The colon is probably more useful to you in writing ... I am able to survive financially only by doing the following: - not having more than three credit cards in operation at any one time ...
Introduce lists, text or tabular material—Capitalize the first word after the colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. (Our future is dependent on three things: ...
Three dots in a row are called ellipsis and can be used to signify that something is missing. It is mainly useful in dialogue. For example: "I wonder…" said Harry. The ellipsis suggests that ...