Buying guns: Cash or Credit

Credit card for every purchase possible...that means no fee for using a CC. Pay off every month and get 1% back which is usually about $250-300 a year. I don't know why more people don't do it. It's FREE money. That's right...completely FREE. Just pay it in full every month. You borrow that money for free every month and then get 1% back on top of that. No brainer IMO.

CRDNLPLT nailed it.

All our groceries, purchases, many of our bills, etc.
Anything we buy or bills we pay, if they take plastic, we use it and pay it off upon receipt of the statement. We even talked the car dealer into putting $2,000 of our SUV on the credit card, just for the reward points. They refused to charge more than $2,000, so we wrote a check for the remainder.

I've never bought a gun with anything except cash (money order if buying online). But I also don't pass up deals! So if I saw a excellent condition Python or Diamondback for $400 or so and I didn't the cash, you can bet I'll put it on plastic. It's never happened, but I'd rather have the option of using the plastic so that a great deal didn't slip away. Deals are getting harder and harder to come by these days.

Last month was the first time in almost a decade that I didn't completely pay off my credit card balance.

Smack my hand with a ruler!

Of course, I'll pay it off this month.

Hey, it's not often that I buy my sister a car on my card!

(Early birthday present. She was getting tired of the old Buick. Too bad she didn't tell me that she wanted another Buick. Just a newer model. So I now have a Chevy Tracker 4x4, she still has her old Buick. My card's gonna get another workout... .)

Cash only. I generally save up my spending cash in a savings account timed to coincide with gun show dates.

Where does American Express fit in? It is always paid off within 30 days and I get 1% back towards a Home Depot card (my usual choice, anyway).

It adds one more way to trace the gun, but I live in Illinois so the transaction is being recorded at some level anyway.

Layaway is NOT an extension of credit, so misleading thread title vis a vis the poll question.

Use credit for a gun? Never, no way; insanely stupid. Unless it's your first gun and some a-hole is stalking you (or you live in the hood), and you're flat broke or some such.

Cash is king as I have yet to have a private party take plastic. Only storefront I buy from is from Bud's and they want cash (money order or check) to receive the discounted price.

A used gun I paid 150.00 for, I was offered three times that by a buyer who wanted it. I could cite others, but a properly maintained used gun almost always sells for more than its original price. Its more like an investment. I just wish I had bought a M1917 Eddystone Enfield when they were $29.95.

Sorry, I was responding above to apoint someone else had made. I voted cash on the barrelhead; back in the 1970s and 1980s I did do several layaway purchases (10% or 30% down and installments sometimes stretched out a few weeks or occasionally a year).

Use credit for a gun? Never, no way; insanely stupid.

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Why?

Cold Hard Cash on the spot.

Cash. And bought.

All done.

There are those who pay cash and the Vendor or Bank smiles.

There are those who owe money and smile at the vendor or bank.

Recently a credit card company contacted us (We have zero balance for years) and threatened to close account. We told them close it and shredded the cards that night.

We provide our own secured credit cards now. And should the banking system fail? No problem we can go on for a time with out it.

VISA is very useful for car rentals, online purchasing, things like that. But the bank I hae that card at has nothing to do with any other banks that might be into our actual finances which are very little.

In fact, Im half expecting our bank to start complaining because they are beginning to pay more in interest to us than they are in fees from us.

If I don't have the money on hand, I don't buy it. Not necessarily cash only, but if I don't have the physical funds to support a purchase on my credit card, I don't buy it.

Priorties are what you make them.

All of mine have been layaway or cash but I have seriously considered credit a couple of times. I bought one online once and did have to do a credit card to secure the shipping and then when I picked it up I paid cash for the remaining balance.

Use credit for a gun? Never, no way; insanely stupid.

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Why?

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Well, I should say, insanely stupid UNLESS you have either (a) 0.00% credit line, or (b) you pay your credit card off every month and therefore incur no interest.

It's insanely stupid otherwise because using unsecured credit is a horribly horribly bad idea unless it's a dire emergency, such as fridge goes out or need to pay a traffic ticket to avoid jail. It's a horribly bad idea because it's throwing money out the window and down the toilet (interest) for no good reason. Having another gun is not a dire emergency. Again, unless, as I said, it's your first one and you need it to defend yourself on an urgent basis.

Using secured credit is not much better on non-vehicle consumer goods like that - in fact, it's worse when you get charged the same interest rate as unsecured debt typically (15-22% - American General, Wells Fargo, & similar), and yet they have a security interest in the item to boot, so you've not even effectively shifted the risk of insolvency/BK away from yourself and onto the creditor!

Just run up your card, it's all good.

If your not be able to pay.
The gov. can bail you out.

runrabbitrun.

That is just stupid.

Let's say I go to money mountain and buy a 1000 dollar gun with a new credit card.

16% interest on that 1000 is alot of money on a 8 day billing cycle. How fast does it take to get the first payment by US MAIL to the CC Company until your Autodraft kicks in?

While you are getting that sorted they go ahead and raise you to 30% interest or worse cut the availible credit line on you without you knowing it.

2010 will be the end of unregulated credit cards in SD and in DEL. But the rats that are getting fat while the getting is still good before the titanic breaks in half.

That thousand dollar gun on credit is going to be VERY expensive when the smoke clears.

I think runrabbitrun was joking.

I believe so too. But I put that on there because MY wife did that once over the holiday season... she activated a store card to get a 15% discount at the register on top of the store sale and thought she did good.

I show up at the store the next morning, with the wife paid the card off, closed the account and learned that the interest was to be 24%

They were very difficult in revealing the terms and interest of the acccount.

So much for the 15% off discount.

That would be the last time we ever do that in our life time. Until our USA's Retail system understands this basic shift which is pernament they will continue to draw in suckers who dont have the cash in the first place to keep the whole merry go round going.

What a waste.

Cash is king.

Where's the option of buying on credit but paying my balance off each month?

Yes. I was joking

Cash is king

Not only do I not buy guns on credit, I don't buy cars or education on credit either. While it may be unavoidable for most of us to pay cash for a home, we are certainly able to get a head on the interest and pay them off much sooner than the bank wants us too, thereby paying perhaps 1-1/2 to 2 times the value of the home, rather than the three times you will pay if you actually let a 30-year mortgage go the full distance. (If you don't believe me, look at the truth in lending statement included with your mortgage paperwork.)

There is a culture and industry in America and worldwide, spending vast resources trying to convince us that we must have everything now, that if you only spend the money that you have you are a fool, and it's ok to give banks interest, which if you invested it would be worth millions over the time you will be working.

So now there is a PERCEIVED sense of urgency to buy before a possible ban, and that it's ok to go into debt for it. One must understand, it certainly would have been better to be prepared no matter who is president, rather than let a crisis which wasn't a surprise at all put you into a position where you are paying interest on something you should have already bought.

Rant finished.