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Should You Opt For A Store Or Credit Card?

Over the past year, with finances having been very strained for most households, many people have become increasingly reliant on credit. With Christmas around the corner many of us are likely to use some form of credit to pay for Christmas purchases this year.Store cards and credit cards are amongst the more common forms of credit that are often used over the festive season and New Year to fund the cost of purchases.Putting the cost of Christmas on plastic means that you need to find out whether the credit card or the store card is going best match your needs, so make sure you do a little research and weigh up the pros and cons of each.

When deciding whether to go for a credit or store card you should bear in mind that most industry officials favour credit cards over store cards, and there are a number of reasons for this.There are a number of benefits to using credit cards over store cards, but you need to ensure that you are using the right credit card otherwise you may not get the full benefits.

Retailers make a fortune from store card customers, and at this time of year when spending levels traditionally rise they tend to push these cards at the point of sale in the hope of getting lots of consumers to sign up for them.When you use a store card to make purchases and you spread the repayments on the balance you will end up paying far more for the goods that you buy, and this is because the rate of interest charged on these cards can be very high indeed.

Although retailers try and make store cards sound tempting by offering discounts and various incentives, you will find that these offers are counteracted because of the high level of interest that is charged on your outstanding balance, so you are still worse off.It is worth remembering that store cards can only be used at a certain store or chain of stores, and therefore another downside to these cards is that their usage is far more restricted than that of credit cards.

When it comes to credit cards many people find themselves falling into high levels of debt through the use of these cards, and some cards charge high rates of interest, although not as high as most store cards. What you can do, however, is opt for a 0% purchase card, where you can spread your repayments over a longer period and still not have to pay any interest.unlike a store card, you can use your credit card to make purchases from any place that accepts credit card payments, and this is another benefit of using a credit card over a store card.It may also be worth considering a rewards based credit card or a cash back card if you are going to be repaying your balance in full within the interest free period.

Author Resource:- Alisdair Cosgrove has been writing finance articles for many years and can find more of his work at the UK site CreditCardsWeb.co.uk, offering credit cards for UK residents and also a great selection of best balanace transfers.
Submitted 2009-01-07 08:11:10
By: Alisdair Cosgrove 29 or more times read
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