It’s summertime and that means beach trips with the family, girls’ night out, or a guys’ golf weekend. You plan the agenda and save for months to ensure that your trip expenses are covered. The result? An epic time with pictures on your phone – and hopefully some money left in your bank account.
But with all the fun going on, you may not be planning for unexpected expenses. Of course, when you least expect it, there’s a broken arm from a fall on the playground, a leak in your backyard pool, or a busted air conditioner. These mishaps usually need an immediate fix, and they are never cheap.
We’d all love to think that we’ve saved enough cash for that rainy day, but in reality, more Americans are leaning on the convenience and availability of credit cards for emergency purchases.
A recent Yahoo article offers advice on how to restrict credit card usage to emergencies, with suggestions like narrowing the number of credit cards you have to one or two and having someone else that must “approve” your credit card before you use it.
However, there are also many “non-emergency” situations where having a credit card is almost a requirement. “Merchants like hotels or car rental agencies won’t even let you in the door without a credit card,” states Jake Engle, a certified financial planner with Wealth Planning & Management. And the examples go on: airlines don’t accept cash for food and beverage services on flights, advance tickets for movies are purchased online, and hospitals are managing patient payments electronically.
These examples may give the perception that only big merchants are embracing the convenience of plastic, but merchants across all verticals and sizes do benefit from electronic payment processing. Bluefin provides merchants with a PCI-DSS compliant, fully loaded payment gateway, PayConex, that offers debit/credit card and ACH processing, recurring and subscription billing, and electronic check acceptance – from any PC, encrypted mobile or POS swipe device!
So the next time you think you have plenty of cash and all of your expenses and costs in line – don’t forget to grab that credit card.