Credit is convenient, and convenience has a way of hiding its price. The cost of borrowing is rarely felt at the moment of purchase, which is exactly why it is so easy to underestimate.
When you pay only the minimum, a small balance can stretch across months and quietly grow. The item you bought is long forgotten while the interest keeps arriving, attached to nothing you can still enjoy.
A useful exercise is to translate interest back into hours of work. Seeing a purchase in terms of the time it actually costs, once borrowing is included, makes the tradeoff far more concrete than a percentage ever could.
This does not mean credit is the enemy. Used deliberately and paid in full, it is a tool. The danger is drift, where borrowing becomes the default instead of a choice you make with your eyes open.
The goal is simple awareness. When you know the real price of carrying a balance, you can decide when it is worth it and when it quietly is not, rather than finding out later on a statement.
