Owning less is my motto in life, because I always hated wasting time from important things towards chores. Chores like maintaining the things I own, instead of those things enriching my life. Perhaps one of the reasons why I’ve been avoiding Android phones.

Maintaining the credit cards

Never in my life did I have a credit card, and I don’t seem to suffer for it. With my recent move to the states, a lot of things have moved towards the credit ratings and scrupulous credit checks. I believe that even insurence companies inquire that data about you. 1984 much?

So everybody in the States, and their grandmother is interested in credit scores. Now I own used car, that is ok with me, but maybe in a year or two I will want to get something new, and I am exploring my options of building the credit score. And in that research I’ve came to numerous articles on credit cards.

WiseBread talks about Credit Card Cancelations for people that don’t use them. This article contains a lot of factors that determine the longevity and stability of your credit card.

Why I threw my first credit card to garbage

It came via mail, it said pre-approved. I did pre-approve it. To the garbage can.

This is too bloody complicated, therefore I decided not to have one. Isn’t life more simple when you just know what you have? There is one less monthly payment to worry about. Limited financial situation makes my freedoms limited, but my future self has more finances at his disposal.

Inability to borrow makes you more frugal, because you are spending what you have. There is no commitment of trading your freedom for further job dependency.

And you THINK less!

I believe this is the biggest reason why I opt out of credit cards. This is the biggest mental expense that repels me from credit cards. I avoid all the situations where I need to call my bank, to talk to customer representatives about the problems with my card, issues of increased APR, and all the other great stuff that comes with the territory.

By opting out of the credit cards, you opt out of the system that makes you think more. How does thinking about yet another monthly payment, adds value to my life? When choosing minimalism, you try to get only the things you absolutely need. And in my life, credit card is not one of those things.