That's exactly as I do it as well; I've never understood the mentality that credit if 'free money'.

Done it this way for many years. Use credit for nearly everything and pay it off each month. So in fact I do consider whether I would pay cash for it because I know I will do just that.

It's a good balance one's evaluation of cost vs value. It taught me the difference between being cheap and being economical.

I pay off my credit card balance as soon as I sit in front of a computer. The delay is usually a couple of hours.

I like using credit card for the cash back deals and for getting receipt. It also makes my accounting easier.

I havent carried any kind of a credit card balance in 8 years. They are much more secure than a debit card, which i use only to get cash.
Once bills became trackable, and payable on line, a credit card became the way to go.

It's "free money" in the sense that you can buy a big ticket item like that brutally expensive flat screen TV (or a fancy MacBook Pro) and have the use of it for just the modest minimum monthly payment.

The credit companies expect us not to be able to do math. I can, but apparently we have several generations of innumerate people. Much to the credit companies enrichment.

18% interest? Al Capone would have loved to get in on that action. Wait, what? it's legal??!!

I'm about 50-50 in using cards or cash.
Having itemized expenses kept by credit cards is both a good and bad thing.
Considering the recent IRS and other gov't scandals. Do I really want big brother to know I donate to Fire?

Wife & I have been using credit cards for around 35 years. We've run a balance 2 months of that time — only because I accidentally transposed numbers when writing the payment check.

Now with ebills online, that can't happen.

I do the same thing. I get 1% cash back (2% on gas and groceries), but I'm annoyed by this. I'd rather just split the credit card fee with the retailer and pay cash! The credit card companies have crossed the line from useful service to parasite.

I don't like using my cash-back card when the primary motivation is to get the rebate from the company. I'm not using the card for the true utility, I'm using it for the engineered utility of the rebate. Why else would the credit card companies offer a cash back card? If the utility to the consumer and retailer were equal to the fee (merchant discount rate) charged by the company, there would be no 1% cash back. Logically, the credit card company must be able to give me 1% cash back and not generate a loss. Otherwise, why give a cash back card to someone who never carries a balance? I doubt that it's a loss leader.

Retailers generally prefer debit card transactions for the lower fees and the savings on handling cash, but why would I do that? I don't get a rebate, and I expose my debit card to possible fraudsters. Really, I'd rather just cut out the middleman to get a 1-2% discount on paying cash and the retailer gets to keep more too.

The credit card companies know that the utility of their product is variable based on the size and manner of the purchase, so online retailers are subject to a greater merchant discount rate. Of course, I don't get 3-4% cash back on online purchases because the credit card company captures my increased utility (consumer surplus) of an online purchase for itself as it charges the online retailer a greater discount rate (capturing the producer surplus).

In a truly competitive market, marginal revenues will eventually be compressed to equal marginal costs. Therefore, companies are always looking for ways to be as far away from that business model as possible, to have competitive advantages that allow them to extract economic rents. I don't think that there's anything to be done about the current credit card market, I just think that we shouldn't pretend that these companies aren't extracting rents due to their size and business practices, as it is an oligopolistic market and not a competitive market.