[breck]

> I think the advice to not have a credit card is pretty terrible, actually. There are so many benefits, and as long as you have a little self-control, pretty much no downside.

I disagree. This is great advice for the majority of people. Not everyone, but the majority.

Do credit cards offer benefits? Yes--convenience, expense tracking, protection against theft, etc.

Are these benefits free? No. People spend a lot more using credit cards than cash. Maybe not you, but most Americans. I don't care enough about this to look up the stats, but I do have a PHD psychologist friend on the payroll of one of the major credit companies and his job is to contrive ways to make people spend more on their cards.

Think about it like this: your cash is dumb--it justs sits there in your pocket. Your credit card is smart, however. A whole cadre of smart people--who are incentived to get you to spend more and pay late--are tracking how you spend money and are cooking up ways to get you to spend more and pay fees.

I know the empirical numbers would help my case more, maybe I'll dig them up and write a blog post about it.

[calambrac]

If the numbers show that people spend irresponsibly with credit cards, that isn't necessarily evidence that it's good advice to say "Don't get a credit card". Those numbers you're basing that advice on have a built-in skew towards people who have chosen to use credit cards. You have to ask the question "Would a person who would accept the advice to not get a credit card behave in the same way as the average credit card user if they did have one?"

I would argue that if you're seeking and open to advice on whether or how to use a credit card, you're probably already differentiated from the free-wheeling credit-abusing mob, and that if that's the case, if you know you can be responsible with it, it's actually a really great idea to have one.