“If You Use A Credit Card, You Don’t Want To Be Rich” – Mark Cuban

With a net worth of 4.1 billion dollars, you bet Mark Cuban definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to money. Besides, he’s known as the co-founder of Broadcast.com and as the owner of NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

So for those who want to become wealthy in life, he does have some advice – and it might be something that may be a bit hard to take for some people.

In a post on his How To Get Rich weblog, Cuban wrote:

“Cut up your credit cards. If you use a credit card, you don’t want to be rich.

“The first step to getting rich requires discipline.”

Of course, many of us are guilty of using credit cards because they seem to be a convenient way of spending without carrying cash. But sometimes that’s exactly where problem lies: swiping a card is too easy and before we know it, we’ve already gone beyond our budget because of that. In short, we’re burning money we do not even have yet.

Cuban, according to him, was a credit card user back in the days. However, he eventually came to realize how it was actually leading him to financial dangers.

As he said:

“Credit cards are the worst investment that you can make. That the money I save on interest by not having debt is better than any return I could possibly get by investing that money in the stock market.

“I thought I would be a stock market genius. Until I wasn’t. I should have paid off my cards every 30 days.”

So now the self-made billionaire wants others to learn from his experience. If people choose to keep using credit cards, he says, they should do so responsibly and with great caution.

“Get the credit card because it’s great to help you build your credit score early. You don’t have to use a credit card a lot to build your credit score — you just have to pay your credit card bills on time and pay those cards off in full every month,” he emphasized.

So yes: know your limits, avoid unnecessary debt and be sure to pay your bills without delay.