I read an article on msn.com yesterday about how college students are bombarded with credit card offers, the pros and cons of having a student with a credit card, etc.

One bullet caught my attention. It advised sticking to a budget -- not a bad thing in itself. But it then suggests not using more than 10% of your take-home pay for debt. Basically, if you take home $750/month, make sure that no more than $75 go toward credit cards.

Now, we could interpret this to mean "charge no more than $75/month" or we could interpret this as "don't charge so much that you'll need more than $75/month to meet your minimum payments."

I can only think of a few instances where it would be advisable to buy anything on credit (i.e., not for convenience). Otherwise, I think that this is a very irresponsible way to view credit cards. Budgeting in consumer debt service is asking for trouble.

Just took me aback when I saw experts talking about what an acceptable amount of consumer debt is. I thought it was wise not to take on any if you could possibly avoid it.