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I’ll just say it: I love credit cards!

They’re easy to use, they help you build credit, and they can be life-hacked for some killer benefits.

But credit cards aren’t for everyone. Some people just can’t be trusted with credit cards.

Can You Be Trusted With Credit Cards?

Here are 4 key questions to ask yourself to determine whether or not you can be trusted with credit cards.

1. Will you stay under your credit limit?

Credit Cards 101: if you exceed your credit limit, your card will be declined. This will inevitably happen in front of a crowd, giving everyone around you the impression that you’re (at best) careless or (at worst) a total deadbeat. Heaven forbid this happen at dinner with friends when you have no other method of payment on you and you have to beg your friends to pick up the tab *shudder*.

If you are at all concerned about exceeding your credit limit, for goodness’ sake, don’t get a credit card!

2. Will you pay your bill on time?

Paying bills late is the #1 mistake on our list of the 4 biggest bill payment mistakes in Um…Excuse Me…But You’re Paying Your Bills Wrong.

If you can’t pay your bills on time, you should not have a credit card.

The big benefit of having a credit card is to build your credit. But if you pay late, your credit will actually take a hit. And you’ll be charged a late fee, which is an insane waste of your hard-earned money.

Even worse, if you have a credit card with a 0% introductory rate, just one late payment could trigger your introductory rate to be replaced with a rate of up to 29%. You don’t want that!

One last note on late payments: sometimes they happen purely by accident. You simply forget to pay the bill before you go on vacation, then it’s late. Even these accidental late payments have serious consequences. If you’re generally forgetful, see if you can arrange an auto-payment from your checking account to your credit card company. Or just think twice before getting a credit card.

3. Will you pay your bill in full every month?

Unless you’re strategically taking advantage of a 0% introductory rate, or you’re conscientiously taking a strategic risk by carrying a necessary credit balance (like because you had to put new tires on your credit card to make your car road-safe), you should pay your bill in full every month.

Here’s a weird thought:

If you’re a typical 22-year-old, making minimum payments on your credit cards, you might have grandchildren before you pay off your credit cards. Not even kidding. And that’s only if you stop using your cards now and don’t start using them again.

Since 2010, credit card companies are required to warn you about the risks of paying the minimum balance. Go grab your credit card statements and look for something on the front page that shows your minimum payment due and your three-year pay-off amount.

This snippet is the warning from my credit card statement:

First: Notice that there’s no interest rate in this snippet. The interest rate is buried in the fine print. I have great credit, so my interest is a “reasonable” 15%. 😐

You can see that I would need 23 years to pay off my $5,286.01 balance if I pay $52/month. And it would end up costing $6,146.99 in interest alone ($11,433 minus $5,286.01). Gross!

But if I pay $182 every month for 3 years, I’m done in 3 years, and I save $4,869 in interest charges.

Even then, I’m still paying $1,277.99 just in interest ($6,564 minus $5,286.01). I could really use that $1,277.99 elsewhere! That $1,277.99 interest over 3 years averages $35/month. I’m not interested in throwing away $35/month just on interest.

Now, I usually have a big balance on my account because I use my card for everything (to collect those rewards points!). As long as I pay the balance in full every month, there’s no problem. I collect all the rewards and avoid paying any interest.

But if you’re not 99% sure you’ll be able to pay your card in full every month, maybe just skip it. No credit cards rewards program is going to make up for that lost-to-interest money.

4. Will you spend the same amount on nonessentials as you do without the card?

When super respectable financial gurus, like Dave Ramsey, warn against using credit cards, this is one of their big reasons: people often spend more when they’re paying by credit card than when they’re paying by cash. Because a credit card transaction doesn’t feel like real money, you know?

If you’re not handing over crisp bills or watching your bank balance dwindle in real-time, you may inadvertently spend more than you would otherwise.

It’s a real concern.

How does paying by credit card feel to you? Do you find yourself spending more on your Target run when you have your Red Card? Or does your Red Card transaction feel like spending real money to you?

Overspending on nonessentials completely defeats any benefit of having a credit card. If you’re going to be tempted to overspend, just skip the card.

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So…what’s the verdict? Can you be trusted with credit cards? Let us know in the comments!