Buying A Car Using A Credit Card

Are you planning Buying A Car With a Credit Card? Have you destroyed your credit cards with the intent of getting rid of them forever? You’re not the only one. Maybe you went through a bad experience. If you’re facing a lot of high-interest debt, it’s easy to blame credit cards. It can be alluring to finally pay off your outstanding balances, cut up your credit cards and be done with them once and for all. While you may have good intentions when you aim to live a credit card free lifestyle, it can come back to scare you later on.

Here are some reasons why you may not want to remove your credit cards from your lives completely.

Earning rewards is way easier now

The best part of credit cards are the rewards that come with them. Every time you swipe, tap or insert your credit card, you earn rewards. This is a lot better than cash. With cash, you don’t earn any extra rewards by paying with it. At times, carrying around cash is kind of a hassle.

Using a credit card for everyday purchases makes a lot of sense, as long as you use it responsibly. As we’ve said several times before, no credit card rewards in the world are worth it when you’re paying 20 percent interest just to earn one or two percent in rewards. But if you use your credit card wisely and never carry a balance, that’s when the rewards outweigh the cost (zilch in this instance).

Building your credit score

Unless you can afford to pay for a house or car in cash, building and maintain a good credit score is important. Once you pay down your credit cards, it may tempt to cut them up and be done with them. However, by doing that, you’re damaging, not helping, your credit score. Here’s why.

Credit utilization and length of credit history are two determinants that Equifax Canada and Transunion Canada look at when calculating your credit score. When you cut up your credit card and close the account, not only do you have less available credit, you have a shorter length of credit history, too.

To elucidate this, let’s take a glance at a simple example. Let’s say you have two credit cards. You owe $3,000 on credit card #1 and credit card #2 is fully paid up to date. Both credit cards have a $5,000 credit limit. If you cut up credit card #2, suddenly your credit utilization goes from 30 percent to 60 percent. Yikes! This will negatively influence your credit score, even though you probably thought you were helping it by lowering the amount of credit you have.

Likewise, if you have a credit card with a long history, the last thing you want to do is cut it up. If you don’t use it as much, at least make a purchase on it every couple months to make sure it remains active.

Consumer protection benefits

When you pay for something in cash, you’re provided with very little consumer protection. However, when you pay for something with your credit card, depending on the card, you’re usually given a lot more protection. You may get everything from an extended warranty to travel cancellation insurance at no extra cost. You can also dispute purchases, something that’s a lot harder with cash, when your money is usually as good as gone.

The Bottom Line

It’s best to prevent a situation where you feel like cutting up your credit card is the only choice. By using your credit card responsibly and fabricating a budget, you’re more likely to not push yourself in a tough situation like this. If you do, remember that by cutting up your credit cards, you may be doing more harm than good in the long-run.

If you want to take a break from credit cards, consider building your credit with a car loan. Regardless of your credit, Canada Auto Experts can help you establish good credit with auto financing by filling out a 2 minute application or call 1-855-550-5565 to talk to a credit specialist today!