Do you find most of your friends end up their college with huge credit card debts to repay? What ails them? In this article we take a look at the 3 worst mistakes students make with their student credit cards, and pay for it heavily later on in their life.
1. Sign up the first offer you receive
A student is offered a number of credit card when he or she enters the college. A good thing would be to contact the financial aid office to get help on which card is better. Ask your friends, get their opinion, see how well they are faring with their student credit cards, compare various offers that you get on a credit card comparison website online. This will ensure that you have made an informed decision. Else, you could land in trouble.
2. Max out the credit limit
Credit card companies are quite generous in giving huge credit limits by student’s standards. Student’s should not take this as easy money and max out the credit card. A good thing is to keep the credit card balances to below 30% of the maximum credit limit. This will keep them in the good books of credit card company and won’t invite huge penalties and high APR’s.
3. Don’t repay on time
Taking a loan (yes every expenditure on credit card is a loan and has to be repaid with interest) and defaulting on repayments, doesn’t go well with credit card agencies. When they find that a default on repayment has taken place, they increase the APR’s, take back all rewards and slap late payment fees. This also doesn’t goes well with the credit rating agencies.
Credit card is there to help you in times of difficulties and it has to be used wisely to build the credit. If the credit card companies find that your credit card use is judicious, they will increase your credit limits, lower interest rates, throw in few more rewards etc. This will seriously help in building a good credit history.
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