Shopping for the holidays can be a crazy time. It’s hard when you come across a great gift idea, but it’s not within your budget. Sadly many people rather put charges on high interest rate credit cards rather then pass up a good deal.
Credit cards are the devil in disguise! As someone who has been burned by them in the past, I avoid them at all costs.
To give you a little background, we were struggling to get by. We ended up having to do grocery shopping on the credit card just to put food on the table and for diapers for our infant and toddler. I was in charge of paying the bills because my husband stressed out about it too much. Eventually it got to be too much and without saying anything to my husband (HUGE mistake!) I applied for another credit card. When that card got maxed out I applied for another. Soon it snowballed out of control. I eventually started to take out cash advances from one credit card to pay another. When all the cards were maxed out I knew we were in big trouble. I had to come clean to my husband (that was the hardest thing I ever had to do!). The only way to get out of the debt was to refinance our mortgage. Because of that refinancing if/when we sell our condo we’ll only profit a couple of thousand dollars – if we’re lucky. If we didn’t refinance we could sell this place and walk away with $75,000 AT LEAST in profit. Sigh…
From that day forward we gave up all credit cards. We had a gasoline credit card for a while, plus one for Sears and Macy’s. But we eventually got rid of those too. We’ve been without a credit card for close to 10 years now. And for the record, NOT having a credit card DOES NOT destroy your credit rating. My husband’s credit rating is PERFECT. I don’t know about mine however, and I rather not know.
Our logic is if we don’t have the $$$ we don’t buy it. Plain and simple. If a 90″ HDTV was on sale for $300 (Ha! Like that would ever happen) and it was a one day only sale – if we don’t have the $$$ in checking we can’t buy it. As much as it would kill us to pass up on a great offer, we will not get ourselves into debt. We do owe $$$, but only to my father. We DO pay him back. It will take us a while, but we pay off chunks as often as we can.
I know that people like to have credit cards on hand just in case of an emergency. I think it would be better to keep a prepaid debit card on hand, one of the ones that you can add money to it whenever you can and it can add up so that you have plenty in case of emergencies (finding the perfect pair of shoes to go with a dress you own is NOT an “emergency” :-)).
There are plenty of pre-paid cards on the market. Some are good, some are bad.
One such card is the KAIKU Visa Prepaid Debit Card.
Here is a little more information about the card.
KAIKU Finance launched the KAIKU card as an affordable, transparent, accessible and convenient money management tool.
The KAIKU card can also help you to easily manage the family’s finances. KAIKU cardholders pay a monthly fee of only $1.95 and access their money at more than 53,000 ATM’s worldwide (through the world’s largest surcharge-free ATM Network) – making it more affordable than a bank account in many cases.
Prepaid cards allow you to load (and reload) set amounts into your account. Once loaded, you can spend these funds like you would from a debit or credit card. The perk of using a prepaid card is you do not run the risk of overspending and incurring high overdraft fees (debit cards) or interest rates (credit cards.)
While I do like the idea of prepaid debit cards, I am not overly happy with the fees some cards charge. KAIKU for example charges you $1.95 a month just to have the card. Even if you don’t use it you still pay $1.95/mo. That means you pay $23.40 a year just for owning the card. It’s much lower then other card fees, I just don’t think there should be a fee at all. Some people don’t mind paying fees. I know some credit cards charge a yearly fee too.
If you withdraw funds from one of the 53,000 in-network ATMs. If you use one that is out of the network you will pay .95 cents just to check your balance and $1.45 to withdraw funds PLUS whatever fees that ATM charges. That can be costly. You shouldn’t have to pay to check your balance.
As with any prepaid card you should keep track of any additional fees you might have to pay out. You can find a list of all the fees on the KAIKU website, KAIKU.com/Card/Fees.
A prepaid card like KAIKU is a great way to help children (and college students) how to live on a budget because parents are able to deposit money on their kids’ KAIKU cards via direct deposit, cash loading, card-to-card transfer or bank transfer. Your kids can then spend wherever Visa debit cards are accepted and withdraw cash at ATMs. Kids can also reload the card themselves with their own money and use KAIKU’s online tracking tool and unique mobile application that allows anyone to track real-time purchasing, in order to better learn how to budget.
I like the idea of giving a card like this to a college student. They will have to learn to budget wisely which is a skill they MUST have for the “real world”. I’m not sure if I agree with giving a card like this to a child, but for a teenager I can see the value of it. Our daughter it hoping to get a job next summer. I might look into her getting a KAIKU card. She can put some of the money into savings and the rest loaded on to a prepaid card.
I have a KAIKU card and so far I like it. The only issue I have is the monthly fee, but like I said earlier, other cards charge monthly or yearly fees. The $1.95 a month is certainly a lot less then what others charge.
I also like that its a VISA card so it’s accepted everywhere whether it’s the grocery store, deli, movie theater or a retail store. It also looks like a regular card so no one would know that it’s a prepaid card.
I also like that it has a smartphone app so you can access your account anytime, anywhere.
For more information about KAIKU visit www.KAIKU.com. You can also find them on Facebook and on Twitter.
Kimberly
*I received a free card preloaded with funds in order to try it out and do the review. There was no other compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and are not influenced in any way.