No, not my accounts. The actual cards are frozen. Well, technically, they’re still freezing, since I just put them in the freezer 10 minutes ago. Yes, I’m freezing my credit cards. Why? Because it will make them very hard to use, but they’ll be available in the case of an extreme (and I do mean extreme) emergency.
Day 8 of 33 Days and 33 Ways to Save Money and Reduce Debt is all about not using credit cards. Freezing my credit cards is one of those things I’ve always meant to get around to, but never actually did. With my credit card readily available, I’d charge an online purchase, telling myself I’d pay it off when the bill came. The problem is we never had the money to pay it off.
Last night after reading Paula’s post about not using credit cards, I decided I was finally going to take the plunge. I transferred the balance of my mastercard to a new 0% APR card with no transfer fee. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Now it’s done.
Then I changed our Blockbuster online account to take the monthly fee off our debit card, rather than the credit card. Finally, I filled up a little freezer container with water, dropped the two cards in, and put them in the back of the freezer.
You know what? It feels really good to have those cards out of my wallet! Here’s to my new, credit card-free life!
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September 6th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Wow… even I never actually “froze” my credit cards… I just stopped using them… Welcome to the No Credit Card Needed Family!
Keep us up to date on how things go!
NCN
September 6th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Now that is a great original idea. Freeze, baby freeze, we don’t need them!
September 6th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
They’re frozen solid now. And I can’t even read the numbers through the ice.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:03 am
You gotta post a picture of those frozen cards!
September 7th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Why not just cut them up? If you have an emergency fund, why would you ever need them? Having them “frozen” to leaves the temptation around…
September 7th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Hilda - I will try to get pictures of the frozen cards up today.
glblguy - I thought about cutting them up, but I do use my cards for hotel reservations and things like that. It’s a pain to use a debit card, because they hold so much of your money hostage when you reserve a room with a debit card.
The other thing is that while we do have an emergency fund, my husband’s job situation at the moment is still a bit precarious, and our emergency fund is not yet at a level I’m comfortable with. I know it’s just an excuse, but I’m just not ready to completely cut the cards yet.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I think you’re crazy
That’s all. Love ya!
September 8th, 2007 at 6:09 am
This is so crazy, my sister JUST told me about this yesterday! (Freezing cards in a container of water. Wow, word is traveling fast. Good luck to you!
September 8th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Thanks! My husband looked at me like I was nuts, too, but I gotta tell you, it’s nice having those cards out of my purse!
October 14th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
We won’t give up our credit cards, since we use them for everything and get air miles and rebates on them. When I make a purchase on one, I deduct it from my checking register just as I would a debit transaction. When the bill comes, I’ve already accounted for the expenditures, and there is no problem paying off the bill…six years of marriage and not a penny in interest paid!
April 27th, 2008 at 3:11 am
Hehe! I never heard abouth this method to avoid using your credit card but it seems to be usefull. Thanks for the idea.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:11 am
We cut up all our credit cards years ago and I cannot tell you the freedom that it has given us. We tried the freezing method first and then when we kept breaking into them we just cut them up. If you travel a lot for business, I can see keeping one for reservations, but really, other than that, having them is just asking for debt. I’m not talking about a weakness either, I mean only buying when you have the cash for the item. If you want to be truly frugal, that is being truly frugal.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
for those of you freezing you credit cards if you shop online you should try using EBILLME to pay for purchases, really cool you check out via your online bill pay (at your bank) same way you pay any bill via bill pay. just add the dollar amt. There are actually alot of the big sites that accept ebillme now http://www.ebillme.com has a list-dont need a credit card or even a debit card and dont have to give your whole routing number and bank acct number (or any info)like you do with an echeck