When the Times Square shooter was caught boarding a plane in the Middle East, the first thing the newspapers wanted to know was whether he paid for his ticket with cash. Who the hell would want to pay cash, the papers wanted to know, and be left with less buyer protection and no way to claim a refund at the office? Apparently, if you don’t use a credit card for something, you’re as good as a terrorist. Financial institutions across the country also seem to be on board with this, and the US Treasury is responding by issuing fewer new dollar bills each year. But there are some good reasons you can think of to change the trend towards plastic. While canceling credit cards may seem like an odd lifestyle choice, completely out of step with the way of life being promoted everywhere today, it can make a lot of personal financial sense.

You’re probably wondering why canceling credit cards would be a good idea; you don’t get those card bonuses and rewards, you can’t take advantage of cheap prices from internet retailers, etc. In reality, these arguments do not make much sense. Let’s take a look why.

Let’s go first with that of Internet purchases. Just because you’re not willing to do anything but cash doesn’t mean you can’t shop online. You can go and get a prepaid card, no credit. You have to pay cash to buy the card; Plus, it’s not tied to your bank account like a debit card is. You don’t have a large sum of money waiting for you to use it. You get what you put on your prepaid card to start with, and that’s it. You can still take advantage of those online shopping deals and have something to keep you covered when you travel.

There are also many advantages to canceling credit cards. For starters, remember how you keep hearing about identity theft these days? Huge corporations, from American Express to Sony PlayStation, continue to ruthlessly hack their servers and release their content to the four winds. If you don’t have credit cards, you never have to worry about them being stolen.

But there may be many more tangible benefits that you can also enjoy every month. For example, overspending doesn’t seem so impossible to stop when you don’t have credit cards. There are no impulse purchases to make when you don’t have money ready. When there are few impulse purchases that get in the way of your monthly budget, budgeting each month becomes much easier and more doable. A study by MIT found that America’s shopaholic character only really emerged in the 1950s, when the first credit cards took off. People actually spend less when they don’t have plastic on them.

And if you’re worried about missing out on those rewards and card bonuses, you shouldn’t. For starters, those airline frequent flyer programs are really more trouble than they’re worth. Airlines are making it harder than ever to use them in a way that’s convenient for you; and anyway, they are cutting them all the time. If you didn’t have credit cards and didn’t have to deal with all the excess expenses that come with it, you could afford to buy your own plane tickets anywhere.