Is Bad Credit Unavoidable?
No matter where you go for your credit repair information, chances are good that you’ll see at least one debate. You might even see more debates, but that’s not really the point. It can be hard to sift out the good information from the bad information, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to get things taken care of in the end. If you’re wondering what the top debate really is, it’s this: whether or not bad credit is unavoidable. Now, there are really some passionate voices on each side, so let’s break down the main points.
First and foremost, there are the people that say that bad credit is unavoidable. You won’t be able to really move up in life because bad credit will hold you down. It’s all the credit card company’s fault, and it will always be their fault. There’s just no way to get around that. There is no real escape, and this viewpoint tends to bring a lot of people down. You see, once someone goes into debt and reads this viewpoint; they will naturally feel that there’s just no way they can recover properly. There’s just no way that they will be able to rise up and overcome their situation, so they just accept it. Instead of working with their creditors, they ignore any and all attempts to be contacted — then wonder why their creditors have taken them to court! If you give the credit card companies no longer options than to sue you, then that is what they will do.
On the other hand, you have the people that do believe in the power of avoiding bad credit. You don’t have to automatically assume that you will be stuck with bad credit forever. The key is to know your own financial patterns. Do you have a tendency to spend money right when you get it? If this is the case, then you might want to think about an automatic savings account — after all, you can’t spend what you don’t have. Building up a savings account can help a family weather just about any financial change, provided that their account has been built up to the proper level.
Now, at this point you might wonder what the difference between the two streams of thought really is. In a nutshell, it’s the fact that the latter group takes personal responsibility for their lives at every turn, while the first group is clearly looking for someone to blame. The reality is that credit is really what you make of it, no matter how you slice it. You don’t want to end up just doing whatever you want to do when it makes more sense to try to follow a set pattern that can bring stability to yourself and your family, if you have one. It’s tempting to just blame the credit card industry, but you have to actually sing up for the credit cards in order to use and abuse them. If you control your spending, you will be able to escape credit card debt.
Of course, this brings up the next natural point: just how do you actually control your spending when everything seems like it’s ripe for the taking? Well, you will want to be able to see your own personal numbers at every turn. What this ultimately means is that you will need to invest in an external solution to be able to view your credit card information as well as the other expenses for the month. When you can log in to a program and see your credit information and other expenses in a handy chart, it’s hard to justify spending money that you technically don’t have. What you’re ultimately doing is borrowing money from some entity every month in order to buy things that you may or may not need. Is it really worth paying $23 in some cases just to buy that $100 item that might break down before you really get to enjoy it? Well, it might be or it might not be, but if you don’t have the money it’s better to leave that item alone.
There are some things that are definitely worth charging onto a credit card, like emergency expenses. On the other hand, the word of the moment is definitely moderation. As long as you have moderation on your mind, there’s no reason why bad credit has to be unavoidable!
