How many prepaid debit cards do you have in your home?
@beautyqueen26 (16030)
United States
August 11, 2007 9:43pm CST
The other day I was reorganizing my kitchen and found four prepaid debit cards! Of course, none of them had any funds left to spend. But, it was still kind of funny that I would have actually invested into so many debit cards. I think my spouse purchased most of the cards on a whim to pay for various bills online. It was an emergency kind of situation that you easily justify at the time and then later regret. And, actually regret is probably the right word for it, since each one of the cards cost at least $10 each to buy and then $5.00 monthly to maintain! And, what's so silly is that each card only allows you to maintain a $500 balance! I think I'm better off sticking with my bank debit card. At least they don't limit the funds I have access to.
Thinking about it now, I do love my prepaid debit cards, because they are almost impossible to over-draw funds. Unlike a bank debit card or checking account that allows transactions to go through even if you don't have funds and then charges you some outrageous fees, prepaid debit cards just cut you off! So, in a way, they help you budget. If you don't have the money, then you can't buy anything. Now that's strong medicine.
So, how many prepaid debit cards do you have in your purse or wallet? Do you find that you use your prepaid debit cards even more than your bank debit card? Why do you like or dislike prepaid debit cards?
2 people like this
4 responses
@carlaabt (3504)
• United States
12 Aug 07
The closest we ever have to a prepaid debit card is gift cards to places like Walmart and Target. We have about $150 in giftcards right now, but the only reason we have them is because I've won them playing a game online, or got them from mypoints. We're using them to buy Christmas gifts for our son, so we don't have to come up with money out of our regular income.
I don't think that prepaid debit cards are worth it. We use our credit card to pay bills online. It has a separate online account number, that isn't the same as the number that is actually on our card. It can only be used online, and only on sites that we approve through the company. We then pay that balance in full each month from our checking account.
On our checking account, we also have a reserve line, so we avoid over draft fees in case we forget about something, and go over a little bit one month.
2 people like this
@beautyqueen26 (16030)
• United States
19 Aug 07
Thats a really good idea, cause those bank over draft fees can really hurt you in the long run.
@cutepenguin (6430)
• Canada
12 Aug 07
We don't have prepaid debit cards. We have regular bank cards and credit cards. It hasn't occurred to us to get a prepaid debit card - when we shopped online, we just used a credit card that has a low limit.
I think they're just not as common around here. Banks don't really have them.
1 person likes this
@suspenseful (40192)
• Canada
16 Aug 07
I so nor have any prepaid debit card, but I do have a Futureshop gift card that I have not used yet. If the card is for a specific shop, I do not mind. They are not that common here in Canada, although I do see a few in Walmart. But most of what we get are gift cards for a specific store or brand of store, like for Home Depot, Sears, Walmart, Futureshop, or Best Buy. Gift cards do not cost anything to maintain, so I would not like to get a prepaid debit card since I prefer either paying by credit card or debit card.
