I was shocked recently while visiting the Coke machine at my place of employment.  Over the holidays, a credit card reader had been placed on the machine.  So, now if you're desperately thirsty, you can swipe your Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover to pay for a 70 cent can of Coke.

Apparently, the use of credit cards is growing to the extent that we should now pay for things that cost less than a dollar using our favorite credit card.  The use of cash is now old-fashioned.  In fact, according to new Visa commercials, you are holding up everyone else in line if you have the gall to pay with cash.  To see an example, click here.  To see more examples, you can visit Visa's advertising campaign site here.

The reason that merchants and the credit card companies are so interested in folks using credit cards to pay for purchases, instead of cash, is that statistics show that people typically spend more (up to 20% more) when using plastic than when paying with cold, hard cash.

It seems innocent enough to buy a can of Coke with your credit card.  However, if you're not careful, you can end up carrying a balance and paying for that can of cola over the next decade or more.  I like Coke as much as the next person (maybe even more).  However, there's no way that I'm using a credit card to buy a single can from a vending machine...I guess I'll just have to annoy my co-workers by making them wait while I dig through my pockets for loose change.

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