Credit Cards

Credit cards.  They're portable, they're taken almost everywhere, and you're less likely to get robbed on your way to a furniture store if you're carrying a card versus several large in cash.  Credit cards are pretty awesome.  Or they're terrible, no-good tools of the devil designed to ruin your life.  All depends on your philosophical (and financial) point of view.

Let's start with the latter.  Most people hate the phrase 'credit cards' because they invoke thoughts of greedy companies luring you into a life of endless debt.  That generally tends to happen for one of two reasons:

1) You've just become an adult (legally, anyway), and have discovered that there's no shortage of offers for "free" money being thrown your way, much like wieners at female Engineering students. 

2) You're broke as a joke, and the only way you can afford to put food on your card table and gas in the tank of your piece of shit '81 Honda Civic is by putting those purchases on a credit card.

In scenario 1, the "free" money comes courtesy of the numerous credit card companies anxious to get your business.  They tend to attract your attention with caps lock, bright colors and large font, along with appealing offers like "Sign up now and you won't have to pay back a dime for 6 months!" or "Interest free until March of 2015!"

Now, 6 months is a hell of a long time to an 18 year old. Might as well be never, so you go ahead and use it with a certain amount of relish, because you can now buy yourself pretty much anything your stupid parents were too broke or too stingy to get you.

The card gets swiped and purchases add up, and the devil finally comes knocking, asking for the money back.  At this point, you have the unpleasant realization that you owe a lot more than you expected, and the money just isn't there.  At this point you start questioning the value of money and wonder how feasible/effective blowing up the credit card company headquarters would be, like at the end of Fight Club.  

The only reason you have a beard is that you're too poor to afford razors

In scenario 2, you're generally the head of a household (or sleep in the corner of the dilapidated 1-bedroom apartment you share with 2 other guys because you wouldn't be able to pay the rent all by yourself).  You're working harder than a North Korean prisoner on Viagra, but still can't make ends meet.

In both cases, you pay what little you can, but high interest rates make sure your debt keeps growing, and it's a hole you're never going to dig yourself out of.  I've been through both scenarios, and they totally blow.

But once I dug myself out of debt and started being able to save money, I realized something: Credit card companies are not evil.  They're businesses.  They don't try to trick people (for the most part).  In fact, if you play your cards right (get it?), they can be pretty useful.

You're so punny, brah.  Here's a like.  For rectal use only

My philosophy is that credit cards can be awesome, if you use them wisely.  There are many cards out there that offer rewards points.  Basically, for every dollar you spend, you get a certain number of points, which can be redeemed for prizes, airline miles or straight up cash.

Personally, I think the ones that make you trade in your points for items that have to be purchased from their online store suck donkey balls.  Kind of like those wretched fundraisers they do in elementary school where some company comes around once a year and gets the children all pumped up to sell whatever shitty mass-produced overpriced product they're peddling this year by making lofty promises of shiny toys to the best saleschild.

Of course, only once you try pestering your neighbors and your parents' friends and co-workers, you realize that all THEIR kids go to the same school and are similarly trying to sell the same crap, and the decent prizes turn out to be impossibly out of reach.  How the hell are you supposed to sell $5000 worth of fucking peanut brittle?  And even if you do, the prize ends up being a toy your parents could have gotten at Walmart for like $35 (if they weren't too poor or stingy to get for you, which is of course why you have the credit card now).

Remember this shit?

Anyway, child labor aside, the best cards are the ones that offer you straight up cash-back.  For every dollar you spend, the card gives you a certain number of points, generally equivalent to a penny each, and those points can be traded in for cash, or used to pay off purchases (just like cash).  This concept is pretty sweet, because you're going to buy stuff anyway, so why not just use the card to make those purchases, and get it at a reduced price?

Now, this method WON'T work if you aren't disciplined and just buy anything that tickles your fancy, because the money you earn through the cash back will not make up for that stupidly expensive pair of Jimmy Choo shoes (I had to look that up) you saw in the window and just HAVE to have because that bitch Jenny from accounting is going to be, like, so jealous and you can't wait to see the look on her fat face when you come strolling in with an $800 pair of stilettos.

Which she probably won't even notice because she's so busy whoring around and spreading nasty rumors about you

The card I currently have (because I haven't found a better one yet) is a Barclay Card.  It has no annual fee, and gives me 2% cash back, which means that for every dollar spent, I get 2 cents, which can be redeemed to pay off old purchases when I accumulate at least $25 worth (2500 points).

This is it.  Well, not my exact one; I'm not an idiot

I'm not sure how Priceline and Barclay's are related, but I got it when I was buying an airline ticket online and they offered to knock off $50 if I signed up for the card.  Only when I got it was I made aware of the benefits; namely the cash back, the lack of annual fee, and oh yes, it even has a picture of William Fucking Shatner on it.  

This picture could be used after pretty much every paragraph of the second half of this post

Anyway, I've had it for just over 3 years, and have cashed in close to a thousand dollars worth of points.  And if you don't think that's the tightest shit ever, I'll have Shatner get you out of my face via a complicated series of over-exaggerated gestures.