Preferred method of payment

[say1988]

You'd obviously not be buying the same house... you'd be paying for a $100k house. You're saying it would be less nice, basically. I say, banks want you to think you need the bigger house. You don't.

How expensive of a house you want or need depends on the person and location. And you are now saving money by buying less, of course you are, this discussion only exsists if you are talking about equivalent houses. I can make the same mortgage arguments about your smaller house.

 

[kochman]

It can even make sense to take out a mortgage on property you already own outright if you have good investment options available.

Not to mention, you can mortgage more out of a property you own outright... you're mortgaging the equity... it's an equity line of credit.

If you owe nothing, you can borrow more.

If you owe close to value, you may not be able to borrow anything.

 

[say1988]

It can indeed. And if you're running a business this is probably the easiest and cheapest way to fund it.

This isn't the same as financing consumption, in any way, which is what people normally remortgage their property to do.

Hence if you have "investment options"

 

[Luckymoose]

Debit 99% of the time.

 

[anandus]

Almost always debit.
I'm surprised there are even people walking around with cash in their pockets, I almost never have any cash on me.

 

[LamaGT]

Being underage I'm forced to use hard cash and that doesn't count, but my family usually pays with either the credit card or cash.

 

[illram]

Everything goes on the credit card, that way I rack up the most points, and all my purchases are covered by my cards various warranties, insurance, etc. etc. No interest ever gets paid because it always gets paid off every month. Win win.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I use debit, credit, checks and too a lesser extent, cash. So I can't answer the pick-one poll unfortunately.

 

[Zelig]

Everything goes on the credit card, that way I rack up the most points, and all my purchases are covered by my cards various warranties, insurance, etc. etc. No interest ever gets paid because it always gets paid off every month. Win win.

Well, you lose out in the form of higher prices merchants have to charge to cover the cut credit card companies take (which is even more lately, with the push to World cards) - hence why I pay cash anytime a merchant is willing to give me a cash discount.

 

[Borachio]

Last time I heard something on this subject, it turned out traders have similar costs handling cash or credit/debit cards.

 

[Zelig]

Last time I heard something on this subject, it turned out traders have similar costs handling cash or credit/debit cards.

That's almost certainly not the case.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2009/04/16/f-cardfees.html

 

[Borachio]

And if you're a retailer, there's a cost to accepting cash. If you're a small operator, you have to spend time preparing your bank deposits, which could include rolling coins and reconciling your daily transactions. That takes time. If you've been in the business a long time, you may view it as just the cost of doing business.

As far as I can tell from the link, traders prefer debit cards, then cash, and then credit cards.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I went through a bit of a hassle a while back to get a credit card because it would be free of fees. I thought it would be free of fees for the merchants too, which was one of the main reasons why I got it... It now seems like the merchants are being screwed and everyone else are getting points and free trips on their credit cards.

I'll need to take another look at this, but there seems to be little reason to use a credit card instead of a debit card, unless you really know how to take advantage of it.

 

[Borachio]

You get some protection on purchases don't you? With a credit card.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I wasn't aware of it, and I'm not sure it's worth it. I have the normal insurances for those things. Warranties on purchases and insurances for accidents.

 

[Borachio]

Aye, but if you buy something on line and it turns out to be crap or broken, or just plain fraud or something, you can immediately, I believe though I've never had to, contact the credit card company to cancel your payment.

Then the credit card company pursues the trader on its own account, and you go on your way none the poorer.

 

[warpus]

Non-U.S. American

I usually use a debit card that is tied to my chequing account

Aye, but if you buy something on line and it turns out to be crap or broken, or just plain fraud or something, you can immediately, I believe though I've never had to, contact the credit card company to cancel your payment.

Then the credit card company pursues the trader on its own account, and you go on your way none the poorer.

Yep, that's one of the benefits of using a credit card, you can always do a chargeback.

Chargebacks are something that online vendors just have to figure into their budget.. I used to co-own an online t-shirt website, and every once in a while people would do chargebacks, for various reasons, usually fraud.. We had to calculate those losses into our business model, because it's just going to happen no matter what. The same thing was happening with another online retailer I built a backend/payment/paypal-like system for. I saw the data coming in - anywhere between 1-5% of all purchases ended up being chargedback.

Smaller vendors often will not have the resources or time to go after you, especially if it is a smaller purchase... I'm not advocating fraud by any means, but yeah.. if you use a credit card to shop online, and someone screws you over, you have options.

 

[kochman]

Preferred method of payment...
Sexual favors.

 

[Borachio]

That's awful. A gentleman never accepts payment for services rendered.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Well it's one way to get ahead on payments I guess