In 1990, after my bankruptcy, I wanted to avoid the use of credit. For me credit was pain because I believed that without credit I would never have found myself bankrupt. Rational or not, thats how I felt.
It wasnt too long after that I realized that if I was going to be able to do the things I needed to for work and travel I would need to get a credit card to make reservations and use for routine expenses. It wasnt until I discovered the concept of a secured card that I found what I was looking for.
A secured credit card allowed me to be able to use the Visa and MasterCard networks to do all the things I needed to do, but with a financial safety net. People that I handed the card to didnt know I had been bankrupt or that I had lingering bad credit issues, they also didnt know that almost no other creditor in the world would give me credit at that moment. I was a credit reject for sure.
The advantages of a secured card are that your credit limit equals the cash you have on deposit with the card issuer. And thats what made me very comfortable in carrying a secured card, in case something happened and I was not able to pay the bill, all of the funds to pay...