What do you use your credit card for?

[ohgiveitadayoff]

Just curious as to what other people use there credit card for and if you pay it of in full? We have a 10k limit and owe about 3k I've only ever used it for expensive stuff really like DD pushchair and a few treats for myself.

Partnership card for almost everything, paid off in full and save JL vouchers towards larger purchases (most recently towards a new mattress).

A CC that has no charges for foreign transactions for when we're abroad (also paid off in full each month).

We each have CCs attached to our bank, I very rarely use mine, DH uses his for work expenses.

I grew up in the US where you can't really do anything without a CC, so it's completely normal for me to use mine. But because of how my parents brought me up (debt = bad), it wouldn't occur to me not to pay off in full each month.

I buy absolutely everything I can on it... including a cup of coffee when out! We pay the whole amount off every month. If we want something “big”, like a new sound system, we save up for it, buy with the card and then pay it with the savings.

It’s a John Lewis card and every so often (I think it’s quarterly) we get vouchers which we spend on a food shop (or wine) in Waitrose. Our next lot of vouchers will be around £90 we reckon.

Dh and I have separate ones. We both tend to use them more to buy something for ourselves. His on hobby based stuff, mine on clothes/beauty. Occasionally either of us might use it on a smaller house purchase (eg: lamp, picture frame etc) We both pay them off every month.

We use it for everything and don't carry much cash at all. We pay it off each month but it rewards us with Nectar Points that we use at Christmas.

Use it to pay for everything then pay off in full each month. Works for us as you have insurance from spending on credit card. We also get plenty of reward points which make it worth using.

I use it for everything as I gave my DH my debit card to use.

Peridot tell me how you get so many points please! We have the M&S card. We get no more than £15 a quarter. We use it for everything and are meticulous about paying it every month. We put all bills, shopping, diesel etc. I keep trying to persuade dh to change over to another card but he wont. At one point we used to get around £50 which was seen as good. How are you getting £100?! So not fair if you're reading this M&S power people.

Well this is a bit of an eye opener!
I use mine for spreading the cost of things like holidays and to help with the fact that my income fluctuates a lot from month to month.
So basically I try to not use it at all, but sometimes have to.
It always feels somewhat embarrassing and frivolous to use it for small items.

Hugo no need to be embarrassed. Just use it as you see fit and don't default.

Credit limit of £15k on the one we use day to day. It is paid off in full each month. We do as much everyday spending as we can on it to get air miles. Have had some free flights over the years, got enough miles for a family of 4 to go to Europe currently but not sure where to go.

Usually spend about £2-3k a month on it but always paid off each month. We have been in debt before and worked really hard to pay it off so won’t spend anything unless we know we can pay it off. We both have a horror of being in debt again.

hugoagogo the key point is to pay it off every month. If you're using it to spread payments on major purchases you'll be paying high rates of interest, people with a good credit score can usually get a bank loan with far lower rates.

Everything! Another M&S card holder - so get M&S vouchers, and also "double dip" in Tesco / Sainsburys by getting Tesco club card points / Nectar points as well on the same shopping.

I use my credit card for large purchases but spread the repayments over a few months as I cannot pay it in full. I do not use it for anything else until the debt is cleared.

Not sure where you get that idea ribbon? My cc is 0%.

We shop online a lot and always use the credit card so we’re protected in case of fraud.

Every-bloody-thing{grin]
Paid for my last trip home to N.C.last time, cant be bad...

I haven’t got one as I think they have a real tendency to encourage debt. I think I probably miss out on JL vouchers but not sure I’m organised enough to remember to pay things off.

Only use credit card for holidays and big purchases. Everything else goes on the debit card.

We use a BA American Express as much as possible but pay it off each month so we can get air miles..... another few years before OZ

I use mine for big and unexpected purchases such as car repairs or anything I need to buy for the kids that I haven't budgeted for. I then pay off a bit each month. I have £800 on mine at the moment with a £14k limit (over 3 cards, 2 I don't use). I prefer to save up for things like holidays and luxuries, it's just unexpected costs I use the card for.

Your credit limit won't suffer if you don't pay it off in full each month, as long as you don't miss any payments. It's good that you have a large credit availability that you don't use. That helps your credit score too.

I've got several but don't use them all and have never paid interest on a credit card in 40 years of having them. I use credit cards for absolutely everything from a few pounds contactless to big purchases. Always paid off in full each month. I use an M&S card which gives cashback or Tesco card for points.
We also have Halifax credit cards used mainly for travel.

BA AmEx (with Clubcard Visa for backup where AmEx not accepted).

Use it for everything possible, pay it off in full every month without fail.

Currently sitting in the BA lounge in Cape Town airport, waiting to fly home to Heathrow business class on the back of the Avis gained. Whiling away the wait by planning a Deep South fly drive for next year with Avios already in the bank for business class flights.

I have 4 at the moment, all with large limits (£10-15k).
One is £0 balance and kept for emergencies
One is for all day to day joint spending inc food-DH is a card holder on it and this is paid in full every month £1-2k usually. This has cashback.
One is “mine” I use it occasionally to buy things I don’t have cash for immediately eg Christmas but always paid in full. Currently £0 balance but might have up to £1k.
One has about £3k on it on 0%, this was used for new sofas and speaker system as better value than store credit. We pay a fixed amount by DD and won’t pay any interest on this as it will get cleared and not added to.

I use the 0% for borrowing as much as possible.

I also have another one which has a direct debit to pay off in full and I use that instead of my debit card sometimes.

I don't spend enough to bother with the points.

I tend to pay for big things like flights, hotels, furniture - because of the insurance side (unless they put a charge on for credit cards but not debit cards.) It's also a back-up in case my debit card doesn't work, as recently happened in the supermarket - I like to have at least one Visa and one Mastercard, especially when travelling abroad. In extremis, I have a few thousand pounds available to me. I could pay for a hotel or a flight or tank of petrol or help a family member out.

These days, it gets paid off every month - it's currently got a few hundred on it, because I got back from holiday yesterday. But certainly in the past, I balanced and swapped a variety of 0% cards as it was cheaper than a loan or overdraft. My days on very low pay would have been harder to deal with without credit cards to help move money/debts around.