Cash over Credit

Far too much spending goes on in America with borrowed money. I'm not saying that loans and credit are evil, for they can certainly be used to ones benefit. I'm just saying that credit is far overused and it gives people a distorted view of money when they are able to whip out a tiny plastic credit card when they are purchasing. So instead of using your credit card for your purchases, try paying with cash. This achieves several things:

- Mental Recognition: You will notice the money disappearing from your pocket and you will see your stack dwindling. With a credit card, you will always seemingly leave the store with the same buying power you entered with. Seeing your wealth go down with cash purchases will cause you to second guess buying too much.

- Pre-set Limits: You won't be able to spend more cash than you brought to the store, so you can set your own limit before going out shopping. A credit card on the other hand offers buying power at any time up to your credit limit. A cash limit can remove that "in the moment" temptation.

- No Future Debt: If everything gets paid for when you buy it, you won't have to worry about that credit card bill at the end of the month. There's no surprises, no scrambling to pay it off, no interest payments to worry about, no late fee worries. It's just a fool-proof way to avoid those possible charges that can kill your wealth if you let them.

This is especially useful for those who can't control their spending and impulse buyers. Try it out for a few months and see if it can make a difference for you. Cutting up all your credit cards would certainly help if you are that problematic. Bottom line though, is that if you can't control your spending, you are not going to be rich. That is unless of course you make absurd amounts of money, but I can tell you that isn't the case because you are reading this right now.