3 reasons to ditch your credit cards

Credit cards can be a valuable tool, but if not used properly, they can become a huge problem. Sometimes, you’re better off pretending that card doesn’t exist. Here are 3 reasons to lock those cards up and forget about them.

Budgeting: Cash. It’s something we all enjoy having a handful of. When you’ve got cash in hand, it makes it really easy to see how much you have and how much you can spend. All of my monthly bills are set up to auto-draft, and for everything else, I use cash. When you’re using a credit card, it’s so easy to lose track of your budget and overspend. You can’t do that with cash.

Debt: If you’re disciplined enough to pay off every cent you charge each month, your credit card can be a valuable tool. For a lot of people, a credit card will only lead to debt. Once debt gets on top of you, it can be hard to get free of it. If you’re only using cash, you’ll be able to slowly crawl out from underneath any debt you’ve already acquired without making it worse.

Fraud: Most of us have probably had fraudulent charges on an account at least once. I don’t know about you, but nobody has ever stolen cash from me. You can be robbed, but it doesn’t seem as likely as digital fraud these days. When you’re using a card, you’re giving cyber thieves the chance to capture your personal information and rob you blind.