Buying HiFi at credit, anyone?

Agree wtih Reubent. If you can't pay cash for it, you cannot afford it. Simple as that.

I would say that practically everyone that uses a credit card does so with a plan to pay it off. However, life intervenes in those plans too often, i.e. your car breaks down and needs repair, your water heater breaks, you lose your job, etc. and before you know its three years later and you're still paying for that amp you bought 3 years ago. Also, the "opportunity cost" theory is difficult to apply to credit cards because the interest rates on credit cards are so high. There's few , if any, guaranteed investment vehicles available that would return more than typical credit card interest (the average rate is more than 10%). It's easy to rationalize how using a credit card is a good idea, but in reality its simply not.

Like I said earlier, its easy to rationalize the use of credit cards as clearly evidenced in this thead.