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Credit Card Confusion - Where Do I Begin?!?

I recently graduated college and unfortunately I don't know much about credit cards. I know they seem to cause trouble with a lot of people. Some of these questions may seem kind of general knowledge, but I really need some answers.

1. Why do people need credit cards?
I've never understood the idea of spending money you don't have. Can't people build credit in other ways? What happens if I don't use it?

2. Getting a credit card?
I always get approached for credit cards at the mall or other stores. I also fill out fake applications at school football game sto get free t-shirts. I don't know where I can go to get a credit card. I don't want to just roll to the bank, I want to take some time without feeling pressured by a bank teller. Is there a bank or company that offers different cards?

3. What to look for?

I don't have too much expendable income. What kind of card is going to help me, not handicap me.

Thanks a lot.

freshwes@gmail.com

I’m no expert, but I’ve made enough mistakes to have a basic idea of how to answer your questions. The best thing you could do right now is to get one or two credit cards and begin building your credit rating so that when you’re in your 30’s you’ll be able to buy a house with a decent interest rate. You want to use your credit cards and pay them off at the end of the month each month, if at all possible, and not do stupid things like use them to pay for you to spend a month in France. (Yes, I did do that, and yes, it was fun but no it wasn’t fun when I got home and had to figure out how to pay it back on my production assistant’s measly salary.)

Credit cards are not supposed to be used as emergency funds, but you never know when you might need it and in a pinch it’s good to have them. For one thing, you can’t rent a car without a credit card.

There’s lots of resources online to get a credit card, one I’ve used myself to get one is http://www.creditcardassist.com – I shopped here and compared cards for bad credit, as that’s my current situation. You can avoid that by following my advice and not my example  There’s all kinds of cards with all kinds of offers, you want one with as low of an interest rate as possible so that if you do, by chance, not pay it off every month, you’re not getting screwed by the credit card companies for another 20% of whatever you originally spent.

I’d say, get one Visa and one Mastercard, and use them a little bit and pay them off on time and regularly. The more you do this, the more they’ll see you as a responsible person when, later on down the line, you’re looking to buy a house. (Not in this market of course – LOL!)

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