Money Talk Needs to be Ubiquitous as Credit Cards

Credit card points, student loan refis, auto loan interest rates, mortgage refis are all the rage. The conversation takes place everywhere, from our mailbox at our home to our email inbox to cocktail parties to ladies’ dinner clubs. I could easily hear a conversation of someone using their credit card travel points to book a trip or buy a car with a 1.5% interest rate. In fact, I would know the exact car and could know exactly how much was financed.

But what if I bought the car using cash? What kind of conversation am I allowed to have? I can talk about what car I bought (translation—everyone will know what I paid), but then can I tell everyone I paid with cash? Nope. Out of the question. That’s so rude.

Whoa—we, as a society, have normalized and made it socially acceptable discussions about purchases and debt. Leaving one taboo topic: savings.

I don’t think credit cards are evil. I think they are brilliant business people playing on human psychology. They have figured out how to help people feel smart and vindicated for using debt. Buy the thing and get your vacation paid for. In fact, there are people who use this very well. They can switch over recurring spending and get paid a little extra on the side. They get the card paid off each month. If we all did that would the credit card companies be happy? Nope. They know we won’t do that. They know we will find a month when we can’t pay it all off. We kick it down to the next month. If it was too hard to pay this month, then we certainly can’t pay the bigger balance next time it shows up.

“Pretty soon we find ourselves in the average credit card debt group of $6,000, paying $1,100 in interest every year.”

Credit card points, student loan refis, auto loan interest rates, mortgage refis are all the rage. The conversation takes place everywhere, from our mailbox at our home to our email inbox to cocktail parties to ladies’ dinner clubs. I could easily hear a conversation of someone using their credit card travel points to book a trip or buy a car with a 1.5% interest rate. In fact, I would know the exact car and could know exactly how much was financed.

But what if I bought the car using cash? What kind of conversation am I allowed to have? I can talk about what car I bought (translation—everyone will know what I paid), but then can I tell everyone I paid with cash? Nope. Out of the question. That’s so rude.

Whoa—we, as a society, have normalized and made it socially acceptable discussions about purchases and debt. Leaving one taboo topic: savings.

I don’t think credit cards are evil. I think they are brilliant business people playing on human psychology. They have figured out how to help people feel smart and vindicated for using debt. Buy the thing and get your vacation paid for. In fact, there are people who use this very well. They can switch over recurring spending and get paid a little extra on the side. They get the card paid off each month. If we all did that would the credit card companies be happy? Nope. They know we won’t do that. They know we will find a month when we can’t pay it all off. We kick it down to the next month. If it was too hard to pay this month, then we certainly can’t pay the bigger balance next time it shows up.