My advice to you would be to be VERY careful. They want credit to be tempting so they can make a fortune off of you. However, the reality is if you are only paying the minimum balance on a moderate to high interest rate card it will take you YEARS to pay off as little as $1000. And you will end up paying them WAY MORE than $1000.
Credit cards are marketed to young people/college students in the hope that you will mess up your credit early and then be subjected to outlandishly high interest rates for years to come. Negative marks stay on your credit for 7 years. So the mistakes you make with credit at 20 stick with you until 27 and can affect what interest you get on a car and if you will be able to qualify to buy a house.
The best bet is to not do it to yourself. You should always treat your credit cards like cash- if you couldn't buy it with out credit you should not buy it with credit. If you need to make a large purchase, make absolutely sure you have created a payment plan that will get the bill paid off right quick and in a hurry and stick to it. You have to pay more than the minimum payment or you will be saddled with that bill for a good long time. And no matter what, protect your credit by always making payments on time.
This is my advice that I had to learn the hard way. I am still trying to recover from the credit hole I dug myself while I was in college and I hate to see anyone repeat that same mistake to the companies advantage- particularly my young sistahs out here trying to make their own way. I am thrilled to say I just cut up all my credit cards and traded in the debt fromt he high interest cards to a low interest loan that will save me money and set me free of them for good. (PS- this is an unsecured loans- for my homeowners out there, be wary of taking out home equity loans to pay off credit cards. Most people end up using the cards again before the loan is paid off, increasing instread of decreasing their debt AND they have traded unsecured debt for secured debt- never a good idea)
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Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.
Baltimore Metropolitan Alumnae Chapter
#3 of ER 30
Spring 1999
"No finer girls will you ever see, and I'm so glad I pledged- for what?
For DST!"
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