Imagine you’re on line in a supermarket, loading bottles of soda and bags of chips onto the conveyor belt. You’re about to purchase these goodies for a party, so you pull out your old, raggedy wallet. As you open it, you hear the sound of the leather squeaking, and see the cash is missing. Gone forever. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

What if you had a credit card? A conveniently portable and tremendously helpful credit card. With all the upsides of a simple plastic card, there’s no doubt it’s the right choice for (almost) everybody. The remarkably beneficial credit card can easily replace the detrimental dollar.

Firstly, they’re extremely convenient. Carrying around large wads of cash is unnecessary if users have a single, small card. A visible bundle of cash is also vulnerable to robbery. Credit cards give their owners peace of mind. If your cash is lost or stolen (because of how pleasing it is to the eye), it is gone forever. If you lose a credit card, you can just cancel it so no one makes extravagant purchases with your money. One simple phone call saves you from any potential harm.

Credit card companies also provide insurance benefits. American Express, for example, offers a perk called “purchase protection.” According to Jennifer Waters, a writer for “Market Watch” of The Wall Street Journal, “American Express’ protection plan generally … covers loss or accidental damage, including vandalism, within the first 90 days of purchase.” They offer up to $50,000 a year – a very large annual threshold. Furthermore, certain credit cards, such as the Visa Platinum card, offer free rental car collision insurance, and reimburse consumers in full for dents and accidents. On certain products, credit card companies also offer extended warranties, giving owners a sense of security just by paying with a credit card. All four major credit card companies in the US – Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express – offer up to a year of supplementary coverage by using their cards to make the purchase, saving users money if the product is to break or malfunction after the limited “cash” warranty expires.

Additionally, credit card companies can help establish credit history. Credit history is the record of one’s tendency to make payments or pay back loans on time. By doing so, your credit history gets better and your FICO score (the most common form of credit score) increases. A high credit score can result in the ability to receive large loans, and exceptional interest rates, as well as to lease a car with a competitive rate. These powerful cards even offer rewards in the form of cash (which can be credited to your account), or points. Points are awarded every time you use a credit card to make a purchase, and can be redeemed for gift cards, merchandise, and/or miles. Miles are sometimes directly given, and are able to be redeemed for airline tickets, or credit tickets. Rewards can even lower your credit card balance.

Aside from the clear assets of the credit card, there are some drawbacks to the dollar. The amount of money printed keeps increasing. As stated by finance expert Jim Rogers, “For the first time in recorded history, we have all major banks and central governments around the world printing huge amounts of money.” This is directly affecting the increasing debt as well. The central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve, keeps printing money and taking on huge amounts of debt, according to Rogers. He believes the Federal Reserve will follow the same fate as the first two central banks in American history. “This one’s going to disappear too… We’d be better off with no central bank than this central bank.” This is all a chain reaction from excessive printing of the US dollar, which finds its value decreasing over time. As of April 2014, it is at its lowest level since November 2011. Since 2002, the US dollar has lost 38.5% of its value. If cash is abandoned, and we adopt the credit card as a currency, this can be stopped.

On the other hand, those who are personally irresponsible and financially undisciplined are against credit cards. They claim that with a credit card, you can spend an essentially limitless amount of money. However, if you tend to spend uncontrollably, you need to be more responsible. If you overspend, and, for some reason, are unable to pay off your balance, resulting in a decrease in your credit score, it’s your fault. Credit card companies actually try to help consumers with this. They allow users to set up automatic payments so they always pay their balance on time, and limits so you can’t spend more than a certain amount of money per month. Also, they send monthly statements of all of your purchases, allowing easy expense tracking. This just further proves the convenience of a credit card.

What can you do to help this cause? Well, for your own benefit, use credit cards! Don’t use cash! You can tell the government to stop printing cash, but frankly, they’re not going to listen. However, there are some stores and restaurants that (for some reason) still only accept cash, so you can write a letter to them explaining the upsides of credit cards and downsides of dollars. Also, you should educate others, especially young people, about credit cards, so they don’t automatically resort to cash when they grow older.

Credit cards are sweeping the nation with their extraordinary benefits and simple convenience. By using one, you’re saving money, and possibly even making money. And without cash, the US government will be in a much better financial state. Unlike the Federal Reserve, falling into deeper debt on a regular basis, credit card companies aid the country, and consumers. There’s no wonder economic experts think the dollar will be inevitably abolished and replaced by credit cards.