Pay With Your Cell Phone at Retail Stores?

I recently read a couple of articles about how cell phones may soon be another option to pay for items you buy.  While this can certainly mean less time in the checkout line, this also poses some danger, especially for people who already overspend.

The concept involves having either radio-frequency identification (RFID) stickers or near-field communications (NFC) chips attached to your cell phone.  The second of these allows you to simply tap your phone against a terminal.  Both of them allow you to spend money without even carrying a wallet.

That’s where the danger comes in.  Chances are, you might not think about spending as much as you would if you actually had to pull out your wallet and hand over cash or a credit card.  This can easily lead you to spend more money and get yourself into more debt than you had planned.

Therefore, if you’re going to use your cell phone to spend money, you need to be very disciplined about tracking your expenses.  The good news is that smart phones have numerous applications to help you do just that.  Many of them are free.  I highly recommend using one of these apps since they can help cancel out the disconnect of spending money with your phone.