Last August, The Motley Fool, one of the most entertaining personal finance and investing websites out there, published an article called the 8 Commandments of Credit that I feel every consumer should read. Some of the commandments are common sense, some of them may not apply, but an educated consumer has a duty to read and understand what these rules mean and ensure that they follow them. They address some of the tactic that credit card companies use to try to extract as much money as they can from unsuspecting consumers like you and I. In this series I will elaborate on some of these commandments and give my personal take.

Commandment III. Don’t pay by their rules.

Don’t ever just make the minimum payment, in fact, try to pay off the entire balance or as much as you can every single time you get a bill. The minimum payment, a paltry 2-5%, means you’ll pay an arm and a leg for that cup of coffee last week and you’ll be paying it in bits and pieces for the better part of forever. Would you go into a bank and try to get a loan at 18% for a cup of coffee? No. Would you ask your friend to borrow five bucks (yeah, coffee’s expensive these days) that you’d return tomorrow for a cup of coffee? Sure. And you wouldn’t pay your friend back a quarter at a time, would you?

Source: The Motley Fool