If you have a credit card and still pay it off each month, that’s still short term debt.
What exactly is the difference between taking cash out of your wallet for each expense in a given month, and keeping the cash in there and taking it all out at once at the end of the month, the exact same amount as the sum of the cash you would have taken out over the month each time you purchase something?
If you’re never carrying a balance to the next statement cycle and therefore charged no interest, you’re only “in debt” in the most pedantic sense possible, as what you’re paying back is not a penny more than what you’d be paying anyway in cash. The literal only difference is when you’re paying that same amount.
You can disagree all you like, but you absolutely are being obtuse and pedantic, as much as if I said “It’s important to highlight that borrowing a book from the library is debt.”
Yes, literally, and technically, it is, but in reality, no one actually thinks of borrowing a book from the library in that way, because there is no interest accrued.
Paying your month’s expenses all at once instead of one at a time, by using a credit card instead of cash and paying off the statement balance every month, is functionally identical to borrowing from a library, not to taking out an installment loan with an interest rate.
What exactly is the difference between taking cash out of your wallet for each expense in a given month, and keeping the cash in there and taking it all out at once at the end of the month, the exact same amount as the sum of the cash you would have taken out over the month each time you purchase something?
If you’re never carrying a balance to the next statement cycle and therefore charged no interest, you’re only “in debt” in the most pedantic sense possible, as what you’re paying back is not a penny more than what you’d be paying anyway in cash. The literal only difference is when you’re paying that same amount.
I’ll disagree with you that it’s pedantic at all. It’s important to highlight that charging things to a credit card is debt.
You can disagree all you like, but you absolutely are being obtuse and pedantic, as much as if I said “It’s important to highlight that borrowing a book from the library is debt.”
Yes, literally, and technically, it is, but in reality, no one actually thinks of borrowing a book from the library in that way, because there is no interest accrued.
Paying your month’s expenses all at once instead of one at a time, by using a credit card instead of cash and paying off the statement balance every month, is functionally identical to borrowing from a library, not to taking out an installment loan with an interest rate.