I have been a part of, legal or illegal. You don’t know how many ten year olds I made happy as I fell out of a birthday card. You don’t know how many people had to hand me over as part of the rent money. You don’t even know the countless times I have been passed off as unreported income. But, let’s say I am a credit card in your wallet, you have been a member since 1997, with one search on your computer, you have access to multiple statements of my activity for the last twelve months or sometimes longer. You think this information is secure online, encrypted in all your passwords, but who is at American Express that also has access to your account? Sure they may say privacy screens them from seeing your activity in its entirety but commit a crime and go on the run with me, the police will pin point your next move before you do! It’s all semi private until someone WANTS to find you, then you are as plain as the nose on your face.

   Speaking of being responsible, tell me how responsible can you be with a credit card? Are you one of those people that can pay for everything to run your home on in one month and pay the balance off in the next month? Have you never found yourself even slightly tempted to pay the minimum and use the cash for something extravagant? I say nay nay. If you are responsible with a credit card you can be equally responsible with cash and you will eliminate the temptation of not paying off your debt in the thirty day interest free (should you qualify) time frame. Credit is empowering it and power can be dangerous. Impulsive purchasing will put you in chains of bondage you may not escape from. I suppose I should add here being responsible with a credit card also means being able to not lose it. If you lose a credit card today, you can stand to lose a lot of credit before it is shut off by the provider. If you a twenty dollar bill. You’ve just lost a twenty dollar bill. 

   Finally I can’t talk about credit cards vs cash without bringing up everyone’s favorite answer when asked why they need a credit card. The number one answer I hear from people, is convenience of booking  reservations for flights, hotels, or cars. Let me assure you can most certainly book reservations without a credit card. Here’s how, in order to even have a credit card you, at one point in your life, had to have a paying job. It would only make sense then that anyone without a credit card and a paying job has no reason in the world that they can’t have an emergency fund in the bank. Such a fund could even be built with the interest alone saved from not having a credit card.  You can attach a debit card directly to your emergency fund account where your responsible cash lives, for making, paid in full reservations for vacations and out of town amenities such as flights, hotels, and cars. Don’t try and tell me that you have a credit card for ease of use. You have a credit card because you don’t have the cash all at once to back up your large transaction. 

   I'm afraid this credit generation doesn't know what it's like to have a couple of "Benjamins" in their pocket that belongs to just them. They have no idea how to scrape and save to earn what they want. They probably don't respect what they do have for belongings because they acquired it so easily, if they don't take care of it, they can just get another one.  In my life, I have worked I have saved and I have lived without credit. I'm not so sure that my credit rating isn't a zero. I don't know many people like me. I drive a 2006 but it's mine and no one can ever repossess it. I have two homes one I rent out and one I live in. I believe the Lord trusts those that are good stewards with money, with more. I do render unto Caesar, but I will give my cash away to missionaries before give an extra penny to the government in taxes. Cash or credit you say? It will be cash every time with me.