What if the credit card in question has a fixed purchase APR of less than 12 percent?
You can do better than 12% for short-term money. A HELOC is around 8% right now.
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Well, butler, I currently have a fixed-rate credit card with a purchase APR of 8.99 percent.
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Perhaps you should have said “less than 9 percent” in your original post. You won’t do much better than that right now…
Well, butler, when do you think it’s OK to use a credit card as a borrowing mechanism?
Go the old fashioned route and save up until you can afford to buy what you want.
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Heh, that is really old fashioned. This is the debt society… 
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No offense, ole1845, but I’m an unemployed disabled person who receives SNAP benefits as well as SSDI benefits. I have both Medicaid and Medicare. I live with my parents, one of whom serves as my representative payee when it comes to my SSDI benefits. What if I need to use a credit card to pay for a dental procedure?
Ask the dental office if they know of any programs for low/no income patients. Or do you live near a university that has a dental school? They will take patients for low cost.
Well, ole1645, do you consider it OK for one to use a credit card at all? Do you consider it OK for one to use a credit card if one pays a credit card balance in full each and every month?
Of course. It’s almost impossible to exist without a credit card. More and more places don’t take cash. But yes, pay it off every month or have a plan to pay it off quickly.
If you have to borrow money…you should use the lowest rate available for the term that you need. If that’s a CC for you then go for it.
Well, butler, what if such a CC has a purchase APR of 15.10 percent?
I no longer understand the point of this thread. A couple of days ago you posted that you had a CC with a rate below 9%. Now you post that its 15%. You just do whatever you think is the best answer…Im out.
Clarification: I currently have five credit cards. One of my current credit cards is a fixed-rate card with a purchase APR of 8.99 percent. Just a few years ago, however, I only had one credit card. If I remember correctly, it had a purchase APR of 15.10 percent in the late 2010s. It certainly has a purchase APR of 15.10 percent now.
Sorry about your situation, but it looks like your living paycheck to paycheck and borrowing is not going to help you.
Pulling money out of a rainy day fund is the answer. If that doesn’t exist, you need to seriously ask yourself if you probably will be pulled under when the CC bill is due.
Adult Medicaid covers dental care in Idaho. I don’t know about Georgia. Might check into dental care through your Medicaid. Best to you!
I have used credit cards for cheap money when I can do a balance transfer that puts the money straight into my bank account. I just did one to pay off my HELOC but it killed my credit score.
In order to take advantage of a government grant (spend the money and get paid back quickly), I had to take a large loan on a credit card AND create a Solo-401K so I could borrow money from my retirement plan. The time frame was short and I was able to repay both quickly. The amount was $50,000, the grant paid 75% of that back and the plus was that my property value increased more than the $50,000 involved. Yes, the interest cost of borrowing any of that money on the credit card was a hit, but it was a business cost which was written off.
Background: To save our precious water on island, a grant was developed to put in water holding tanks so farmers would not be taking irrigation water from the aquifer, so it was water conservation. I ended up with 80,000 gallons of water tank capacity for irrigation.