I have two cards, I will not use them for ANYTHING. I keep the limit on them to 500.00 each. Basically what I would probably need to repair my car if anything happened.
I have two savings acounts and an IRA. The one savings account is for emergency rent, and the other is for saving for travel. I pay myself every payday in all three accounts.
I learned the hard way that credit is dangerous when I was a student and lost a job and had to pay rent on a card. Even though my mother has always been in finance and told me never to rely on it. It is so easy to do so with the way credit was crammed down our throats a couple years ago.
*knock on wood* I am actually in the most financially secure time I have ever been in. Luckily my employer is cutting $$ by cutting things we do extra as a company like catering meetings, paying people to go to conferences, and the cutting things management gets to do/bonuses so that most all of us kept our jobs. The 'fat' they did trim was obvious and they even tried to relocate most of those people into different positions or add on to their duties.
I really feel for the people who are being affected hard by this though.
I'm glad I clawed my way out of debt a year or two before this also. We liquidaded a lot of my boyfriends Star Wars stuff and it went for pretty much what we asked, which was kind of low, but not horribly low.
I have to say I will never use credit to buy anything other than a house again. My grandfather never did. I will just have to do with out things until I can afford to pay cash for them. And live within my means.
Luckily I have been able to learn to sew and do well painting rebel props as I've been able to sell and trade to feed my costuming and patch collecting habit mostly using that.