> I wish I understood more how people use credit cards. I'll give you the low-down: many Americans don't make enough money to save up money for medical emergen

> I wish I understood more how people use credit cards. I'll give you the low-down: many Americans don't make enough money to save up money for medical emergencies, and other emergencies, so when one of those happens, they reach for their credit card. Yes, it's a bad idea, but when they're a few months out of the hospital, possibly still sick, then it's easy to panic when getting repeated calls from debt collectors and pull out their credit cards. Same thing happens with auto repairs and house repairs. And many such incidental expenses. As a software developer making over $100,000/year, the instinct of many people here on HN is to say, "why the hell don't they save more?". But when you're making $30,000/year and raising a couple of kids, it's really not possible to save money in most cities and their suburbs. Sure, they could save up more money with that income in a cheap rural area or small town, but then there's no jobs. Saving up enough money for medical and other emergencies is much harder to do for the average lower- to lower-middle class American that many people on HN might realize.