Credit Cards, financial things, etc.

[Opaque]

One kid I work with has a perfect credit score and he just turned 18. Basically his parents got credit cards with him as a co-signer and during the course of his childhood used them for every purchase and payed off the balance in full every month. When he turned 18 he was approved for an AMEX Platinum card and got a brand new car with a 0% interest loan all under his own name; which makes sense since he has 18 fucking years of amazing credit history.

I'd love for someone to tell him that credit cards are evil.

[Brand X]

If the initial amount of debt is significant

I gotcha. I also think we were thinking of debts on completely different scales, where I was thinking of someone who had just got a credit card while you were thinking of someone with a much much more significant debt.

[Dyne]

No it's not. A good credit rating lowers your interest rate. Even if you can afford to pay cash for a car or an education, it's unlikely you'll be able to pay cash for a house, so interest rates will matter.

exactly. when i went to get my first car i had some forclosed (or whatever they call credit cards that are just ignored) cards in my, and my mothers name. she put me on them in high school because she thought it would build credit for me. well she let them go and i forgot about them. the credit union didn't even want to give me a loan because my credit score was so low. i got them removed and once they saw my credit score was above 750 they started asking how much i wanted and i had a 3% interest rate. if i was lower than 725 i would have had a higher rate and so on.

[Nomi]

Okay, so pay off in full, gotcha. I've been doing fine then. I haven't yet made any impulse purchases beyond a $6 meal. As I mentioned before I am outright terrified of debt and cannot stand even having $50 unpaid on my card at a time without thinking about paying it off constantly. My parents destroyed their lives with debt and I am going through a lot of hoops to avoid that. My entire college experience so far has cost me under $2k, and this is for a state university with dorms and all. Best Buy doesn't ever tempt me to whip out the credit card, so I think I'll be okay.

Thanks for the advice. I think by the time I'm out of here in 2 years my credit will be pretty solid. I've put a few thousand on my card and paid it all off almost instantaneously (I tend to charge $500 for books, then pay it off the next morning in full) and if I keep that up, it's at least something to go off of for whenever I'll need a good credit history.

I think I'll start using it a bit more. Generally I'll put my grocery purchases and lunch on debit since I've always been more comfortable spending 'real' money, but since I've been using my credit card as a debit card for about 2 years, I may as well do that. I won't risk overdrafting and it'll add to building up my credit, so I may as well. I'm not going to financially destroy myself over a $6 sandwich that I'd pay off the next day anyway.

[Yoshi]

One kid I work with has a perfect credit score and he just turned 18. Basically his parents got credit cards with him as a co-signer and during the course of his childhood used them for every purchase and payed off the balance in full every month. When he turned 18 he was approved for an AMEX Platinum card and got a brand new car with a 0% interest loan all under his own name; which makes sense since he has 18 fucking years of amazing credit history.

I'd love for someone to tell him that credit cards are evil.

Mrs. Yoshi and I have already talked about doing this for Baby Yoshi.

[kingoffighters]

One kid I work with has a perfect credit score and he just turned 18. Basically his parents got credit cards with him as a co-signer and during the course of his childhood used them for every purchase and payed off the balance in full every month. When he turned 18 he was approved for an AMEX Platinum card and got a brand new car with a 0% interest loan all under his own name; which makes sense since he has 18 fucking years of amazing credit history.

I'd love for someone to tell him that credit cards are evil.

That's not a bad idea.... hmmmmmm.

[Opaque]

You should.

This kids life is going to be so much easier for such a simple thing being done. The really important things is that his parents actually taught him what his credit score means, why he has it and how to properly use it.

He will never be fucked over by the credit given to him, unlike icarusfall's friends; who were probably fucking morons.

[burgundy]

I gotcha. I also think we were thinking of debts on completely different scales, where I was thinking of someone who had just got a credit card while you were thinking of someone with a much much more significant debt.

sure, i suppose you can come up with some scenarios where a bank can profit off of a shitty cardholder, but overall this stuff is drops in the bucket for them in terms of income. they are much more concerned with the risk of cardholders defaulting on debt. i have good credit and thus ridiculous credit limits. my gf has bad (but recovering) credit and cards with $300 and $500 limits. if they really want her to run up a ton of debt and not pay it, why not give her a $50K limit and tell her to go nuts? because that would be bad business.

[Rich]

Thanks for the advice. I think by the time I'm out of here in 2 years my credit will be pretty solid. I've put a few thousand on my card and paid it all off almost instantaneously (I tend to charge $500 for books, then pay it off the next morning in full) and if I keep that up, it's at least something to go off of for whenever I'll need a good credit history.

Wait until about a week before your payment is due to pay off the entire previous month's debt imo. You get 3 weeks of free accrued interest on the money in the account it was sitting in before payment, asusming it's in an interest bearing account.

[Rich]

Mrs. Yoshi and I have already talked about doing this for Baby Yoshi.

I got a free credit report a few months ago and saw some accounts on there from the 80s.

I got very excited about the fact that I have over 15 years of good credit building up thanks to my father. I also started building up credit on my own when I turned 18 and have had a few credit cards and accounts that have never been used irresponsibly.