50th birthday for the credit card: priceless

On this, the fiftieth birthday of the credit card, it’s appropriate to reflect on our relationship with that most fantastic of plastic. The credit card is a global phenomenon, but also a deeply personal issue. Until recently, I was wading unsteadily through glutinous swamps of debt, but I am happy to report that hallelujah, I am now free of debt on the three credit cards I possess.

I plan to get rid of them as soon as possible, though I’ll make sure I spend my Clicks cash back vouchers first, before I dump the Clicks credit card. With all that spending in Aussie dollars, I’ll be able to buy plenty of hair dryers and foot spas and 3 for 2 offers.

It has been a slog, and it took months to pay it all off, but I am finally in a position to feel smug about people like the woman cited in this article who had 53 credit cards and over $100,000 in debt.

When we reflect on the twentieth century innovations that impacted our lives, we tend to focus on things like the transistor, the television and the computer. But what about the mechanism that allowed us to buy those things in the first place? Credit cards have irrevocably altered the shape of consumer capitalism, making it blissfully easy to accumulate stuff without necessarily having the wherewithal to pay for it. A credit card isn’t a subprime mortgage, but it fed a culture of thoughtless, and ceaseless, acquisition.

The timing, of course, couldn’t be more fitting.

The first proper credit card (as opposed to a charge card) appeared in 1958. Since then, credit cards have become part of our lives, and credit card debt is an inextricable element of the financial malaise afflicting countless consumers across the globe. Most of us will have experienced the enthusiasm with which institutions dangle credit cards and jaw-dropping limits in front of us. Even after the passing of the National Credit Act in June last year, I was plagued with credit card offers and I am sure many of you were, too.

Australians are fond of credit cards, even more so than South Africans; colleagues have told me that historically, Australians tend to spend themselves out of recession. Certainly, the gloominess of the times has not stopped the appearance of new ways to spend money you don’t have. The David Jones credit card was launched yesterday, a month or so after the Woolworths Everyday Money card, and online advertising continues unabated. In the mean time, I have moved on from my desire to possess an Australian credit card, and will make do with a Visa Debit instead.

As a person in advertising, however, I do feel honour-bound to doff my metaphorical cap to the role that credit cards play in consumer culture and the advertising that drives it; it is only appropriate, that one of the best campaigns over the last decade or so is Mastercard’s Priceless campaign, launched in 1997 and which has since become ingrained in popular culture.

Last payment: R3 642.
Interest charges: R547.
Getting the debt monkey off my back: priceless.