It shouldn’t come as any surprise that credit card companies will resort to dirty, under-handed tricks in order to keep their customers in debt. Credit card companies are, after all, in the business of making money, and the only way they can do that is if they find ways to keep _you_ owing _money_ to them. It’s sad, sick, and often downright unethical, but by the same token, Americans bring their own pain upon themselves. This isn’t to say that unscrupulous behaviors of credit card companies shouldn’t be investigated and stopped, though. If they’re truly resorting to what amounts to financial sabotage on their customers, then something ought to be done.

But the really simple solution to this is to not let yourself get so far that far in debt in the first place. My wife and I have exactly one credit card between us (two, if you count the one for the mechanic), and we use that one only sparingly. I recognize that life dictates the necessity of borrowing money from time to time for things like paying for college, buying a mortgage, etc. I don’t know what the statistics stand at now, but I know that the average American also has multiple credit cards, thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and no way to pay that debt down in a reasonable amount of time. The notion of not spending more money than you make is apparently far too old-fashioned for most people, hence the reason why we see so many people declaring bankruptcy each year. Delayed gratification is almost unheard of. Why wait until tomorrow to buy something you want with money you’ve saved up when you can buy it today with money you’ve borrowed and will have to pay back with interest?

Personally, I’ve found that it’s much better, safer, and more gratifying to wait to buy things until I can actually afford them rather than rushing right out and putting them on my credit card. At the very least, I’m not stressing about how I’m going to pay those bills at the end of the month. And then, I’m not having to worry about credit card companies trying to shave as much off my paycheck as they can.

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