The answer is personal because everyone is free to have as many credit or debit cards as they want and banks, if they have an income, now have no big problems issuing them.
Electronic or paper money?
Many, on the other hand, live without payment cards and prefer paper money to electronic money, but these are questionable choices and are dictated by everyone’s experience.
In any case, nowadays it is very difficult to do without it and, even if we do not yet reach the levels of the United States, where even credit cards are often delivered without being requested, even in Italy it is difficult for many to have a single card. and therefore multiple payment cards are used, whether they are debit or credit, revolving, points, or linked to the cashback mechanism.
Why multiple payment cards?
The reasons are varied and maybe the following:
- each card corresponds to a current account. Theoretically, it would be better to minimize the number of accounts to reduce bank charges, but when there are multiple accounts, a card is often required;
- one card is used for personal expenses and one for business expenses;
- each card corresponds to a different use where one can correspond to the expenses for the children (perhaps rechargeable), one is used for personal expenses, one for those on the net, et cetera;
- some cards are associated with promotions and points collections (eg MilleMiglia Alitalia – American Express) which encourage their use.
- one card is kept for safety in case the other card is demagnetized, lost, or otherwise becomes unusable.
What is the most correct choice?
In my opinion, the multiplication of payment cards can lead to big mistakes and loss of control of your finances. This is because, especially with the deferred payment mechanism of credit and revolving cards, it is easy to get lost and not realize how much you have spent in the current month and find yourself frantically chasing the expenses already made in the previous month.
This is why up to now I have had only one card associated with my Fineco account.
However, now I felt the need to create a second one to follow in the new year to one of the commandments of the American personal bloggers “Pay Yourself First”, that is, first of all, pay yourself.
That’s why I created a rechargeable where’ll move a fixed amount each month, leaving the main account as necessary and irrepressible to pay the bills, the rent, and everything else and transfer into this account because I can spend on myself.
More than creating a new card, I will eliminate or try to limit the use of my old card to zero to switch to a rechargeable concept. Let’s see if it works.
And how many cards do you use and above all how do you use them?