What is a debit card?

A debit card is one form of plastic money that is linked to your bank account and is as good as cash. You can use it in merchant establishments and pay up or use it in an ATM to withdraw cash.

What are the ten words on using debit cards and personal finance advice?

1. A debit card is an excellent means to replace your cash. It eases you off the burden of carrying cash and at the same time provides you with the convenience of cash.

2. Unlike cash you can keep track of the payments made through your debit card. This will help in keeping track of your personal finances as you may not remember where you spent that $18 last week if they go from cash but you will have an entry in the bank if you spend it through the debit card.

3. You must handle the PIN number and identification details carefully. Most people are in the habit of storing their pins in their mobiles. While it is good to store the pin in a place that you can later retrieve from easily it should not be too easily viewable to others. What you can do is instead of storing your PIN as just the four or five digit number you can make it look like a phone number with the last digits the same as your PIN.

4. Debit cards and personal finance advice are good instruments for people who are in the habit of overspending on their credit cards. You can have the convenience of plastic money and at the same time cut yourself off that unwanted credit limit by developing a habit of using your debit instead of your credit card at all places.

5. If your debit card however is stolen it is relatively easier to be used than a credit card. This is because you can block your credit and stop payment in the case of a credit card but as soon as the debit card is used the money in your account is gone and therefore the first thing that you should do if the debit card is stolen is to call up your bank and inform them and stop the card transactions immediately without doing anything else.

6. Here's good debit cards and personal finance advice - Don't give out your personal financial information about the debit or credit card over the phone or on the internet. In one incident an individual who was booking airline tickets was giving out his personal financial information over the phone and while the airline company did not cheat him he was overheard and since only numbers are required for online banking even without physically having the card the guy who overheard him still misused his card.

7. With phishing attacks and viruses and Trojans becoming more and more sophisticated one can never be too careful while giving out their personal finance information over the internet. The key is to make sure that there are a few websites only which you use to purchase online and you make yourself familiar with them so that if there is any attempt of creating a mirror website and tricking you off your details you can spot something fishy and report to the authorities immediately.

8. Debit cards act as a good mechanism for parents whose children are going out to college and are going to live separately. While on one hand it gives the parents the comfort to know that their children can get access to cash whenever needed at the other hand it also gives them a track of where the money is going and how frequently are the withdrawals being made.

9. Another key thing to note is that while there is no fee for using debit cards normally if you are using debit cards and personal finance advice of one bank in the ATM of another bank there may be some fee attached to it. This is generally high as banks figure you will only do so when faced with no other option. So you should indeed do it when having no other option and keep at the back of your mind that its always better to not spend another couple of dollars when there is an option of saving it.

10. And the last one which we all know but no one really does is its best to keep changing your identification number frequently as even if it leaks once the numbers can't be used after a certain time period.