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The choice may not be yours in the future.  For that reason, we encourage everyone to begin taking the nips and tucks in your credit card spending habits now.

According to a recent article in the NYT

After years of flooding Americans with credit card offers and sky-high credit lines, lenders are sharply curtailing both, just as an eroding economy squeezes consumers.

The pullback is affecting even creditworthy consumers and threatens an already beleaguered banking industry with another wave of heavy losses after an era in which it reaped near record gains from the business of easy credit that it helped create.

The credit card cutback is affecting everyone!  Even if you have a good credit score and have always paid on time, the banks are cutting back on credit limits and increasing interest rates.

Faced with sobering conditions, companies that issue MasterCard, Visa and other cards are rushing to stanch the bleeding, even as options once easily tapped by borrowers to pay off credit card obligations, like home equity lines or the ability to transfer balances to a new card, dry up.

Big lenders — like American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup and even the retailer Target — have begun tightening standards for applicants and are culling their portfolios of the riskiest customers. Capital One, another big issuer, for example, has aggressively shut down inactive accounts and reduced customer credit lines by 4.5 percent in the second quarter from the previous period, according to regulatory filings.

With the tightening of standards, if you are among those who may have missed a payment, paid past the due date, and only made payments equal to the minimum payment due, it is definitely time to start getting your house in order.  Do not dare think that this tightening of consumer credit is a whim and will pass in a few months.  There is a new credit world out there.  Expect to pay more for your credit and get less.

Lenders are shunning consumers already in debt and cutting credit limits for existing cardholders, especially those who live in areas ravaged by the housing crisis or who work in troubled industries. In some cases, lenders are even reining in credit lines after monitoring cardholders who shop at the same stores as other risky borrowers or who have mortgages from certain companies.

While such changes protect lenders, some can come back to haunt consumers. The result can be a lower credit score, which forces a borrower to pay higher interest rates and makes it harder to obtain loans. A reduced line of credit can also make it harder for consumers to manage their budgets, because lenders have 30 days to notify their customers, and they often wait to do so after taking action.

The reality of the situation is that the banks are not necessarily giving its credit card customers a head’s up.  They are taking action, then notifying you.  And, don’t think just because you have an American Express Card or one of those “platinum/titanium pay you to use it” cards that you won’t be affected.

Even those with good credit ratings are not excepted. American Express, which traditionally catered to more upscale cardholders, said it would be increasing effective interest rates by 2 or 3 percentage points for some of its credit card holders — a move that could, for example, push a 15 percent rate up to 18 percent.

Are you getting the idea?  It no longer makes a lot of difference if you have good credit or not so good.  The rates are going up and the limits are coming down.  If you are still relying on your credit card to get you through the month, it is time to sit down by yourself or with your family and do a family budget.  Then set some goals… lay out your plan to live credit card debt free.