It's fall again, which means it's time to pack up junior's things and send them off to college. You remember when you also had to pack your bags and go to college. We all know that the older you get, the more you wish you could go back in time and change things. These are just a few things that many people would love to go back and change. They range from saving money to fixing mistakes that cost them in relationships.
Believe it or not, a lot of people who were already working wanted to go back to college and change the way they used their credit cards. Credit card companies have booths all over campuses and try to get kids who don't have jobs or who don't know much about money. In the long run, the companies hope that the child won't read the terms or services and will run up a big bill that they will have to pay off for the rest of their lives.
A credit card is only a risk if your child doesn't know what to do with it. You need to tell your child how important it is to pay off their student credit card, just like you would with drugs and alcohol. If they don't know about it, they could end up with more debt than you could have ever imagined. So, it's important that you let them know.
Before your child goes to college, you should make sure they know how important the APR rate is, what bankruptcy can lead to, and how important their credit score is. If you tell your child about these three important things, he or she may know more than half of the people at the college he or she is going to.
Most college students make the biggest mistake of thinking they can get a credit card and spend, spend, spend without having to worry about paying off the bill for a while. They think that they can pay it off little by little until they get a well-paying job that will pay it off in full. They don't realise that the interest rates on their credit cards add up very quickly. Every dollar that isn't paid off in full will have the interest rate added to it. So, if you have a balance of $5,000 that you haven't paid off, your interest rate of about 20% will be added to this amount.
The interest rate on most student credit cards will be a little higher than on most other credit cards. This is because it is a child's first credit card, and he or she has to show that he or she is an adult who can handle money. If they don't take care of their money, they will soon find that they can't pay their bills.
In the long run, a parent should tell their student that having a credit card isn't always dangerous, but that it's important to pay it off. They need to make sure that people don't spend more than they can afford and treat the card like cash. If these steps are taken, both the parent and the child can get a good night's sleep.
