Money For Nothing: How To Land The Best Deals On Your Insurances, Cards, Super, Tax And More

Week 6: Attack your credit cards!

We love to hate them and hate to love them, but for many of us credit cards are a fact of life. Sometimes a pricey fact — in Australia we currently owe about $50 billion on credit, three-quarters of which accrues interest. At an average interest rate of 17 per cent, that equates to billions of dollars in bank revenue every year.

So much bank revenue. I mean, why else do they have huge marketing budgets for their credit cards? Why else are there all those advertisements showing beautiful, shiny people buying beautiful, shiny things that apparently in some way make their life happier and shinier and, well, more beautiful? It’s not for our benefit, believe me!

So, as consumers we’re paying interest on somewhere ...