Researching Payment Options and Why I Don't Use Credit Cards

Ok, FreshBooks is more of an invoice generator system.  If you only have 3 clients a month, you can have a free account; up to 25 clients costs around $20./month; etc.

What a great company though! The woman I spoke to on the phone listened to what I needed and suggested I check into a PayPal Business account, which she said would be free for what I wanted, and would enable me to accept credit cards. She also mentioned Stripe. And Square - now I have heard of artists who use Square on their smart phones to process sales of their paintings in shows that they set up outdoors, or at craft fairs, and I know it is an excellent service.

Thing is, I don't personally use credit cards. I cut mine up in the late 1980s, not because I was in debt, but because I was appalled by the interest rates, and how people are routinely gouged. It's my one hold-out against Capitalism. Credit cards enable people to borrow on the future. For a whopping price, if you don't get it paid off within the month. I believe in living here and now, debt-free. Even if I have virtually nothing, I owe nothing. This way of living is compatible with my belief system, and I am comfortable with it. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy it, whatever it is. Companies that won't accept my cash, like Amazon, don't get my business, that's all there is to it. I won't be forced into getting a credit card to buy a book that I would really like to have and which is only for sale on Amazon (who also do not offer even gift cards for plain cash).

But for me to accept payment via credit cards for my chapbook and paintings and so on, now I may be snagged there. I may be forced to get a credit card to accept payment by credit cards. If this is so, I'll be finally caught and pulled into the massive debt system that is probably the deepest cause for the many ails of our species on this planet. I won't go on a rant about how the profit margins rule the roost, even at the expense of people's lives, and the environment itself.

Maybe. I'm sure I'll balk. A simple PayPal button may be all I can offer if I wish to be able to live with the fury I feel at the horrors of interest payments on IMF loans for third world countries right down to the guy who goes bankrupt and loses everything because of defaulting on a credit card whose interest payments have exceeded the amount borrowed.

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