1st timer...? I have never owned a credit card but am thinking of getting

I have never owned a credit card but am thinking of getting one. Can someone summarize the whole dealo of a credit card and what I should know roughly them?

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Answers: I am master at credit card usage...lol. I also got my first card in college. I knowledgeable the hard way it is not simply a piece of plastic, and you REALLY need to pay stale the balance every month in instruct for it to work for you. Credit card companies LOVE students. They have little money, much need for money, and little course to pay it back. BUT, in a minute is the best time to start establishing credit IF you can use it responsibly. Do not rack up more debt than you can pay back every cycle. That is rule number one. Get the card beside the lowest interest rate (just in case a month slides by and you can't settle the entire amount...but you should always pay as much as you can...never newly the minimal amount), get one with no annual payment, and if possible (I'm not sure if they are available for students), get one that offer rewards (such as a reward point for every dollar spent that can be used to purchase stuff). If you get a card now, and use it responsibly, you can enjoy awesome credit by the time you graduate college...and a good credit report goes for more next just getting a loan for a house or a car. It help you get a good profession, and lower insurance rates. If you wait too long to try to establish good credit, it get tougher to get someone to take a destiny on you. They wonder why you have never been contained by the system, and consider you a high risk. At no other time in your time will creditors be lining up to give you credit.strike presently while the iron is hot, but just be careful!!

The surely most important thing something like credit cards is to pay them IN FULL every month. Every prime and nearly every sub-prime bank provides a grace spell for repayment, which is the length of time before you are are charged interest. Most are 20-30 days. If you time it right, you can use someone else's money for 30 days or more and never rate interest.

The other thing about paying within full is that you want to time your payment so that you have a $0 harmonize when the bank reports your account to the credit bureaus. If you rate on the 15th and then charge up 50% of your limit when the ridge reports on the 30th (for example), your credit history will show that you constantly carry a 50% balance on your card. Get surrounded by the habit of paying a couple of days before the reporting cycle. You might be capable of get the reporting cycle info from your bank, but but for, you can use one of the credit monitoring services to see when they report.

Also, check into cards that have rewards programs. For example, if you plan to travel a lot, take a card that gives you frequent flier miles. If you eat out recurrently, find one that gives discounts to favorite restaurants and so on. Most prime banks own 4-6 different types of rewards cards.

Never use your card for cash advances. You wages a much higher interest rate than for purchases and don't get the repayment grace term so you pay the much higher interest starting the time you get the advance.

Being that this is your first credit card, you're eventually going to want a strong credit profile. FICO score look at the different types of credit you have and the more different accounts you have, the complex your FICO potential. I always recommend to someone starting out to open one unsullied credit card account every 6 months for the first year. Then wait a year (if you can) and capture an auto loan. You'll have 2 solid years of credit history and will be able to qualify for an excellent interest rate. Pay everything in good time for another two years and your FICO scores will be 750+. DTI (debt to income) ratio permitting, you'll be capable of qualify for anything you apply for, including a house.

Oh yeah.don't forget to request credit limit increases on all of your cards every 6 months. Most bank offer increases automatically, but it never hurts to ask even if they do it automatically. This helps hold on to your utilization ratio low and your FICOs high.
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