There are reasons not to use a credit card but they’re bad reasons if you’re educated about credit and can exercise self control.

Credit cards can come with high interest and high fees, but not if you pay off your full bill monthly (and you should only take cards with high annual fees when you’re clearly getting significantly more value than the fees). And it’s important not to spend more money than you otherwise would by virtue of having a credit card.

And applying for cards can temporarily depress your credit score. Spending a lot on your cards relative to your available credit card lower your score. When you go for a mortgage having a score of 760 or higher matters. On the other hand having more available credit that you use responsibly can improve your score, and having accounts for long periods of time can too. So contra the advice of Dave Ramsey wannabes credit cards aren’t inherently ‘bad for your score’.

In Europe credit card use skews older, a concern for card issuers (and companies that partner providing loyalty points to card issuers). In the U.S. a recent survey suggests that nearly half of millennial women feel anxous about using credit cards.

However with debit cards fraudulent activity takes money out of your bank account and you don’t have the same legal protections as with a credit card. Most major banks are pretty good here, but you are somewhat at their mercy.

Not to mention the other protections bundled with many credit cards like extended warranty coverage, protection for loss or damage to an item usually within 60 or 90 days, and travel coverage like lost and delayed baggage and payments in the event of cancelled or delayed trips.

It’s actually very simple. If you don’t spend more than you otherwise would and pay off your bill in full on time each month credit cards are better than debit cards, cash and other methods of payment. If you don’t meet either of those conditions then tools that free you wind up used irresponsibly so for many it’s wise to adopt forms of payment which are binding constraints on the ability to get into financial trouble.

There’s no question that you shouldn’t be focusing on miles, points and rewards if you don’t pay off your cards in full each month. You want to pay attention to interest rates. There are 0% balance transfer cards that can help keep costs down but it’s important to pay attention to their terms (how to keep the low rate, and for how long) and to compare balance transfer fee costs across cards as well.

Surprisingly I do think there are some people some times who should revolve credit on a card, but it’s important to do so at the lowest possible cost. Credit cards are a better borrowing tool than payday loans, for instance. And for people with immediate medical bills or car repair bills to get to work they can make sense as the least bad of bad options.

The way to think of this is to consider this classic piece from The Onion where ‘mom and pop loan sharks’ are being driven out of business by credit card companies.

The need for consumers to borrow is always there, so it’s a matter of finding the lowest cost (which for people who do use payday loan stores, as undesirable as that option may seem, choose it because it’s less bad than alternatives).