Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering

The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card
The thing you need to keep in mind is that if you take on debt, you need to have a plan to pay it off and execute on it.  You also need to understand what your carrying cost is (what you will pay in finance charges every month.)  There are times when you need to take on debt in order to be a productive person.  For example, in many places in the US, you need a car in order to have a job.  It's ludicrous for someone to assert that you shouldn't take on any debt in order to get a reliable vehicle.  That doesn't mean you go out and lease the fanciest car that you can get on your income. In this case, I'd say it's a bit of a grey area.  Could you live in an unfurnished apartment for a while?  Perhaps.  Many people would have a hard time living like that and it could affect your ability to perform at work.  I would argue that buying a decent mattress to sleep on falls under the same category as getting a car so that you can work.  You don't want to be missing work because your back is in spasm from sleeping on the floor or a worn out mattress. As far as the rest of it goes, it really depends on how fast you can pay it off.  If you are looking at more than a few months (6 tops) to pay off the purchase in full, you should reassess.  Realize that the interest you are paying is increasing the cost of the furniture and act accordingly.  As mentioned, you can often get 0% financing for a limited period.  Understand that if you don't pay off the entire balance in that period, you will normally be retroactively charged interest on the entire starting amount and that interest rate will likely be quite high. The problem with credit is when you start using it and continually growing the balance.  It's easy to keep saying that you will start paying it off later and the next thing you know you are buried.  It's not a big one-time purchase (by itself) that normally gets people into trouble, it's continual spending beyond their means month after month.