Christmas Season? Let Visa Debit Card Handle It Like a Boss!

♫"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."♪ Yes, it should be the most wonderful time of the year! Reunions, parties, shopping for presents, dinners, more presents and the list goes on! Although the real essence of Christmas is not all those merriment, we must admit that this is one of the most sought after months in the whole year, specially for the kids and kids at heart AND spending will be inevitable.

There's a lot of surprises this December! Not only am I talking about gifts but also unexpected dinners and expenses! This is when I get to appreciate my Visa Debit card more. I was at the mall over the weekend when I remembered that I have to pay my Globe bill. I lined up and when it was my turn already, I forgot to check if I have cash. Lo and behold! I forgot that I spent my cold cash on some shopping I did earlier that day in the mall! Do I line up again? No way!

This would be the very first time I tried to use the Visa function from my Unionbank EON card. I have an EON card before but I only use the ATM function. I find it very convenient and helpful because in times of emergency, I still have a card I can use to debit to my account without actually lining up the ATM machine to withdraw or think about the upcoming bank statement. What I did was, I just informed the cashier at Globe that I would like to use the Visa function of the card. It's very annoying to enter your pin in the public, don't you think? Although this is another payment alternative, I'd rather go to the easy route and just sign! Yes! When you use the Visa Debit function, you'll just be signing just like when you use a credit card -- LIKE A BOSS! For this one though, it is instantly debited in your account and you're not going to owe any bank any debt. No more worries of having to pay late credit card billing statements and accumulating all that unwanted interest rates.

As much as possible, I don't want to use my credit card. In fact, my monthly challenge is not to use my credit card at all. This year, I managed to get a bank statement that actually said "Amount due: ZERO!" To make things harder, I decided to stick to that challenge more seriously this December. So what I did was I reloaded my Visa Debit card so I can limit my purchases.

Globe Payment Slip via Visa Debit

Why do I prefer to use my Visa Debit card instead of cash? For one, there are those much needed times when you need to pay for something and you lack cash. Yes, you can withdraw from the ATM but what if for example, you want to buy something and there's only 1 piece left? Would you still have time to withdraw? Again, I don't want to use the credit card because I've been had once when the credit card company charged me interest fees for late payment when the truth was, they sent the statement after the due date. Of course, they wouldn't admit it. Rather than saving money, I ended up spending more because of that late fee.

Other than swiping like a credit card, you can also control your online purchases with this. I'm very particular with regards to the online security of credit cards. Whenever I want to purchase something online, I make sure that I use my debit card because I have heard enough horror stories that others experienced. At least in a debit card, you can control the amount that you can purchase PLUS, when the worst case scenario comes (hacked account etc), the thief can only steal just as much as what you have in your account. I am not saying this debit card is not safe. What I'm saying is, THIS is actually SAFER.

Another way to use it is just like a regular ATM card. I find this Visa Debit card a more practical way to use  as an alternative to cash because of the flexibility it has. How can you pay for your online purchases with cash? In a restaurant when treating someone, I don't like it when people secretly count how much money I am taking out of my wallet. I hate those bank statements that comes late and suddenly, it charges you double that amount you spent (Yes, it happened to me. My $10 dollar bill became $20 dollars).

Whether going shopping in the mall or online, I suggest you try out using the Visa Debit Card. I personally use Union Bank's EON card with Visa but you can visit your nearest Sterling Bank of Asia, Standard Chartered Bank, BDO, East West Bank, Chinatrust Commercial Bank, HSBC or UnionBank branch to apply for a Visa Debit card!

(And another VERY useful feature since I forgot my ATM pincode already: I can still use the Visa (Swipe) function of it to purchase stuff! Cool, eh? Still waiting for Unionbank to reset my pin.)

Cheftonio

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