Confession of a shopaholic

I watched this movie on Tuesday with a friend. I wanted something light, silly, and about people making a fool of themselves. It helps that it reminds me of people that I know. Confession of a shopaholic does that very well. This movie describe vividly and I mean like talking mannequin vivid when an item talks to you and coax you to buy it. It tells the that feeling when buying something new, you all know that rush when you have that brand new item whether its a gadget, shoes, clothes or even car. That new item scent, that thrill of showing it to people. This movie tells you exactly that of the joys of buying stuff. We all have been there right. This movie also tells you the consequence of buying too much and when you don't have enough money. What is important to you anyway? Why do we shop? Why do we need to impress people we don't like?. We all have our own unique answers to these questions

A credit card, one the many that appeared in this movie. Did you know, credit cards in the US still used the magnetic strip instead of the chip that we have here? Sometime American tourist have problems if their credit card won't be able to be swipe in some of the stores in Malaysia. I know this for a fact when my American friend tried to pay RM 500 to rebond her hair. Credit cards can be deadly, because we will spend and swipe and spend some more until our credit limit is maxed out. Usually the credit limit will be at least 1.5 times the amount of salary that we make. So we almost always end up using more than we need and end up paying the bare minimum each month which can take years to pay.

A safer alternative for your money in the bank is to have a debit card. Maybank and BSN give out these debit card once you open an account with them. You swipe just like a credit card but a debit card will deduct automatically from your account. So you end up spending only the money you have in the account. The limit for Maybank Visa Debit is about RM 5000 if I am not mistaken. Other banks also provide similar cards such as RHB Tesco Debit card, or Visa Electron from other banks

MEPS cash is something similar to a debit card since you are only using the money from your account. MEPS is safer for the reason that you need to punch in your pin number before you could make your payment. However I rarely see anyone using it. Before you say credit cards are evil and debit card is the only way to go, its important to have a bit of credit when you work. Especially when you have to travel for your company and then it might take a while to make a claim for the expensed for the trip. Most people don't have that much money in their savings account nor do they like to carry huge chunks of cash. So credit card is the way to go, if only it is used wisely. I am shopaholic too and shopaholic has debt in their credit cards that won't just go away. How do I pay the minimum without paying the minimum? I asked my parents if the yneed annything for Tesco, so I paid with my credit card then I will pay my credit card bill with the money. My minumum payment is quite low already but during trouble times even I dont have money to pay the minimum aamout. Paying the groceries with credit and then getting money afterwards to repay the groceries is the easiest way to pay the balence with out using anymoney of your own.