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iQuestions Faculty, Ron Blue 
 
 
Question: 
 
Is having a credit card wrong? 
 
Answer: 
 
You know, the question comes up about the use of credit cards, “Is it 
okay to have a credit card, is it wrong to have a credit card?”  
 
Well, I know this: There was a study done a number of years ago now 
that said when you use a credit card as opposed to cash, you will 
spend 34% more using a credit card than you did using cash. I 
personally didn’t believe that, and so, I went on a cash-only system for 
a number of months, and you know what? The uses of my money, like 
gas, and groceries, and clothes and so forth that I used for credit 
cards, went down 33%. It was an amazing thing.  
 
So, is it wrong to have a credit card? Absolutely not. I think people 
that travel, for example—we are a credit card society—need credit 
cards for convenience sake. So, it’s not wrong to have a credit card. 
 
The reality is that credit cards never, ever, get anybody into problems. 
It’s only the person who holds the credit card that gets into problems. 
It’s just a piece of plastic.  
 
If you’ve got a discipline problem with credit cards, there’s an easy 
way to solve it. If you take all your credit cards, put them on a cookie 
sheet, stick them in the oven at 450 degrees, wait 30 minutes, and 
you no longer have a credit card problem, because you no longer have 
credit cards. But you do have something that you can post on your 
 
wall that will be a nice reminder of the problem that you used to have 
with credit cards.  
 
Now, does that mean I’ll never have a credit card again? No. Just open 
your mail, because you’ll probably get five credit card solicitations a 
week. And just because you get a solicitation on a credit card does not 
mean that you’re credit worthy. It just means that that lender would 
sure like to earn that 18% to 21%, and even in some cases over 30%, 
interest by your misuse of credit cards.  
 
It’s not wrong to have credit cards, and it’s not wrong to use credit 
cards, but it’s not always the wisest thing, economically, to do. 
 
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