As part of their Earth Day Lite ™ coverage, CNN solicited suggestions on saving money in this tough shitty economy. What this has to do with Earth Day, I know not, other than that saving money and “being green” sometimes intersect. They could have elaborated, really.

Anyway, Cheryl from New Mexico kind of irritated me:

DON LEMON: Here’s what Cheryl from New Mexico writes: “I no longer shop online, and I don’t use credit cards except in an extreme emergency. And that is almost never.”

Zum, what’s with all the hating on the credit cards and the internets? As long as both are used responsibly, they can help you save money.

Let’s start with the credit cards, since they’re a wee bit more difficult to defend than the internet. As long as you know how to play the system, credit cards can be pretty durn useful. For starters, don’t charge more on a card than you can easily pay off - in full - the next month. Inexplicably, banks are exempt from usury laws, such that 36% interest rates are the norm. So I’m definitely not saying that you should run out and charge expensive items that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. Overspending, bad. Interest charges, bad. Greedy banks, bad. No argument there.

But as long as you stay within your budget, charging everyday items is a good thing. You can increase your credit score and earn rewards from your credit card company. (I earn $25 Amazon gift certificates, usually to the rate of 1-2 a month. How do you think I fund all those book piles?) And I’ll only pay with credit when shopping on eBay - if the seller ends up being a fraud, I can contest the charges. Not so much if I pay via a cash transfer from my bank, something that Paypal always seems to be pushing, the the point of harassment.

The “Credit cards, evil!!!1!!” meme is especially annoying, perhaps because this is something I’ve been hearing lectures about since I got my own card. Back when I first moved in with Shane, when I was still in college, I worked at a local grocery store part-time. Since I was already there, and I hated wasting time with the unpaid, forced half hour lunches I had to take during every shift six hours or longer, I did all the grocery shopping for us, usually during my lunch break. I could not believe the admonitions some of the guys (they were always guys) in the grocery department would give me about paying for groceries on my credit card! As though I was going to blow my paycheck on shiny glass jars of peaches or something. We wimmins, just can’t be trusted with plastic. We have an extra special femaley spending gland, located somewheres down near the ovaries, donthchaknow?

In retrospect, my store was filled with Nice Guys ™, probably of the concern troll variety. I just didn’t have the blaming skillz to call ‘em out harshly as I should have. Patriarchy-blaming is yet another gift the internets has bestowed upon this featherhead.

Which brings me to Cheryl’s misguided internet hating.

I’m at that weird age where I can remember growing up without the internet, but was still a (very) young adult when it exploded in popularity. I can recall, with little fondness, doing all my gift shopping at the local mall because really, what the fuck else was there? The prices were ridiculous, the selection pathetic, the stores crowded. It sucked shriveled white CEO manballs. Most of the time, especially around x-mas time, I’d settle for the closest-to-best or least objectionable gift I could find, out of options and time. Usually it was a knickknack that the recipient sure as hell didn’t need, or a piece of clothing he or she would never wear. Junk, mounds of it.

Among other things, the internet revolutionized shopping. Now I can actually purchase gifts that my friends and family will like and use. Living in the middle of the country, I can buy gifts from local NY stores - gourmet food, even! - and have it delivered. I can buy hard-to-find books and indie magazine subscriptions that I never would have had access to pre-internet. Hello, knowledge! Is there a better gift? And your gift doesn’t even have to be “stuff” - I can, say, make a donation to one of thousands of nonprofit organizations that match the recipient’s ethics and priorities. The possibilities are endless.

And don’t even get me started on the comparison shopping. Used to be, you’d have to drive from store to store, save receipts, and average out the totals to find out which grocery store had the best deals overall. Can we say wasting gas? For the bigger ticket items, maybe you could call around, but that only worked as long as the sales associates accommodated you. Like, if you knew exactly what you wanted - item, model and style. At near-minimum wage, they weren’t about to sit on the phone with you all afternoon and price every damn tv in the store.

Now you can do all this via Google in the time it’d take you to drive to your destination. Unless you’re a genuine shopping addict, this choice and convenience is un-fucking-paralleled. It saves time, money, gas.

Seriously, I don’t know how the world (my world, at least) went round pre-1994, the year my family finally got an internet connection. AOL Dialup, but still.

Anywho, the rest of the audience feedback was sound. Larry and Shiraz are on to something.

KEILAR: Larry is cutting back on using gas. He writes: “I live about five miles from work, and I have a scooter that gets about 110 miles per gallon. I used to get teased about using it, but look who’s laughing now!”

LEMON: Right.

KEILAR: That’s right, Larry, for sure.

LEMON: OK. Shiraz is trying a bunch of new things to save money. He sent us this list. Here’s what he says: “Paying bills online, stuffing the washing machine before I run it, considering renting my home and moving in with friends to help with their mortgage. I gave up my home phone number, and I’m using samples of soap and shampoo.”

Wow.

KEILAR: Shiraz is serious about this.

See how Shiraz pays his bills online? Now that’s what I’m talking abut.

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Tagged: online the internet cnn money green credit cards credit shopping shopping online