Don’t Miss Thrifty Mamas’ Credit Awareness Series
January 16, 2008 by Deborah Ng
Filed under General, finances
Thrifty Mamas’ Credit Awareness series isn’t to be missed, especially if you’re serious about saving money. Part 1 focuses on asking your credit card company to remove your fees. This may seem like an impossibility, but most credit card companies are more accommodating than we think. The author worked in collections and appears to be very knowledgeable about her topic. Among her tips:
- Persistence pays off.
- Credit card companies remove late fees with the asking.
- Shop around for the lowest interest rates, then inform your credit card company you want those same rates or you’re leaving. This worked for me several years ago.
Thirfty Mamas’ Part 2 in the series is one I’m not sure I agree with, taking out a credit card for your toddler. Mmm hmm. I know. But then I’d trust a credit card to a three year old before I’d trust it to a 15 year old. There’s some logic there though:
- By opening an account now and following the steps detailed in the article, your child will have a high credit score by the time he’s ready to leave home.
- It teaches responsibility and money handling.
While the Thrifty Mamas offer good advice, I’m not endorsing part 2. Though I agree that it’s up to me to teach my child about good credit and handling money and credit cards wisely, it’s not up to me to provide my child with a high credit score. He has to learn how to do that all on his own, by trial and error. Now I don’t want to wish poor credit on my child, but I’m not about to present him with a shiny credit card and 750 credit points on his 18th birthday either.
I’d like to thank Thrifty Mamas for their Credit Awareness series. Credit cards are a serious responsibility and education is a never a bad thing. I’d also like to thank them for giving me something to think about. No, I’m not taking out a credit card for my toddler, but at least now I can understand why someone would.
Deb,
Thank you so much for highlighting my credit awareness series, it really means a lot to me.
I guess investing in your child’s credit score is an investment like any other – it involves risk.
In the case the risk is that the child will take that shiny credit score, and their newfound independence, and run right out and finance a lot of things that they can not afford to make the payments on.
As parents, we always want our children to do better, and be smarter, than we were. This is a good example of that. No matter how many hours I spend teaching my daughter how to handle credit, in the end the decision will be hers.
Food for thought for me too – thanks!
~Connie