Several years ago(think late 90s), I was caught up in the stock market mania and did what I consider is bizarre now...borrowed money from my credit cards(at a very low rate) and invested in the stock market in a margin brokerage account.
My thinking was - I borrow money at low rate(< 5%) and invest in stocks(that may go up as high as 50-100%) in relatively short period of time and then pay off the credit cards with the profits and re-invest the profits back into stock market and never go back to credit cards to borrow another dime...ever... BUT as karma had other things planned for me, the Dot Com bubble brought the stock market down and I was hit with margin recalls and in a panic, I borrowed more and more and finally took a big loss..
It took me about 5 years to totally pay off my credit cards and now am credit card debt free and whatever purchases are made is paid off at the end of the month...
Lessons #1: Never borrow from your credit cards to invest in the stock market....
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