A Month Without Credit Cards

On August first, I put away my three credit cards and began a journey to see what living life without them would be like. I have never had a problem using credit cards. I don't pay any fees and do pay them in full each month so why did I decide to do this?

For two reasons. First, I am co-facilitating a financial course in my church starting next week and living without credit cards is a basic principle of this program. Thought I would try to do so before I encouraged others on this path. Second, I knew that we all spend more money when using credit rather than cash. Dun and Bradstreet says the average person spends between 12% and 18% more this way.

One thing I had to do immediately was dig out my unused debit card and find out its limits. I do much of my shopping online and I don't like to carry cash, so this was important. I also had to get a debit card for business expenses since I didn't have one. My local bank was helpful in both cases.

A major lesson I learned this month is how unaware I had been about spending. When I only had cash (or its debit card equivalent), I really thought about purchasing things, whether basics like food or extras like books. I became much more aware of the cost of any food we wasted. I also only purchased one book this month... a first for me!

Many more lessons came my way on this journey and my Blog this month will share them with you. I'd love to hear your reaction to this credit-card free path. Try it...you might like it!