Credit cards are probably one of the most singularly abused and misused items in today's world. Credit card misuse is rampant. We treat credit cards like they are legitimate currency, yet in the traditional sense they are not. With 'real' currency, once you spend it, hand it over, you are done. The transaction is complete. With a credit card, you may well just be getting around to finally paying for that blouse ten years from now. Is that what you want?

If you are one of those folks whose credit card debt seems out of control, you belong to a very large club. The Club of Folks Who Didn't Understand The Impact of Overusing Credit Cards Until It Seemed Like it Was Too Late. Ouch. Now that is a very hefty sounding and unflattering name for a very active membership club.

For you lucky ones that are not in this club, trust me when I tell you it is NOT a club you want to become a member of. Fortunately it is a club that is easy to steer clear of. There is only one rule for avoidance and I'm going to share it with you.

RULE 1 (and 2 and 3 and 4): Do not put any charges on your credit card if you cannot pay them, in full, that very same month.

Strangely, such a concept may sound odd. What! You say. I gotta have the MONEY before I can buy something? Uhh…yeah. Because if this is not your mindset, then that may very well explain why you find yourself in the rat-race of earning money to pay credit cards that you then must charge more stuff on because you have no money left after you pay your credit card bills.

Fortunately, there is a new movement afoot. Call it a new philosophy. It's wild. It's daring. It's logical. We'll call it The New World View for Credit Cards. To subscribe to this new philosophy you need only follow Rule 1. Simple. And you must develop a reasonable, well thought out plan for tackling any existing credit card debt, with the goal of debt elimination.

The New World View for Credit Cards is actually (I've got to be honest here) the pre-Old World View-view. Yep. I'm old enough to remember that my parents, and every other adult I knew, had never even HEARD of a credit card. No sir. The idea that people would go out and buy things (things they wanted, but didn't really need for survival) en masse without having the money to pay for them would have been beyond unthinkable. It would have been laughable.

To pre-Old World View people the thought that adults would readily hock their financial future without knowing how they'd ever get out of hock would have made most double over in laughter, right after their eyes widened in horror at the sheer mention of such an idea. To the pre-people, the tradeoff of having tons of neat stuff in exchange for sleepless nights, worry lines, family fights, and general overall financial panic…well…that would not have seemed like such an enticing quid pro quo.

For millions of years people managed to get by without credit cards. Granted, there may have been less cool stuff available, but believe me were always plenty of places to spend money. IF they had the money to spend.

Am I sounding firm, rude, direct? Yes I am. Why? Because I want to shock you out of complacency about your situation. I want to make you see that having credit card debt out the wazoo is NOT okay. I want to help you believe that you will be the same fine, unique and extraordinary person (except better) even without possessing all of the goodies you cannot afford. Psss. By the way, neither can most of the other folks who have them, but don't let them know I told you.

You may not be convinced yet. You may even be thinking, what is the point of having a credit card if you can't use it during those times when you don't have the cash to pay for the purchase? Precisely. That IS precisely the point.

If you don't have cash to pay for a purchase, you can't afford it. Let's say that again, out loud. 'If I don't have enough cash to pay for a purchase, I can't afford it.'

To think otherwise is to be stuck in the Old World View.

The Old World philosophy was multi-layered and, as it turns out, destructive. It turned many of us into self-deceivers. We deceived ourselves into thinking any number of erroneous thoughts. Here are just a few of them:

1. Spending with a credit card is like 'free money'. I can just use it like monopoly money, without consequence.

2. I can happily (the key word) have lots of things that I wouldn't be able to have if I needed cash to purchase them.

3. I can afford all of these things because I can just put them on my credit card and pay for them over time.

4. I need all of the 'stuff' I get with my credit card. After all, everybody has this stuff (yes, many of them being your fellow Club members).

5. Even though I don't have the money to buy this stuff, if I put it on my credit cards nobody will know and everyone will think better of me as I will appear more successful. (So how do you define success and who are you MINUS all that stuff?)

6. One day I'll pay off my credit cards and get out of debt (we'll look at that possibility shortly).

7. Saving isn't THAT important because if I have a financial emergency I can just use a credit card to take care of it.

Lets look at the facts now. How many of you must answer 'YES' to this scenario. You can't pay all of your bills, or save any money, because you owe so much in credit card payments that a huge percentage of your income goes to paying the credit card payments each month. There is no money left over so you then have to charge purchases on your credit card, or do without. So your credit card balances keep going up, or staying up, you have no excess money, what you are paying on the credit cards is the minimum so you're basically only paying interest (no different then just burning your money and throwing away the ashes), and the truth is, you will never get those credit cards paid off. It is the ultimate example of a vicious cycle.

Here's an example.

Your credit card balance: $5,000

Interest Rate: 18.90%

Monthly Payment: $200.00

Time to Payoff: 13 years.

THIRTEEN YEARS! AND, that is IF you never put another charge on the card. If you keep charging, the time it takes to payoff the debt goes up, very likely extending into decades, if ever.

Lets say you have $10,000 in credit card debt, a high interest rate, and you are making minimum payments. The truth is, it will probably take you somewhere between 55 and 60 YEARS to pay it off. Not a good deal for you. Great deal for the lender.

Can you see now that this is a very unwise use of your money? It's a financial throwaway. It's the OLD way. Taken a step further, imagine if you put that same money (the payment money) into a savings vessel for all those years. Instead of it COSTING you interest, for which you get absolutely NO return, you are now EARNING interest, and it is compounding. You've now put yourself on the other side of the coin, which is exactly where you want to be.

Even if you feel stuck with the Old World View because of the amount of debt you have, rest assured there are answers. It's simply a matter of finding the best one to fit your situation.

An equally critical component of your future financial success is to begin switching your mentality to the New World View for Credit Cards. Why? Because the fact is that as long as you continue to THINK the same way, you will take the same actions. Make the same choices.

Here are some basic thought tenets of the New World View:

1. I'll sleep much better if I do not have to panic about how to pay my credit cards.

2. I'm acting with more integrity if I live within my means. Pretending I CAN afford things I CANNOT afford is a lie. Mainly, I'm lying to myself.

3. It will feel much better to know I have extra money in the bank and am working towards financial stability. That won't cause me to feel stress and panic. Credit card debt causes me to panic.

4. If friends ask me why I don't have this or that in the latest goodie I will tell them that, instead, I have that money in the bank, earning interest and growing. Talk about sounding and being successful!

All right my friends please join the new movement. Rewire your thinking about credit cards and their purpose. Commit here and now and sleep well tonight.