The difference is that I generally feel safe carrying a debit card around where I wouldn't with even $100 in cash. In the US, we are just getting chip cards for

The difference is that I generally feel safe carrying a debit card around where I wouldn't with even $100 in cash. In the US, we are just getting chip cards for debit, so even if my wallet is stolen, I can just call the bank and cancel it, but I can't do that with cash. I'm with you on the credit cards-- for me, they're just a point-generating mechanism-- but it's easy for me, since if I accidentally go over my budget, I have enough savings to easily cover it whenever that happens. For people who live more paycheck-to-paycheck, that can be devastating, and it's sometimes non-trivial to compute your safe-to-spend amount from a current credit card balance, expected expenses, and current bank balance.